The election message GOV. James R. Thompson and the Republican party were the big winners in the Illinois November 7 election. Both the governor and his party increased their power base as Illinois Republicans gained five seats in the House — nearly taking control for the first time since before Watergate — and picked up two seats in the Senate. Democrats hold at least numerical control of the House — pending challenges of close races — by a one-vote margin, 89-88. Democrats retained their majority in the Senate with a five-vote margin, 32-27. The GOP's net gain of two Senate seats (they won three and lost one) was less than the GOP hoped for, but the gain was welcome since newly elected senators will be serving in 1981 during legislative redistricting which will reshape control of the Illinois Statehouse for the following decade. The Republicans held onto their U.S. Senate seat, but Charles H. Percy won reelection to a third term only after an uphill struggle. Democrat Alex R. Seith's aggressive and surprisingly successful campaign put the spotlight on this contest during the last weeks before the election. Polls in late October showed Percy substantially behind Seith, apparently because conservative Republicans were miffed at Percy's record. Rallying behind Percy to boost his campaign were Gov. Thompson, former Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie, former President Gerald R. Ford, Ronald Reagan, the Rev. Jessie Jackson and Muhammad Ali. Campaign ads started getting away from the issues to the point of charges and countercharges of dirty politics. But in the end, Percy won 54 percent of the vote, apparently convincing his traditional supporters that he received their message. Gov. Thompson's switch during the last week from his own campaign to Percy's in an eleventh-hour state fly-around, may have helped to clinch Percy's comeback. If so, Percy owes Thompson a political favor. The close Percy-Seith race also may have worked to Thompson's advantage in bringing out the Republican vote and giving him a record-shattering plurality for an incumbent Illinois governor. A possible presidential bid by Thompson is over the first hurdle: a triumphant reelection. He beat his Democratic challenger Michael J. Bakalis with 60 per cent of the vote. Atty. Gen, William J. Scott, the third big-name Republican on the statewide ticket, won by an even larger margin than Thompson, gaining 64 per cent of the vote over his challenger Richard Troy. The Republicans also won the seat in the U.S. Congress in the 22nd District where Danville dentist and conservative Republican Dan Crane beat moderate Democrat and former state Sen. Terry L. Bruce of Olney with 54 percent of the vote. Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. George Shipley did not run, and with Crane's win, the Illinois delegation in Congress for the first time since 1972, will have a Republican majority, 13 to 12.
But U.S. Rep. Abner J. Mikva of Evanston bucked the conservative trend and won another term by about 1,200 votes in the 10th District. Mikva, a liberal Democrat, faced a strong Republican challenge from conservative state Rep. John E. Porter. A new congressman is Bennett M. Stewart, Democrat from the 1st Disirict in Chicago, who easily won the seat of the late Ralph H. Metcalfe. Stewart was appointed to run after Metcalfe's death just four weeks prior to the election. All incumbent Illinois representatives in Congress won reelection. The Democratic wins Democrats Alan J. Dixon, Jerome A. Cosentino and, apparently, Roland W. Burris upset the statewide Republican applecart. Dixon won reelection with a tremendous plurality (75 per cent) in the Secretary of State's race, and Cosentino won the treasurer's race with 53 percent. Dixon again appears a leading contender for the next Democratic nomination for governor. Burris, the apparent winner as of November 15 in the incredibly close comptroller's race, will have the opportunity to continue the tradition playing the gadfly role to the governor. Burris is the first black ever elected to major statewide office in Illinois, if his victory totals hold up. The vote count in the race for comptroller had twice shown John W. Castle in the lead, due to mistakes in tabulating the vote downstate — most notably a computer error in Madison County. The biggest message in Thompson's reelection triumph may be that voters like his fiscal conservatism. The last two governors were not granted a second term by the electorate. Gov. Ogilvie was defeated in 1972 after he supported the state income tax in 1969, and Gov. 2/December 1978/Illinois Issues
Daniel Walker was beaten in the Democratic primary in 1976 after a term of deficit spending. But Gov. Thompson managed to get two balanced budgets through a legislature controlled by the Democratic opposition. The conservative disposition of the electorate to make government spend less was a major message of the election — both on the state and the national level. The election results give Gov. Thompson an opportunity to shape a legislative agenda. During his first two years, he said he was hesitant to offer major programs since he knew there could be little practical possibility of their passage. Instead, he settled for compromise solutions on a few key issues. It is now expected that Thompson will push for major government programs and reforms to be passed by the General Assembly. If he can muster a working coalition of Republicans and independent Democrats, he should succeed. But first, he must announce his plans and priorities. Governor's mandate Gov. Thompson's largest mandate, of course, is on tax reform. His advisory proposition, which calls for a ceiling on taxes and spending, was approved by over 80 per cent of the voters. It appears that the 81st General Assembly will have to act on this demand by the voters. The main problem still to be faced is the drafting of a plan that will be fair to taxpayers, supportive of important services provided by state government, and acceptable to both parties. Gov. Thompson has consistently spoken in terms of reduced spending instead of tax relief through rebates or lids. He hints at a belief that the entire tax structure needs revamping, but has not yet offered a specific tax reform plan. Bakalis and other Democrats called it duplicitous of the governor to promise delivery of a tax plan prior to the election, and then to fail to deliver one. Thompson said that the importance and complexity of the problem militated against rushing into anything. Now he must deliver. He has the time, power and duty to redesign the state's revenue system. He can set an alternate example for the nation with a more responsible plan than California's cleaver approach to tax cuts. He has the staff acumen and political wherewithal to deliver such a plan, drawing upon the respected knowledge of experienced state revenue experts such as former Gov. Richard B. Ogilvie and Bureau of the Budget Director Robert L. Mandeville. Given whatever proposals Thompson generates as well as the specific provisions of the proposed Taxpayers' Rights Amendment (see "Illinois' tax revolt — the 8% solution," pp. 10-12), the 81st General Assembly should produce at
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least the groundwork for a tax reform package next spring. Meanwhile the governor will be expected to hold the line on spending, despite the crying need for improvement in services by the Illinois social welfare and criminal justice systems. Thompson has already announced that during the veto session he will back a supplementary appropriation for prisons totaling 21.6 million to meet the recommendations of the Governor's Corrections Study Task Force, formed following the Pontiac prison riot July 22. He also supports a $5.5 million supplementary appropriation for dealing with child abuse. Gov. Thompson mentioned the need to improve social services and corrections in his victory speech in Chicago on election night. But the key to upgrading services may be the governor's success in implementing the recommendations of his cost control task force, formed from the ranks of corporate executives outside the entrenched state bureaucracy. This voluntary task force charged in its July 1978 report that state government wastes $500 million annually. Part of Thompson's mandated duty in the next four years will be to implement most of the 687 cost-saving methods recommended to remedy waste, and to explain why, if he decides some recommendations should not be heeded. Cutting the waste from government will be more politically sensitive than implementing a tax reform package, since a principal method proposed to save "waste" involves firing 4,000 state workers immediately and phasing out 2,500 other jobs eventually— a proposal Thompson has already rejected. Percy's message For Sen. Percy, the election means changing his ways. The Chicago Sun-Times straw poll once showed him down by 16.8 per cent, and this can be directly attributed to voter dissatisfaction with Percy's voting record. His "yea" votes on the Panama Canal Treaty and for the Equal Rights Amendment time-limit extension were particularly unpalatable to some of his conservative Republican supporters. Alex Seith ran a million-dollar media campaign on a platform of tough spending curbs, tax cuts, "revenue keeping" (whereby 10 per cent of federal income tax money is kept for state and local governments), and big tax credits for businesses and corporations. Seith convincingly labelled Percy a big spender. Sen. Percy did poorly in the polls until the final week. He went on TV and radio to admit his liberal sins, and to say he had received the people's "message." That message was apparent: spend less federal money and less time in Washington. Many conservatives may also have taken it to mean that Percy in the future would embrace fewer liberal philosophic and social issues, but Percy did not make explicit promises in that direction. "Believe me, I've gotten the message and you're right," Sen. Percy said. "Washington has gone overboard and I'm sure I've made my share of mistakes. But in truth, your priorities are mine, too — stop the waste, cut the spending, cut the taxes," he said in a preelection commercial. His aides say privately that within days of his reelection the senator had ordered his staff to begin research on federal tax cut legislation. In the next Congress Percy will have considerable power as ranking Republican member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which will oversee reform of the U.S. Post Office. Sen. Percy also is second-ranking GOP member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, with 12 years seniority. According to his aides. Sen. Percy's first priority in the next session will be adoption of federal sunset legislation to review all programs of government on a regular basis, and to cut waste. The fact that the national economy has been sliding, with spiralling inflation and dire warnings of recession, perhaps contributed to the conservative money message sent by the voters in the election. It is the same mood that could put pressure on the General Assembly to go along with the governor in whatever effort he makes at cutting government waste, reforming the tax structure, and upgrading the prisons and social services administered by the state.
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