SPRINGFIELD – A bill that would have changed the way University of Illinois trustees are chosen failed in the Illinois House Wednesday, 69-44.

But one of its co-sponsors, Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said he will move to reconsider the vote. He claimed that minutes after the vote he had already persuaded eight lawmakers to switch from "no" to "yes" votes.

Rose said members of Gov. Pat Quinn's staff were on the House floor during the vote, urging votes against the bill which would take appointment of UI trustees out of the governor's hands.

"The governor's office worked the bill on the floor," Rose said. "That's what it came down to."

Nearly every House Democrat voted against the bill. Rep. Naomi Jakobsson, D-Urbana, a co-sponsor of the bill, voted for it, as did Reps. Jay Hoffman of Collinsville, Dan Beiser of Alton and Frank Mautino of Spring Valley.

The legislation would change the UI board of trustees from a nine-member panel whose members are chosen by the governor (plus a student trustee with voting powers as well as the governor himself) to a panel with 15 voting members. Of the 15, seven would be elected (based on judicial districts), six would be appointed by the UI Alumni Association, one would be a faculty representative chosen by faculty members and one would be a student chosen by students.

"Let's break the University of Illinois free of gubernatorial influence," Rose said during debate. "Put this back in the hands of the people of Illinois, put it back in the hands of the 400,000 alumni of the University of Illinois. I guarantee you they will run the university better than we've had for the last decade."

Rep. David Reis, R-Olney, the chief sponsor of the bill (HB 4608), said trustees appointed by recent governors have not protected the UI.

"You can't legislate for good governor," he said. "You have to legislate for governors who maybe aren't going to have the best interests of the University of Illinois in mind.

"I think we have seen example after example of this over the last seven years. We had admissions scandals. Where was the board? We had the budget absolutely decimated. Where was the board of directors, because those actions were coming from the governor."

But House Democrats raised a number of objections to the bill, contending that the current system of gubernatorial appointments was fine, that the larger board would cost more and that Illinois voters already have too many elective offices to choose.

"One of the things we need to take note of is the fact that Illinois already has twice as many elected officials as the nearest state, which is Pennsylvania. That's one problem," said Rep. Mike Boland, D-Moline. "So now here we're talking about actually increasing the number of elected officials."

Until 1995, UI trustees were elected on a statewide basis.

Boland also voiced concerns about allowing faculty members "to be in a position to be making the policy directly themselves."

And he said gubernatorial appointments place responsibility and accountability on the governor.

Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, said the legislation "is designed to make a political statement about the university," not to address the institution's governance.

The UI did not take a position on the bill, Reis said.