Each day, hundreds of legislators, staff and visitors pass through the Illinois State Capitol building at 2nd and Monroe in Springfield. As they admire the architectural style and the rich history on display, they might want to take a moment to thank State Representative Shelby Moore Cullom (R-Springfield).

A newly-retired Congressman, Cullom came home to Springfield in 1871 amidst raging debate over the location of the “new” Capitol. The state had outgrown the building at 6th and Adams in Springfield and had begun preliminary work on a new building at 2nd and Monroe. But by 1871, a committee from Peoria had made such a strident case for moving the capitol to that city that work had stopped on the new statehouse. Concerned by the thought of losing the seat of state government, as Vandalia had a generation earlier, Springfield city leaders pleaded with Cullom to re-enter the world of politics and stand as a Republican candidate for the state House.

Today is the last day of Regular Session. If the budget and Budget Implementation Bills (BIMP) are not passed by both chambers by midnight tonight, the General Assembly will go into an Overtime Session.

If there were a balance of political parties in the legislature, overtime would have greater ramifications because a "super majority" would be needed to pass legislation. With Democrat super majority control of both chambers that provision has little impact with the exception that legislators will not receive their per diems.

Stay tuned in here today for all the highlights from session as we cover it live. Session is scheduled to convene at 9:30 a.m.

With two days left until the end of session we're changing things up a bit on the blog. Several members will be adding their voice to our live blog coverage, specifically on budget bills. Reps. Tim Schmitz, Darlene Senger & Norine Hammond will provide their insight and knowledge to staff's reporting.

Session starts today at 11 a.m. and we'll be providing the highlights, here.

Rep. Jil Tracy

Session begins at 1 p.m. today. We'll have live highlights throughout the day.

Rep. Raymond Poe

Budget bills are in committee this morning expect to see them on the House floor soon. Session today begins at noon, follow it live here.

Rep. Dennis Reboletti

 Follow live blog coverage of the Illinois General Assembly as they head into the last week of session. The budget and pensions plus a calendar full of bills remain to be considered follow the highlights here as it happens.

Today's session begins at noon.

Session starts at 9:30 am today -- follow the highlights here.

Bills that may be considered today:
SB2193 - Concealed Carry
SB26 - Medicaid Expansion
SB2266 -  Natural Gas Consumer, Safety, and Reliability Act

Follow live blog coverage of the Illinois House of Representatives here at noon.

Rep. JoAnn Osmond

House session is scheduled to begin at 11:30 AM today. Check back here for live coverage and refer to House Calendar for bills that may be considered.

Rep. Barb Wheeler

Live highlights of today's session of the Illinois House of Representatives starting at 1 p.m.

Rep. John Cavaletto

Follow live coverage of the today's session of the Illinois House of Representatives at 2:00 PM.

May 24 is the House deadline to pass senate bills.
House Calendar for today.
House hearings scheduled today in committees

Rep. Dan Brady

Today is the last day of session for the week. Session is schedule to begin at 9:30 a.m. Check back here for live coverage.

Rep. Mike Bost

Check back here at 2 p.m. for live blog highlights of today's session.

Rep. Mike Tryon

Session is at noon today, follow it live here.

Bills that may be called on the House Floor today are listed in the House Calendar, those that may be heard in today's committees can be found here.

Rep. Norine Hammond

Follow live coverage of the Illinois House of Representatives here starting at noon.

Rep. Mike Unes

Check back here at 3 PM for live blog coverage of today's session.

Today's Session Calendar
House Bulletin
House Committees

Rep. Darlene Senger

Follow highlights of today's session of the Illinois House of Representatives, rich here - live at noon.

Session is at 10 a.m. today. Check back here for live blog coverage.

Rep. Kay Hatcher

The House will begin hearing Senate bills this week. Follow all the floor action right here today starting at noon. And, throughout the week.

Reboot Illinois is conducting a series of conversations with Illinois freshman lawmakers. Here is an excerpt from their interview with Rep. David McSweeney earlier this month:

If you were to pass one bill, no politics involved, what would it be?
It would have to be pensions....We made some good progress in the House with the three measures that we passed. Limiting the cost of living adjustments, raising the retirement age and putting in place a salary cap for pensions. There’s nowhere to start unless we do pension reform because that obviously has a big effect on the budget. I certainly do not want to extend -- in fact I want to repeal -- the tax increase that I think has been a disaster in this state but ... Illinois has been insolvent since 2008 with $9 billion of unpaid bills with the type of pension liabilities we’re facing. So if I could pass one bill it would be pension reform.

Like you said, they’ve already passed three measures and more are being worked on. What are some of the things you’d like to see moving forward as part of the pension reform?
I think the central component is that we address the cost of living adjustments. So I support the measure, in fact I wrote about in a piece with Reboot, as you know, a couple weeks ago, I support limiting cost of living adjustments in the future. Specifically that  they apply to only the first $25,000 of income. So I’m very supportive of that measure. I’m supportive of raising the retirement age of the people that have worked and also putting in place a pensionable salary cap. Those are three good places to start. I think one thing that we have not done yet that we need to do is increase the employee contributions by two percentage points. I just think that will be part of a better overall program. Read more of Reboot's interview with Rep. David McSweeney.

Other links to Rep. David McSweeney's legislative initiatives: 
Eliminating position of Lt. Governor
Opposing graduated income tax