* The House has just voted to approve an omnibus appropriations amendment 90-25.

Speaker Madigan rose after the vote to thank Leader Durkin and the Republicans who voted for the amendment.

I think it’s a good step forward. A step that we can build upon. There’s much work yet to be done. Therefore the House will be in session tomorrow. Momentarily I will send a message to the bond rating agencies asking them to defer credit ratings on the state of Illinois until we have sufficient time (to work things out) Next I will be convening a meeting of the leaders today (to talk about budget and non-budget issues)… and I will convene a meeting of interested parties on the revenue bill… Let’s keep up the good work and we’ll get the job done.

More in a bit.

* The amendment which passed can be found by clicking here.

Today’s House debate was remarkable for its bipartisan nature, which isn’t often seen in that chamber. GOP Rep. Steve Andersson received thunderous applause for his remarks, with Rep. Greg Harris saying it was the finest speech he’d ever heard delivered in the chamber.

* From Speaker Madigan’s office…

“The work of the governor and General Assembly is clearly not done. As a result, the House will remain in session. While we’ve made progress on solving the governor’s budget crisis, we are not done. We will remain in session to continue our progress toward passing a balanced budget. In light of this ongoing progress, I would ask that bond rating agencies temporarily withhold judgment and allow legislators time to negotiate a bipartisan, balanced budget.”

*** UPDATE *** As I noted earlier today in our live coverage post, this amendment vote was Speaker Madigan’s idea. He wanted the budget amendment adopted as a sign of good faith and then he’d restart negotiations on the non-budget issues and revenues. The budget itself is still not agreed.

So, a “top Republican source” described today’s floor action as more of a “procedural vote” than a sign of support for the underlying bill. There’s still a lot of work to do.

* Meanwhile…



Here's a letter Madigan sent to bond houses asking to delay cutting credit rating to junk status. Calls it the "governor's budget crisis." pic.twitter.com/qGkObVQ1tl — Monique Garcia (@moniquegarcia) June 30, 2017

* Sun-Times…