-By Warner Todd Huston
For months early this year, Cook County Board President Todd Stroger repeatedly beat back attempts to repeal his onerous sales tax hike that saw Cook County become the highest taxed county in the country at 10.25 percent. The reason president Stroger was able to do this so easily is because the law stated that opponents of the President needed to get four fifths of their fellows to overturn a Stroger veto.
This four-fifths rule has traditionally given the board president nearly unassailable powers as marshaling four fifths of the board to oppose the board president is a herculean task. But now that power has been taken away from the county board president by the governor of the state when Pat Quinn signed new legislation that would change the law from a four-fifths majority to three-fifths.
On Saturday, Quinn signed the new three-fifths rule into law. Quinn said that he is not signing this law to spite Stroger or anyone else. He said he signed it because it was a “fair” law that brought Cook County into line with the rest of the state.
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