Cook sales tax gamesmanship? (update)

UPDATE: Hurdle cleared
I talked to Rep. Graham on the House floor this morning and she said her motion to reconsider the vote has been withdrawn. She said she wasn't trying to protect Stroger or put the plan in "deep freeze." Her explanation is that a couple colleagues who voted against the plan asked her to file the motion so they would have the chance to vote "yes." Graham supported making it easier to override Stroger's veto.
The plan should now advance to the Senate for consideration.

********************************************************************
On Wednesday the Illinois House voted overwhelmingly to make it easier for Cook County commissioners to dump a 1 percentage point sales tax increase. Commissioners voted to roll back the tax but had their efforts vetoed by Board President Todd Stroger and overriding his veto requires a politically impossible 4/5ths majority -- a unique margin in state law.

While there had been several proposals pending in Springfield to change that to 3/5ths, it was a new plan filed by Arlington Heights Democrat Mark Walker that got pushed to the House floor and approved Wednesday. The vote was 95-18.

Now the next step in the process is onto the Senate for debate. Things looked good for Walker's plan as the Senate had previously approved similar legislation.

But sometime after the vote Wednesday, state Rep. Deborah Graham invoked a procedural maneuver that, at least for the moment, stalls the legislation in the House.

Graham, a Chicago Democrat, filed a "motion to reconsider" the vote by which the legislation passed. She's entitled to do that because she voted for it. Procedurally this means her motion must be addressed before the legislation can advance in the system.

When that might happen is unclear. I wasn't able to find her late Wednesday. Speaker Michael Madigan's spokesman said he was unaware of Graham's efforts when I talked to him Wednesday night.

This particular maneuver gained fame this summer when the lawmaker who sponsored the state's construction spending plan invoked it to hold up the coveted deal and send a message to Gov. Pat Quinn. This happened after Quinn said he wouldn't sign the deal until lawmakers gave him the budget he wanted. In return, Rep. Lou Lang filed a motion to reconsider on the deal, putting him in control of it's immediate future, and said he'd release it when Quinn was ready to sign it.

One potential outcome? Possibly nothing.
The Senate already approved a similar deal earlier this year. So senators can point to a vote showing they tried to ease Cook County taxpayers' suffering.
The House too has a roll call showing overwhelming support for helping Cook County taxpayers. So if a House member is criticized in the upcoming campaigns for not protecting taxpayers, he or she can pull out Wednesday's roll call and show that they voted to make it easier to get rid of the tax.
Of course the trick is the House and Senate must approve the same thing in order for it to become law.
It wouldn't be the first time both chambers approved different versions of the same thing and ultimately nothing became law.