The Illinois Senate is pursuing its own legislation to overhaul the state's underfunded pension systems. That puts it at odds with the Illinois House, which last week passed a significantly different plan.
Senate President John Cullerton has long held that the state cannot simply cut employee pension benefits. There a clause in the state constitution that says pension benefits "shall not be diminished."
Cullerton says you can get around that by offering employees a choice, hoping they'll accept benefit cuts in exchange for something else - like access to state health insurance after retirement, or counting future pay increases toward a pension.
The House plan includes no such consideration - simply declaring that the state is in a financial emergency, and hoping the courts will let that override the constitutional protections.
Cullerton negotiated his plan with labor unions, and says it's more likely to stand up in court.
"Anybody can sue. I'm just saying that it's very important that the unions have individually said that they would definitely sue on a questionable constitutional argument for the bill that's passed out of the House. But on this one they would support it."
A court battle could delay a solution to the pension problem for years.
