Lawmakers in the 103rd General Assembly have some difficult decisions to make on what topics to bring up for discussion during the current lame duck session. 84th District State Representative Stephanie Kifowit of Oswego says one topic she has heard discussed amongst lawmakers is House Bill 5823, also known as the Metropolitan Mobility Authority Act.

Kifowit says the bill would merge the Regional Transit Authority (RTA), Pace, Metra, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) together to create the Metropolitan Mobility Authority (MMA) and authorize an increase in transit funding. She says she opposes the bill as it stands because it gives a lot of the new authority’s power to Chicago with little representation for the suburbs like Aurora.

"I really think that there’s another way that we can do that rather than taking control, some of the control that the suburbs have and diminishing it to a degree of only one seat and then expanding Chicago and Cook County to ten seats on this massive board. I’m not in favor, I’m not gonna vote for that in its current form, but I know that there’s some legislators that are talking about passing that in lame duck. They only need 60 votes to pass. It’s a regular session, not like veto where you need 71 votes to pass. But there’s a lot more work that needs to be done."

Lame duck is expected to conclude on Tuesday, and the new General Assembly will be sworn in Wednesday.