North Cook News

Illinois state Rep. Tom Morrison (R-Palatine) insists that he has every intention of supporting a bill to be introduced in the next session by GOP colleague Dan Caulkins to ban the sweeping of funds intended for FOID card and conceal-and-carry fees.

"I will definitely back any effort to change the system so that stunts like that are no longer possible,” Morrison told the North Cook News. “I think that’s just sound government.”

Morrison’s push for change comes in the wake of reports that over the last five budget cycles, Democratic lawmakers in Springfield have secretly steered to other areas of government as much as $30 million that was meant to help the Illinois State Police facilitate such programs. Caulkins’ bill would effectively place all those funds in a lockbox only to be used for the programs for which they was expressly intended.

Illinois state Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur)

“The whole practice of sweeping needs to come to an end,” Morrison said. “The reality is it’s been around as long as I’ve been in Springfield and has become pretty common. When taxes go up, it’s easier to hide the mismanagement of funds by sweeping.”

According to Illinois State Rifle Association (ISRA) Executive Director Richard Pearson, in this case the deception was only uncovered when ISRA officials decided to probe how FOID and concealed carry programs are managed through attempts by anti-gun groups to enact legislation that would have more than doubled FOID card fees.

“We’ve been steadily getting complaints about how long it takes to get a FOID card or a concealed-and-carry license renewed and now it makes perfect sense,” Morrison said. “You call the state and typically the answer was it was due to a lack of money. Now we know that should have never been.”