Senate president explains closed meeting

There’s a lot of hub-bub among insiders at the Capitol today over a closed door meeting of the Illinois Senate. Both Republicans and Democrats were invited to hear a presentation on state finances by officials from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Officially, it’s being called a joint caucus. The Democrats and the Republicans have their own, individual caucuses all the time behind closed doors. They're basically partisan strategy sessions. Having them together is unprecedented. The House and Senate are required to meet in public unless members vote to close a session.
Senate leadership says this isn’t a session, rather an opportunity for members of both parties to ask questions free of political repercussions.
Senate President John Cullerton was grilled on the issue on his way into the caucus. Here's his response.

Senate President Cullerton:
"I talked to the Senate President of Texas, a Republican, and he told me about this idea of having joint caucuses. I said we have individual caucuses. He said we have a really bipartisan Senate. We have people who really get along. I said we’re trying to improve that. We didn’t have a very good atmosphere in Springfield. So, that’s why we started last year with a dinner, a social gathering with all the Senators, this year the staff, that you guys wanted to come to. It was meant to be like a Christmas party for the office.
The idea for having a caucus like this, this is a joint caucus, just like a caucus that we have, that we call on the floor. But this is meant to be one where just the senators are there to get information, but where they can also feel like they can ask questions and have a free exchange of ideas without having to be worried about what the press might report."

"Now you’ve got five people in there running for higher office. Two governors, a county board president, a congressman – they want to have their thoughts and comments about this material without them having to worry about what’s going to be reported or looked at in their campaign. OK? So none of this stuff that’s going to be reported is secret, as a matter of fact I want you all to see it."

"I know you guys are trying to show that we’re all bad down here and we’re secret and we’re trying to do things in a bad way, I just find it ironic that, yeah, you’re right we’ve never done it before. I’m proud of it, because we’re trying to bring people together socially and in a working atmosphere. We’re not trying to keep the media out of our business. You can ask anybody you want to afterward what they think, what the materials were. We’re going to have a press conference."

Cullerton said the closed, joint caucus was arranged with the Republican members and said state Sen. Pamela Althoff, a McHenry Republican, similarly insisted the meeting be closed. Althoff serves on an NCSL committee.

"I'm sorry if that doesn't fit your theme," Cullerton said.

"We're not going to vote on anything. It's not a committee of the whole."