State divide looms large
In Springfield, Lightfoot calls for unity amid regional differences
After Chicago Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot had finished speaking to the Illinois House, imploring lawmakers to show a statewide sense of unity, Republican Rep. Brad Halbrook applauded her rhetoric but said, “I don’t know that it changes anything.”
Halbrook, of rural Shelbyville in central Illinois, has his own take on Chicago. He’s the lead sponsor of a House resolution urging Congress to designate the city as its own state, separate from the rest of Illinois, because of its long-standing regional differences.
“I think the issues we face remain the same,” he said, despite Lightfoot’s address. “It’s just this ideology that continues to get driven from that corner of the state down upon the rest of us.”
The resolution, with four rural Republican co-sponsors, isn’t going anywhere. Lightfoot herself responded to the effort by telling reporters, “God bless, but that’s never happening.”
Yet the regional divides remain and are very much a part of the new issues that the incoming mayor will be forced to deal with as she seeks a variety of help from Springfield, namely with city finances, at a time when state government has its own very serious money problems.
Lightfoot’s two-day Capitol visit came as legislators entered the earnest part of negotiations on a new state budget that has a multibillion-dollar shortfall. To
close the gap, lawmakers are looking at everything from a statewide tax on grocery bags to legalizing marijuana and sports betting as well as stretching out the payment schedule for the state’s already massively underfunded pension funds.
Plus, state lawmakers continue to negotiate over Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s prized plan for a graduated-rate income tax, which wouldn’t affect the next budget or provide quick cash to the city. Not to mention Pritzker has promised to deliver a massive public works program, which doesn’t yet have identified funding sources or a specific slate of projects.
The governor’s graduated income tax and the capital plan have long been expected to be linked together in an effort to secure enough votes.
All of it adds up to plenty of state issues for lawmakers to weigh, Chicago’s concerns aside.
“Obviously, we’ve got a $3 billion shortfall in the state of Illinois that we’re trying to address, and it’s not easy. There are financial problems throughout the course of this great state,” said Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, who backed Lightfoot’s opponent in the mayor’s race, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
The Northwest Side legislator lauded Lightfoot’s talk of having a unified state, and he agrees that Illinois and Chicago will be best off solving their financial predicaments at the same time. To do so, however, Lightfoot needs to quickly develop a specific agenda, Martwick said.
“Right now, there is no plan,” he said. “She needs to take office and engage us and figure out a way we can work together.”
Rep. Greg Harris of Chicago, the Democratic majority leader under powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan, underscored the city’s dependence on Springfield by noting the risks it faces as the state budget is negotiated.
“If we don’t close this couple-of-billion-dollar gap, the city of Chicago has a huge amount to lose as we try to figure out how to change things around in the budget. Our school systems have a lot at risk, CTA has a lot at risk. A lot of time and attention needs to be spent on Springfield by the city,” said Harris, a former Appropriations Committee chair.
“All of this is up for negotiation. … There’s a tremendous amount at stake for the city of Chicago,” he said. “I give a lot of credit to the mayorelect to come down here as her first thing, to begin to work with us to make sure the city of Chicago is taken care of.”
For her part, Lightfoot said that while she is mindful that Emanuel remains in the mayor’s office, she is not going to wait until she is inaugurated May 20 to start talks with the General Assembly. Her official tenure begins only days before the legislature’s scheduled adjournment date of May 31.
“Look, the financial circumstances of the city are dire. No one should make any mistake about that,” Lightfoot told reporters. “But we are going to be coming together with solutions we believe that are going to help us address the structural deficit and pension issues, not only in the short term but the long term. But we’re going to have to make a series of hard choices.”
Asked if she was looking to Springfield to grant the city permissions to enact new taxes, Lightfoot stopped short of offering any specifics.
“We’re looking at a range of options, and obviously there are limited powers regarding revenues that a mayor can exercise. A lot of the powers that we can tap into flow from Springfield,” she said. “So when we think about what our menu of solutions are, Springfield looms large, and we’ll make sure we come up with solutions that we can get through the General Assembly with the help of the governor and legislative leaders.”
Lightfoot said she wanted to “eliminate the Chicago-versus-the-restof-the-state mentality” that exists in Springfield, fed most recently by former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s unsuccessful re-election efforts to play to rural GOP voters against Pritzker.
Yet the mayor-elect touted how her office could be helpful to Chicago’s legislative contingent if lawmakers are successful in bringing cash and projects from Springfield to the city.
“We need to make sure we’re giving them credit for the things that they do,” she said of city legislators. “They generate a lot of money that comes back for Chicago that I think they often don’t get credit for.”
State Sen. Chapin Rose, a Republican from Mahomet in east-central Illinois, said troubled rural economies that have helped lead to an exodus of residents from the state have been hobbled by policies backed by Chicago Democrats. Rose contends much-needed business development in such small towns and rural areas has been harmed by the recent increase in the state minimum wage and the failure to drive down employer costs tied to workers’ compensation.
“I would say the No. 1 issue is economics, and the secondary issue is what fans the flames and those are the social issues,” Rose said, citing restrictions on guns and expanded protections for abortion also backed by Chicago Democrats.
He warned that the Chicago Downstate divide isn’t a joke.
“To people who want to make fun of this, they’re really mis under estimating just how angry people are,” Rose said. “I mean, I’ve got parts of my district that are white-hot, incendiary.”
State Sen. Andy Manar, a Democrat from the southern Illinois community of Bunker Hill, had the regionalism game played against him as a lead architect of a historic change in school funding. Critics claimed it was a bailout of Chicago Public Schools.
Manar said some of the problems his district faces are akin to what Chicago sees in some of its neighborhoods. Manar said understanding the similar nature of problems is needed to overcome the regional fissure.
“Lack of pharmacies, lack of doctors, lack of specialists, underfunded schools, vacant classrooms, unemployment, child abuse rates going up. Those things are happening in rural communities and urban communities alike,” Manar said. “Too often, when policymakers get into this building, it’s very easy to use geography to explain deep challenges that our state faces. That’s an easy explanation that plays to the cheers of the crowd.”
In the end, Manar said, the answer is to tone down the rhetoric, find common ground and get things done.
“Look, I could show up here every day and beat the crap out of the city of Chicago and get reelected every four years. That would be easy to do, right? It would guarantee re-election,” Manar said. “But when you’re done as an elected official in the Senate, you probably wouldn’t be able to point to one single accomplishment for the people who sent you here to get things done.”