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Round 2 for Thompson and Bakalis

THE SECOND campaign debate between Gov. James R. Thompson and his Democratic opponent Michael J. Bakalis was a turbulent battle. Each candidate made some harsh charges against the other, and each expressed surprising new positions on issues. Yet neither candidate appeared a clear winner or even claimed victory after the hour-long encounter in Carbondale, September 6.

The most surprising outcome of this debate on social services and education was Bakalis' suggestion that a one-year moratorium should "perhaps" be applied to all Illinois utility rates. Responding to a question on utility rate increases, Bakalis dropped the bombshell remark rather off-handedly: "We can't be a protector of monopolies .... I think we ought to ask for a moratorium right now, in fact, on any rate increases for at least a year."

He prefaced the suggestion by decrying the lack of "a consumer voice" on the Illinois Commerce Commission (IllCC), which rules on utility requests for rate hikes. He said if he were elected governor he would demand resignations from the entire commission membership and appoint his own IllCC, which he implied might be considerably more concerned with consumer interests.

Gov. Thompson said, "Nothing Mr. Bakalis has said goes to the question of what utility people are to do faced with the increasing costs of fuel and of labor." Thompson said that although it is popular to attack monopolies and big business, it isn't right for government to block free enterprise and ignore the constraints of the marketplace or for governors to engage in rate "fixing." He said he was "astounded" by Bakalis' proposal.

No clear winners in this debate, but there were surprises. Bakalis suggested a moratorium on utility rate increases, and Thompson said the state may need two more prisons

In his five-minute opening statement, Gov. Thompson attacked Bakalis as a big spender and blamed him for a decline in student competency while Bakalis was superintendent of public instruction. He pointedly mentioned his veto of "one billion dollars in extra spending, including some of Mr. Bakalis' pet spending projects, which would have meant higher taxes." Thompson spoke of the "years of neglect our schools suffered when a politician named Bakalis was state superintendent of public instruction .... Those were years when the state's funding share for education dropped and the local share zoomed. Those were years when people who can't read and write today were going through Mr. Bakalis' school systems. Those were years when the decline of student competency was first noticed and nothing was done. Those are years we don't want to go back to in Illinois."

It was his hardest hitting attack on Bakalis during the debate, a pounding paragraph of rhetorical speech using anaphora as Shakespeare did in his famous and sarcastic "Brutus is an honorable man" speech in Julius Caesar.

Comptroller Bakalis also had good speechwriters. His opening statement bored in on the governor's "shameful" mishandling of his petition drive to get an advisory property tax ceiling question on the November ballot. He said Thompson "stands today discredited with the sordid revelations concerning his tax petition drive."

Bakalis also attacked the governor for fostering waste and inefficiency in state government, citing the governor's own cost control task force report as proof of his charge. And he lashed out at the alleged poor record of the state in obtaining federal funds for social services under Title XX of the social security act (a charge Thompson said was false when he summed up at the end of the debate).

"Illinois provides fewer benefits to its senior citizens than any other state in the midwest," Bakalis said. He said his tax rebate proposal, which earlier Thompson labelled "ludicrous," was the "single best opportunity he had to help those seniors." Gov. Thompson vetoed the bill (H.B. 3279) July 27, calling it too expensive and misleading as a promised tax relief plan.

During the questioning by a panel of four media representatives, Gov. Thompson dropped a surprise of his own, as unexpected as Bakalis' utility rate plan. He said the state may need two more prisons in addition to the two new ones now planned for construction. Although much controversy has centered on Centralia as the site of one of the newly funded prisons, Thompson said he would not rule out southern Illinois as a possible site for two other prisons.

On the more controversial subject of Thompson's successful petition drive, the governor was on the defensive. Bakalis said, "It is clear it's become a fiasco. It's totally discredited. He [Thompson] called it a miracle, and it must be, because he raised people from the dead." Bakalis' reference was to the appearance of dead people's names on some petitions, and with that jab, he elicited the only laughter of the evening.

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Not smiling, Thompson responded, "I didn't bring people from the dead because I signed it only once." He appeared to be taken slightly off-balance by the muted laughter from the audience. It looked as if it stung a bit, but he regained an aggressive style of delivery as he jibed, "I doubt that Mr. Bakalis could have collected so many names in so short a time."

On other topics raised by the panelists: Both were against doing away with an appointive state board of education and both said they favor teachers' right to strike in collective bargaining, if it is a last resort and is somewhat regulated by law.

Bakalis said the government should better coordinate local and state institutional health services. Thompson said state mental and public health departments were already working together under his social services subcabinet.

The candidates also seemed to disagree on the possibility of indexing welfare payments to keep pace with inflation. Neither ruled out such a move, but Thompson was somewhat less enthusiastic about it than Bakalis.

Overall, Bakalis was at least partially successful in keeping the incumbent governor on the defensive. And Gov. Thompson's most spirited remark, linking Bakalis with an educational decline, may have risked upsetting the teachers and leaders of the Illinois Education Association (IEA). They are already angered by Thompson's property tax ceiling petition, since property taxes largely fund education.

Bakalis held his own during the debate, but Thompson lost no ground. The governor went into the second debate as the favorite and left as the favorite. The third debate was scheduled September 19 in Peoria, after our deadline. The final debate will be October 12 in Chicago.

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