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 House Accountability EDITOR: Diane Ross' article on House Accountability in your December issue did offer an enlightening perspective on individual v. collective House accountability, but left the reader with a false impression about the appropriation and accountability of federal funds. Based on spending figures from the Comptroller's Office for state fiscal year 1980, more than 80 percent of all federal funds were from appropriated accounts. The House (and Senate) does indeed scrutinize and appropriate federal funds; even those which do not require any state fund or local fund match. Furthermore, it is not an uncommon practice for the General Assembly to cut the administrative funds of a program 100 percent federally funded. Just ask any of the many federal grant program managers in Illinois who are trying desperately to effectively administer a program without a full complement of operational dollars. Or, ask the citizens of Illinois who have not yet benefited from federal grant assistance because ineffective subgrantees of the State have not yet received adequate training and technical assistance. The General Assembly has assumed responsibility for appropriating federal dollars and should be held accountable as an organization of state government to allow programs to produce the most in services for every dollar the state receives from the federal government. (Name withheld by request) P.S. I request that my name be withheld for fear of recriminations against my agency by the General Assembly. Arson for hire EDITOR: Your article entitled "Fire for Hire" by Alden Solovy in the November issue merits special attention by your readers in general and the Illinois House and Senate in particular. It illustrates one of the basic problems faced by the insurance industry in all areas — greed. It is obvious that the insurance mechanism is defeated in the case of arson. Other lines of insurance have the same problem, some as obvious and others perhaps not. For example, in the current controversy surrounding the level of workman's compensation benefits in Illinois — malingering is a serious factor. It is likewise a serious factor in long-term disability insurance. Arson is a particularly heinous act. Mr. Solovy deals with several underlying reasons for arson, including revenge, etc. However, I would hazard the guess that upwards of 90 percent of all arsons are motivated by one simple desire — money. To the extent that profit could be removed from arson, it would decline. Mr. Solovy notes that S.B. 1990 failed on a tie vote. This bill would have authorized insurance companies to take a step towards eliminating arson profits. It may be that the Illinois Legislature will want to give this approach further consideration. Gerald H. Pugh Book review rebuttal EDITOR: I would like to comment briefly on Jane Clark Casey's grossly unfair review of Charter for a New Age. Of course, I recognize that when one publishes a book, one invites criticism. During the last 50 years, my many books and articles have generally been praised, and 1 should, therefore, not complain unduly if there is an occasional outrageous review. But Dr. Pisciotte and I are entitled to set the record at least partially straight in this extraordinary instance. The reviewer seems to object primarily because we have not written the kind of book that she wants — an account of what has happened to the Constitution of Ilhnois in the decade since its approval. Such a book is about to appear, but it is not our book. We tried to compress into one not too lengthy volume the long and complicated story of what brought about the 6th Illinois Constitutional Convention. Wisely, we think, we utilized the previous monographs in the series on constitution making in Illinois, edited by Dr. Pisciotte, because it was our intention to tell the whole story in one place rather than in scattered spots. Jane Casey finds these monographs, including my own on the Bill of Rights, very acceptable, but, somehow, our fair, accurate and analytical summaries of them in our general narrative are not acceptable to her. Apparently, she finds the whole less acceptable than the parts; she damns us by praising our collaborators. She disagrees, too, with our analysis of Convention President Samuel Witwer and prefers her own uninformed impression to ours, based upon intimate knowledge of the facts. There would have been no convention without Witwer. The Constitution would not have been approved by the voters without him. It is no crime, despite Jane Casey, to give him full credit as we do. Reading her review, one would never know how much important new material is in our book: the inside account of the selection of committee chairmen, vice chairmen and members and, the imbroglio with the Chicago Tribune and the black delegates over Witwer's choices; the definitive accounts of the controversies over the undelivered speech of John Gardner on Vietnam, the effort to unseat delegate Gierach and the inflammatory banking section; the struggle to work out the Convention rules, especially on conflicts of interest; an extensive hst of all of the new features of the 1970 Constitution; a group portrait of the delegates and individual portraits of many; accounts not only of the substantive and procedural committees but also of several ad hoc committees; the struggle over the convention site; and innumerable details and substantive matters not included in any of the previously published monographs or other publications. Mrs. Casey was one of the many persons thanked by us in our preface for her considerable assistance. She should know at first hand how much effort went into our research and the writing and rewriting of the book. But one would think, judged only by her review, that we threw together our book quickly, in a thoughtless fashion. This is unfair to us and to prospective readers of our work. Readers will see for themselves that we have written a serious and, hopefully, a highly readable account of an important event in our state's history. Elmer Gertz March 1981/Illinois Issues/34 |
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