Senate Republican Leader Christine issued the following response:

"Over the past two months, the Senate President and I have worked together in a bipartisan manner to develop a comprehensive package that would produce a balanced state budget, with structural reforms and cuts that would put Illinois on a sound fiscal path moving forward.

While we have made significant progress on the package, there is still substantial work to be done on key parts, including worker’s compensation reform that we need to help make Illinois competitive again, and education funding, which we have to get right.

Today, the Senate cast votes on a few individual measures despite the fact that we don’t have an agreement on the package as a whole. I believe it will be much more productive to complete our negotiations and vote on the comprehensive framework.

I look forward to continuing those discussions."