Bears merging House and Senate bills for a stadium deal in Illinois, Pritzker says

The Bears are looking to put together parts of separate bills that passed the House and Senate in Springfield this spring, in hopes of arriving at common legislation for a new stadium in Illinois that could pass both chambers, Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday.

Pritzker said Bears brass have asked his office and legislators for advice about the drafting process, and “we’ve been advising and trying to help out wherever we could.”

“It takes a bill. And that’s really what we need them to put together are the provisions of a bill,” Pritzker told reporters at an unrelated event in downtown Chicago. “It’s one thing to articulate generally what you want. It’s another thing to actually say we’d like a provision like this, a provision like that. And those are, many of them anyway, already written.

“They have lobbyists who can help them write those provisions,” Pritzker added. “There are legislators who would help them write the bill. And again, then they need to go and talk to people about the various provisions to get support for it.”

Amid the NFL franchise’s latest declared intention to build a stadium in Northwest Indiana, Pritzker a week ago put the ball back in the Bears’ court about a potential stadium deal to stay in Illinois. He called on the team to express its preferences about the competing bills that passed the General Assembly before the spring session adjourned June 1.

The House bill that advanced April 22 would clear the way to the long-term property tax break the Bears have long-sought for their 326-acre property in Arlington Heights. But the final bill was much larger than its original version, and the team indicated changes were needed to make redevelopment of the shuttered Arlington Park racetrack site “feasible.”

The Senate bill that passed in the wee hours of June 1 would enable Cook County municipalities with populations above 70,000 — Arlington Heights and Chicago among them — to set up public municipal stadium authorities.

If there is an agreement for legislators to consider, Pritzker reiterated Tuesday, he is willing to call a special session. They’re otherwise not due to return until Nov. 17 for the fall veto session.

Pritzker was asked if there is a sense of urgency. “Of course, of course, are you kidding? We want to get it done as soon as possible,” he replied.

But he continued to poke holes in competing legislation that passed Indiana’s legislature in February, and doesn’t believe the Hoosier state has a leg up in the interstate stadium saga.

Republican Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston penned an Op-Ed in Tuesday’s Chicago Tribune that attributed the Bears’ interest in moving across state lines to the Hoosier state’s business climate. But some officials in Northwest Indiana in recent days have expressed opposition to increased local taxes intended to help pay the bonds on a new public stadium.

“What the Indiana legislature chose to do is to foist it all off on the counties and the cities around (the potential) stadium,” Illinois’ Democratic governor said Tuesday. “And so, guess what? They don’t have a tax that’s passed to help pay for it there. They don’t yet have the tolls that would be required to pay for it there. We don’t want to raise taxes on the people of Illinois.

“ … And so we think we’re actually as close as anybody to getting a stadium done here,” he declared. “I don’t think Indiana is a whole heck of a lot closer than we are.”