PRACTICALLY GOING BACKWARDS
Virtually nothing accomplished in state budget summit
SPRINGFIELD — Even set against the low expectations that preceded it, the big public summit Tuesday between Gov. Bruce Rauner and the four legislative leaders came across as a disappointment bordering on disaster.
Given an opportunity to make public speeches before beginning their private negotiating session, Rauner and the legislative leaders mostly used the opportunity for political posturing.
If the result wasn’t a hardening of positions rather than the hopedfor thaw in negotiations, that’s only because both sides were already set in stone.
For the first time, I began to believe the pessimistic warnings that the standoff between Rauner and the Democratic-controlled Legislature could continue all the way through the November 2016 elections.
We were even treated to Rauner’s potential slogan for the 2016 campaign, when he will be only midway through his term and may choose to pour his millions into unseating Democratic legislators.
“Let’s vote for the next generation, not the next election,” Rauner intoned, which is just what you tell four people sitting around the table as you begin a good-faith negotiation.
Only Senate President John Cullerton suggested afterward that something had been accomplished by Tuesday’s meeting — and that was only an agreement to meet again beginning next week.
His fellow Democrat, House Speaker Mike Madigan, also put on a happy face after the meeting, or as close to it as Madigan gets, but offered little evidence to back up his positive spin and conceded that he’d had little to say once the cameras were turned off.
The meeting, you will recall, had been held at the behest of well-intentioned good-government groups, who thought a public negotiating session might help break the Springfield logjam. Rauner and the leaders settled on a hybrid approach with an hour set aside for each to make public remarks on camera followed by a private discussion.
During the public part of the meeting, Madigan was given the opportunity to speak first, and he immediately set a bad tone by getting up from the table around which the five were sitting to address the small group from a podium. Who does that? Then Madigan read the same basic speech he always gives about Rauner needing to focus on the budget and to set aside his emphasis on making changes to workers’ compensation, prevailing wages and collective bargaining for public employees, all of it peppered with digs at the governor for his “extreme” views.
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin then made matters even worse with his own partisan speech that seemed entirely designed to frame the state’s problems — and the 2016 legislative elections — as a matter of failed Democratic leadership.
Durkin said Rauner has made a good faith effort at compromise while Democrats try to “preserve the status quo” — which he characterized as a “never-ending tax-and-spend cycle that has driven our state into the ditch.”
“Rather than meet you halfway, our friends on the other side of the aisle ran away,” Durkin said.
It was a nice campaign speech, but not useful to the business at hand, unless the business at hand was launching the campaign.
By the time Durkin was finished, Cullerton was clearly fuming, but limited himself to complaining that “speeches like that . . . [are] not helpful to the negotiating process.”
Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno then piled on with more talk about the evils created by “12 years of Democratic control” in state government and 70 years in Chicago, after noting the city’s financial woes.
Rauner, who had appeared uncomfortable in front of the cameras as the meeting opened, found his legs batting cleanup by rattling off his usual talking points about why he’s right — and not the least bit extreme — while the Democrats are misguided.
Under normal circumstances, these sorts of leader meetings should be routine, with little or no build-up and leaders sneaking out the back door of the governor’s office to avoid talking to reporters.
In his own postgame interview, Madigan called it “productive” and “meaningful” while conceding he’d had little to say.
Asked to explain why he remained mostly mute during the private portion, Madigan said he was more interested in listening to what the Republicans had to say.
“I learned a long time ago that when you talk, you don’t learn,” Madigan said.
I asked him if he’ll have more to say at the next leadership meeting.
“It depends on how much I’m learning,” he said.
I think I’ll skip the next meeting.
Follow Mark Brown on Twitter: @MarkBrownCST