Three ways Illinois can move past the Michael Madigan years
With Michael Madigan now a defrocked ex-speaker of the Illinois House, the citizens of this state can dream of better leadership. They’ll get it, though, only if they demand that their often timid lawmakers reject bad practices Madigan perfected during his half-century in the Capitol. The new speaker, Emanuel “Chris” Welch, has indicated his support for moving in a new direction. We’ll see.
Most voters understand that during Madigan’s reign over the Statehouse and the Democratic Party that he still chairs, Illinois has devolved from a land of opportunity to a debris field in desperate need of cleanup. An economy once among the nation’s most robust, and most attractive to outsiders on the make, now is a comparative shambles of jobs shortages, taxpayer flight and employers who build their companies — and their workers’ futures — in more hospitable states. The coronavirus pandemic has left the state in even more wobbly standing.
Here are three broad strokes Welch could employ to begin the rebuild.
Control spending
Welch, the state’s first Black speaker, has indicated he will do things differently, starting, we hope, with sweeping changes to House rules that will open up the process of governing to all lawmakers and to Republicans in the minority.
But in more general terms, Welch could take a more respectful view of spending, understanding more meaningfully that tax money sent to Springfield to operate state government comes from the pockets of hardworking Illinoisans, from bus drivers and tradesmen to engineers and CEOs. For far too long under Madigan, the majority party in Springfield has routinely, carelessly, approached budget legislation with, “What’s in it for me?” instead of: “How can we keep more money in the pockets of our constituents?”
Madigan led on this, and not in a good way. One legendary example:
In 2002, the Tribune reported Madigan’s furious reaction in a closed-door meeting to a suggestion by George Ryan, who then was governor. In order to reduce planned cuts in social services programs for poor Illinoisans, Ryan proposed that some legislative pork spending be frozen. Of course, limiting the ability of legislators to hand out taxpayer dollars also could deprive them of ribbon-cuttings at voter-friendly projects in their districts. And what’s more important, helping disadvantaged families or helping lawmakers polish their halos for the voters back home?
An audacious response followed. “That’s my money,” Madigan snapped, several witnesses in the room told the Tribune’s Ray Long at the time. “You can’t touch it.”
Madigan later denied that “Me First!” outburst. But he always did treat taxpayer money as his — and routinely guarded the pork barrel for his members. If only Illinois’ enormous public debt was his too. Instead, it belongs to us taxpayers. Can public officials now learn to put governing ahead of opportunistic politicking? We’re about to find out.
Honest budgeting
Welch could take, finally, a serious approach toward budgeting. For years under Madigan, Democrats have passed state budgets in the hours leading up to adjournment and based on flimsy expectations of revenue coming in — and at times, counting borrowed money as “revenue.” That’s absurd according to any rational accounting standard. Lawmakers have long declared budgets “balanced.”
How is a budget balanced when the state’s backlog of unpaid bills falls in the billions and when the pension funds are woefully underfunded? Is your household budget balanced if you’re skipping full mortgage payments and your credit card bills are soaring?
State budgets that cleared Madigan’s House chronically overspent, overpromised and overborrowed, most notoriously creating unfunded pension obligations north of $140 billion-with-a-b. Guess who has to pay every penny of that bill. With lawmakers routinely mismanaging Other People’s Money, public officials at every level of government in Illinois learned that they too could bury today’s and tomorrow’s taxpayers in debt. Generations of well-pensioned Republicans and Democrats share beaucoup blame for the ruination of state and local public finances — the finances of many school districts included.
Other states with truly balanced budgets — our neighbor Indiana is one example — have legislatures that deal with their state budgets first, not last, on the calendar. Negotiate and pass the budget first when there’s time on the clock. Then deal with the myriad bills lawmakers have introduced. Then adjourn.
Pritzker ran for governor as a businessman who could balance budgets. We’ll see whether, with Madigan no longer essentially dictating budgets to governors, lawmakers and future governors will do what households must: Hold the number of dollars going out to the number of dollars coming in.
No more patronage
Moving Illinois past Michael Madigan also means curbing politicians’ addiction to job favors to family members and friends. Again, Madigan didn’t invent this often legal form of unfairness, but he did perfect it. We recall the Tribune’s 2014 reporting that traced more than 400 current and retired government employees who had strong ties to Madigan, and that found “repeated instances in which Madigan took personal action to get them jobs, promotions or raises.”
Welch is familiar with the game. He was included in a WBEZ investigation last year that explored Madigan’s job recommendations to Pritzker when he took over as governor. Madigan recommended several Welch-connected people for jobs, including Welch’s wife and mother.
No, making a job recommendation isn’t a crime. But in a state that has been burdened by clout and corruption in government for decades, every job applicant should be treated with neutrality. Clouted hires cheat honest job applicants and honest jobholders seeking promotions, who didn’t have political connections. We’ll never know how many people lost opportunities because someone stamped with the Madigan Seal of Approval got the job, the promotion, the raise.
More than cheating people, Madigan-style patronage in essence helped pay for his politicking: A precinct captain who pounded the pavement for machine politicians got his reward in a government paycheck that came at taxpayer expense. A cynic would call Madigan patronage the public funding of campaigns.
There are more of the former speaker’s behaviors that lawmakers should abandon. Moving past these three would begin to move Illinois past him.