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Illinois Graduated Income Tax Referendum PRO/CONS

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Illinois Graduated Income Tax Referendum PRO/CONS

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The Illinois Allow for Graduated Income Tax Amendment is on the ballot in Illinois as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020.

In Illinois, the vote requirement for constitutional amendments is either (a) 60 percent of votes cast on the ballot measure itself or (b) a simple majority of all of those voting in the election.

The ballot measure would repeal the state's constitutional requirement that the state personal income tax be a flat rate across income. Instead, the ballot measure would allow the state to enact legislation for a graduated income tax.

Illinois is one of 11 states with a flat-rate income tax, meaning there is a constant rate across income before deductions and exemptions. In Illinois, income is taxed at 4.95 percent. Most (32 of 50) states have a graduated income tax, with different rates applied to different levels of income. In June 2019, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed SB 687, which would enact a graduated income tax if voters approve the ballot measure.

Pritzker advocated for a graduated income tax during his 2018 campaign for governor. He defeated incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner (R), giving Democrats trifecta control of Illinois. Legislative Democrats voted to pass the constitutional amendment, while legislative Republicans voted to reject the amendment.

Text of measure

Constitutional changes

The measure would amend Section 3 of Article IX of the Illinois Constitution. The following underlined text would be added and struck-through text would be deleted:

Vote Yes For Fairness is leading the campaign in support of the constitutional amendment. Quentin Fulks, a former campaign staffer for Gov. J.B. Pritzker's (D) 2018 gubernatorial campaign and the leader of the 501(c)(4) nonprofit Think Big Illinois, is the chairperson of the Vote Yes For Fairness PAC.

Vote Yes for Fair Tax also organized as a political action committee to support the constitutional amendment. John Bouman, president of the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, is the chairperson of Vote Yes for Fair Tax. Julie Sampson, the political director of Citizen Action Illinois, is the treasurer of Vote Yes for Fair Tax.

Supporters

Vote Yes for Fair Tax provides a list of endorsements, which is available here.

Opposition

Two PACs- Vote No On The Blank Check Amendment and Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike -registered to oppose the constitutional amendment.

Greg Baise, former president of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association and the leader of the 501(c)(4) nonprofit Ideas Illinois, is the chairperson of Vote No On The Blank Check Amendment. The campaign's logo features an image of House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-22).

Campaign finance

The Vote Yes For Fairness, Vote Yes for Fair Tax, and Yes to a Financially Responsible Illinois PACs were registered to support the constitutional amendment. Together, the committees had raised $57.89 million. Gov. J.B. Pritzker (R) contributed 97 percent of the PACs' total combined funds. The committees had expended $2.30 million.

The Vote No On The Blank Check Amendment and Coalition To Stop The Proposed Tax Hike PACs were registered to oppose the constitutional amendment. The committees reported no contributions.

Cash Contributions

In-Kind Contributions

Total Contributions

Cash Expenditures

Total Expenditures

The following table includes contribution and expenditure totals for the committees in support of the initiative.

Committees in support of Illinois Allow for Graduated Income Tax Amendment (2020)

The following was the top five donors to the support committees.

Opposition

The following table includes contribution and expenditure totals for the committees in opposition to the initiative.

Committees in opposition to Illinois Allow for Graduated Income Tax Amendment (2020)

Satellite spending

There were at least two 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations that spent funds to advertise for or against the constitutional amendment while legislators were considering the measure.

Think Big Illinois, a nonprofit organization, was launched on February 8, 2019, and aired advertisements supporting legislation to place the constitutional amendment on the ballot. Quentin Fulks, a former campaign staffer for Gov. J.B. Pritzker's (D) 2018 gubernatorial campaign, headed Think Big Illinois. Gov. Pritzker had donated to the organization but had no other involvement, according to Think Big Illinois spokesperson Lara Sisselman.

Opposition

Ideas Illinois, a nonprofit organization, was launched on February 8, 2019, and aired advertisements opposing legislation to place the constitutional amendment on the ballot. The Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity, which formed in 2004, organized Ideas Illinois. Greg Baise, former president of the Illinois Manufacturers Association, led Ideas Illinois.

Media editorials

Ballotpedia identified the following media editorial boards as taking positions on the ballot measure. If you are aware of a media editorial board position that is not listed below, please email the editorial link to editor@ballotpedia.org.

Opposition

September 13-September 23, 2019: The University of Illinois Springfield Survey Research Office asked 1,012 registered voters the following question: "Do you support or oppose amending the Illinois Constitution to allow for a graduated income tax?" The poll found that 67 percent of respondents favored the amendment and 33 percent opposed the amendment. The poll did not include an option for undecided. Democrats and Democrat-leaning voters supported the amendment at 79 percent. Republicans and Republican-leaning voters opposed the proposal at 52 percent.

March 11-March 17, 2019: The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University asked 1,000 registered voters the following question: "Would you favor or oppose a proposal to change the Illinois Constitution to allow a graduated income tax - that is, tax rates would be lower for lower-income taxpayers and higher for upper-income taxpayers?" Of the 1,000 respondents, 67 percent favored the proposal, 31 percent opposed the proposal, and 2 percent were undecided. Democrats had the highest level of support at 88 percent. Independents supported the proposal at 65 percent. Republicans opposed the proposal at 55 percent.

Background

Income tax in Illinois

For personal income earned in 2018, the income tax was a flat rate of 4.95 percent. The Illinois State Legislature overrode Gov. Bruce Rauner's (R) veto of a bill to increase the rate from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent in 2017.

Senate Bill 687 (2019)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed Senate Bill 687 (SB 687), which was designed to enact a graduated income tax, on June 5, 2019. SB 687 would not go into effect unless voters approve SJR 1 on November 3, 2020. The Illinois House of Representatives passed the final version of SB 687 on May 30, 2019, in a vote of 67-48. The Illinois State Senate passed the final version of SB 687 on May 31, 2019, in a vote of 37-20.

SB 687 would change the state's income tax from a flat rate to six graduated rates beginning on January 1, 2021. The following table illustrates the graduated rate under SB 687 for single and joint filers:

Comparison of state income tax structures

As of 2019, 43 states levied a tax on personal income. Of these 43 states, 11 had a flat income tax rate. The flat rates ranged from 2.00 percent in Tennessee to 5.25 percent in North Carolina. The remaining 32 states had graduated tax structures, with various numbers of brackets and ranges. New Hampshire and Tennessee taxed personal income derived from interest and dividends but not wages and salaries.

2018 gubernatorial election

J.B. Pritzker (D) won the gubernatorial election on November 6, 2018, defeating incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner (R). Pritzker campaigned on enacting a graduated income tax, including a constitutional amendment. He said, "the bottom 20 percent are paying roughly 13 to 13.5 percent of their income in state taxes. The people at the top are paying 6 percent. That seems very unfair." Rauner opposed Pritzker's proposal and instead campaigned on decreasing the rate of the state's flat income tax. He said a graduated income tax would be a nightmare for Illinois. Rauner added, "I want to roll the income tax rate back down to 3 percent over the next four or five years."

The election of J.B. Pritzker made the state of Illinois a Democratic trifecta, meaning Democrats won control of the House, Senate, and governor's office. Democrats also increased their majorities in the Illinois State Legislature. In the state Senate, Democrats won 40 seats, an increase from 37 seats. In the state House, Democrats won 74 seats, an increase from 67 seats. The pass a constitutional amendment 36 votes were needed in the Senate and 71 votes in the House.

Tax policies on the ballot in 2020

In 2020, voters in 12 states will vote on 19 ballot measures addressing tax-related policies. Ten of the measures addressed taxes on properties, three were related to income tax rates, two addressed tobacco taxes, one addressed business-related taxes, one addressed sales tax rates, one addressed fees and surcharges, and one was related to tax-increment financing (TIF).

Click Show to read details about the tax-related measures on statewide ballots in 2020.

Tax-related policy ballot measures in 2020

Income Tax

Business-Related Taxes

Alaska Ballot Measure 1: The campaign Vote Yes for Alaska's Fair Share proposed the ballot initiative to increase taxes on oil production fields located in Alaska's North Slope that exceeded certain output minimums. According to Robin Brena, chairperson of Vote Yes for Alaska's Fair Share, three oil production fields-Alpine, Kuparuk, and Prudhoe Bay-met those criteria. BP, Conoco Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Hilcorp Energy are funding the campaign to defeat Measure 1.

Property-Related Taxes

California Proposition 15: The ballot initiative would amend Proposition 13, which required that residential, commercial, and industrial properties are taxed based on their purchase price, with an annual adjustment based on inflation or 2%, whichever was lower. Proposition 15 would require commercial and industrial properties, except those zoned as commercial agriculture, to be taxed based on their market value. In California, the proposal to assess taxes on commercial and industrial properties at market value, while continuing to assess taxes on residential properties based on the purchase price, is known as split roll. The state fiscal analyst estimated that Proposition 15 would generate between $6.5 billion and $11.5 billion. Proposition 15 would require that the revenue be allocated to local governments and schools.

California Proposition 19: The state Legislature proposed the constitutional amendment as a compromise with the California Association of Realtors, which had qualified a different ballot initiative. Proposition 19 would allow tax assessments to be transferred from someone's old home to their new home anywhere in the state and increase the number of times that tax assessments can be transferred from one to three for persons over 55 years old or with severe disabilities. Proposition 19 was also designed to require that inherited homes that are not used as principal residences, such as second homes or rentals, be reassessed at market value when transferred.

Colorado Gallagher Amendment Repeal Measure: The constitutional amendment would repeal the Gallagher Amendment (1982), which required a 45%-55% ratio between residential assessment rates and non-residential assessment rates regarding tax revenue. Therefore, the Colorado State Legislature would be permitted to define tax assessment limits without reference to the 45%-55% ratio requirement.

Sales Tax

Arkansas Issue 1: The ballot measure would continue an existing continuing a 0.5% sales tax, with revenue dedicated to roads, highways, and bridges, that would otherwise expire in 2023. Issue 1 has the support of Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), and the campaign behind Issue 1 received financial support from Alice and Jim Walton.

Tobacco

Fees

Colorado Require Voter Approval of New State Enterprise Fees: In 1992, the Colorado Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) Amendment defined government-owned firms that provide goods or services for a fee as enterprises. Examples of enterprises include state nursing homes, state lotteries, Colorado Correctional Industries, and College Assist. The ballot measure would require voter approval of laws that create new enterprises should the enterprise's project or actual revenue from fees and surcharges exceed $100 million within the firm's first five years.

TIF

Path to the ballot

In Illinois, a 60 percent vote is needed in each chamber of the Illinois General Assembly to refer a constitutional amendment to the ballot for voter consideration.

The constitutional amendment was introduced into the state legislature as Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJR 1) during the 2019 legislative session. With passage in both the state Senate and House, SJR 1 was referred to the ballot for voter consideration. Votes occurred along partisan lines. Democrats supported SJR 1, and Republicans opposed SJR 1. In 2019, Democrats held supermajorities in the Senate (68 percent of seats) and House (63 percent of seats). From 2016 to 2018, Democrats held majorities in the House and Senate but not enough seats to pass a constitutional amendment along partisan lines.

In the Illinois State Senate, 36 votes were needed to approve SJR 1. Democrats controlled 40 seats in the state Senate, and Republicans controlled 19 seats. On May 1, 2019, the state Senate passed SJR 1, with support from 40 state senators. Democrats supported SJR 1, while Republicans opposed SJR 1.

In the Illinois House of Representatives, 71 votes were needed to approve SJR 1. Democrats controlled 74 seats in the state House, and Republicans controlled 44 seats. On May 27, 2019, the state House passed SJR 1, with support from 73 senators.

Vote in the Illinois State Senate

May 1, 2019

Requirement: Three-fifths (60 percent) vote of all members in each chamber

Number of yes votes required: 36

Yes

No

Not voting

Vote in the Illinois House of Representatives

May 27, 2019

Requirement: Three-fifths (60 percent) vote of all members in each chamber

Number of yes votes required: 71

Yes

No

Not voting

On May 18, 2020, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin (R-82) and Senate Minority Leader Bill Brady (R-44) introduced a resolution to remove the constitutional amendment from the ballot.

How to cast a vote

Click "Show" to learn more about voter registration, identification requirements, and poll times in Illinois.

External links

Opposition

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Illinois Allow for Graduated Income Tax Amendment (2020) - Ballotpedia

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The Illinois Allow for Graduated Income Tax Amendment is on the ballot in Illinois as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 3, 2020. In Illinois, the vote requirement for constitutional amendments is either (a) 60 percent of votes cast on the ballot measure itself or (b) a simple majority of all of those voting in the election.

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How College Sports Spurred Mississippi to Seriously Reconsider Its Flag

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How College Sports Spurred Mississippi to Seriously Reconsider Its Flag

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Time and again, debate over the state's flag and its Confederate battle imagery faded away. Then college sports leaders threatened to take away some of the biggest games.

Mississippi lawmakers would not be seriously considering changing their state flag were it not for a swift push from the college sports world. Credit... Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

It was just before 9 a.m. last Friday when Philip Gunn, the speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, received a phone call from a lobbyist for Mississippi State University.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association, the lobbyist said, might soon take a punitive stand against the state flag, the last in the nation with the Confederate battle emblem, just as the Southeastern Conference had done the night before.

Soon after the warning, the N.C.A.A. announced that it had toughened its longstanding opposition to the battle emblem and would more aggressively penalize any state that sanctioned it. In Jackson, the Mississippi capital, Gunn instantly recognized that the state's seemingly intractable debate over its 126-year-old flag would shift.

"It hits home with a lot of people because a lot of people follow sports in Mississippi," Gunn, a Republican who was a walk-on football player at Baylor, said in an interview on Friday. "It was kind of a shot across the bow to say, 'Wake up, people: There are real consequences here that are going to happen if you continue to maintain this flag.'"

Lawmakers could vote as soon as Saturday on a measure to change the flag, and officials said that the margin of any vote, whenever it comes, would likely be close, particularly in the Senate. But regardless of the outcome, it is clear that the college sports industry has helped shape the state's deliberations, accelerating and elevating a debate that many thought would fade away this year, just as it had in one legislative session after another.

For the flag's critics, the threats that the N.C.A.A. and the SEC would withhold hosting privileges for lucrative national and conference tournaments became tangible examples of the economic perils of preserving the flag. And in a state that cherishes college baseball and football, the warnings may have eased the way for other influential institutions to condemn the flag with less isolation and, perhaps, fewer repercussions.

"It gives you the ultimate cover; it's not unlike the Catholic Church in Italy - it's a powerful force," said Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist who grew up in Mississippi and wrote "The Last Season: A Father, a Son, and a Lifetime of College Football."

College sports executives have a record of sporadic intervention in charged statehouse debates. In 2016, for instance, the N.C.A.A. and the Atlantic Coast Conference opposed a North Carolina measure that sought to curb the rights of transgender people. And nearly two decades ago, the N.C.A.A. began to keep some of its championship competitions away from states that offered formal havens for the battle flag.

Then this month, with the nation in renewed turmoil over endemic injustice, college sports officials faced new questions, especially from student-athletes, about the Confederate flag.

In early June, a student asked Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, what more the conference had done to address racial disparities since 2015, when Sankey criticized the battle flag after a white supremacist murdered nine black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C. And in Indianapolis, where N.C.A.A. leaders had periodically considered whether to strengthen the association's stand against the battle flag, officials watched the demonstrations sweeping the country and weighed how to respond.

The deliberations crystallized into plans late last week.

Last Thursday morning, during a call with the leaders of his conference's 14 universities, including Mississippi and Mississippi State, Sankey told campus officials of his planned warning.

"I came from the perspective that it was the right statement to make," Sankey said. "I didn't move with the expectation that other organizations would follow."

But N.C.A.A. officials, who had just been urged by current and former student-athletes in Mississippi to take a more forceful approach to the flag, were planning a similar discussion for Friday morning, when the association's Board of Governors was scheduled to convene. In that meeting, the board unanimously agreed to abandon a crucial exception in its policy on Confederate symbolism: that states, regardless of their ties to the battle flag, could hold championships if their teams' performances earned them a sufficiently high seeding or ranking.

Mississippi, the N.C.A.A. noted tartly in its announcement, was the only state that stood to be penalized under the rule change.

"The moment focused everyone's attention on all of those things that could and should be done to increase inclusiveness and make sure we're being attentive to issues of equality and social justice," Mark Emmert, the N.C.A.A. president, said in an interview.

In Mississippi, where Oxford and Starkville hosted games in the Division I baseball tournament last year, the N.C.A.A.'s rewritten policy was quickly judged as potentially costly. Keith Carter, the athletic director at Mississippi, which lowered the flag in 2015, said his school generally netted at least $200,000 when it hosted part of the baseball tournament. The hospitality industry in Oxford, with its population of about 28,000, also benefited from tens of thousands of visitors.

The ultimatums, Carter said, "opened up a conversation that maybe people were a little hesitant to get involved in."

Indeed, discussions in Mississippi intensified in subsequent days, and one group after another, including the state Baptist Convention and the Mississippi Association of Realtors, spoke out against the flag.

The warnings from college sports figures may not have shifted opinions, but they helped prompt people to let "their views be known," Gunn said.

In a striking display on Thursday, many of the state's leading coaches - many of them rivals under more ordinary circumstances - walked the Capitol's corridors, lobbying lawmakers who were often alumni and fans.

"This is a moment in our society for us to reassess values and to do the right thing by removing this symbol of hatred," said Nikki McCray-Penson, the women's basketball coach at Mississippi State.

Surveying the fast-changing landscape from afar on Friday, Emmert, a political scientist by training, suggested that he saw echoes of history in Mississippi.

"Social movements are almost always nonlinear, and they build and they build and they build," he said. "I think having the N.C.A.A. weigh in on this is just another one of those factors that becomes a catalyst that accelerates something."

This week, though, Carter appeared frustrated that outsiders ever had to speak up, that they had the need to threaten punishments.

"You hate," he said, "that it has to come to that for your state to take notice."

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How College Sports Spurred Mississippi to Seriously Reconsider Its Flag

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Time and again, debate over the state's flag and its Confederate battle imagery faded away. Then college sports leaders threatened to take away some of the biggest games. It was just before 9 a.m. last Friday when Philip Gunn, the speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, received a phone call from a lobbyist for Mississippi State University.

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