Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan
on Wednesday said a gay marriage bill remains 12 votes shy of passage
in the House.
According to The Chicago Tribune,
Madigan responded to questions on where the bill stood in the House
by saying, “Yes, it's 12 votes short of passage.”
The measure cleared the Illinois Senate
last month. Democratic Governor Pat Quinn has publicly stated his
support for making Illinois the 10th state to legalize
such unions.
Representative Greg Harris, an openly
gay Democrat from Chicago and the bill's champion in the House, said
he believes the count is “a bit closer” than 12 votes.
“I have not spoken to the speaker so
I don't know what assumptions he's using,” Harris
told the paper. “Obviously, you would need to talk to him
about that. But when we put it up on the board, we're going to have
60 votes and it's going to pass because this is what the majority of
people in the state of Illinois believe [is] the right thing to do.”
Harris said he would not call the
measure for a vote this week.