Legislative Action By DIANE ROSS

Expectations and exigencies

THE budget was the only real issue before the General Assembly this year, right? The Republicans and Democrats were just fighting over a few bills they could use against each other in November, right? And the Equal Rights Amendment was the dominant political issue, right?

Wrong on all counts. Weeks before adjournment many commentators (including this writer) had pronounced this the most extraordinarily do-nothing session in memory. And in the days immediately following adjournment some were still saying what a shame it was the legislature didn't make any real progress in addressing the issues. The truth (when the curtain on the drama finally rang down about 2:30 a.m. July 2) was that lawmakers had taken care of business as usual, meaning they had secured political survival.

Traditionally, it is the final hours of the January-to-June session that tell the story, and 1982 proved no exception. When dawn broke that Friday morning, with rain drizzling down on a smoldering Statehouse, the record showed the Illinois General Assembly had, in fact, decided the political issues. In those final hours: 1) Lawmakers gave Gov. James R. Thompson the statutory authority to transfer money from special trust funds to the general funds, which legalized gubernatorial manipulation of the cash flowing through state coffers — an unprecedented action; 2) lawmakers gave Mayor Jane Byrne (actually the Chicago school board) the statutory authority to hike property taxes without a referendum, a move designed to raise money for teacher pension benefits; 3) lawmakers bailed out the financially beleaguered Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) with additional bonding power. Furthermore, the governor got a suburban Republican majority on the RTA board, while the mayor got enough money to pay the debts of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA).

Those who watched the final hours closely were surprised at how easily lawmakers cut the deal — last year it was all wheeling and no dealing — and observers were impressed with the professionalism with which lawmakers secured their political survival.

In the final analysis, all the sound and fury over the ERA had served, albeit accidentally, as nothing more than a smoke screen. Thanks to the fasters and the chain gang, the media had little time for the legislature. Eleanor Smeal's National Organization for Women (NOW) and Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum had filled the rotunda of the Statehouse with so much ERA smoke the public had forgotten the Democrats and Republicans were still upstairs, cooking up election-year deals in the House and Senate. Legislators couldn't have created a better diversion if the leadership had kept the rank and file plotting in caucus for weeks. (Ironically, NOW's ERA Countdown Campaign never appeared more politically inept than in its television commercials. How lawmakers must have laughed when they saw Mario Thomas accusing them of sealing the ERA's fate behind the closed doors of the proverbial smoke-filled room: The ERA probably never came up.)

In dismissing 1982 as a do-nothing session, many observers had committed the sin of cardinality. They had let one issue (the ERA) dominate their perceptions, and they had judged the legislature before it adjourned. What Yogi Berra once noted about a baseball game is also true of the Illinois General Assembly: "It's not over until it's over." Nothing is final until the report of the last conference committee is adopted, until the House Speaker, the Senate President have announced adjournment and banged the gavels on the blocks, and lawmakers straggle over to the Executive Mansion for a nightcap on the governor.

The public, of course, had expected the legislature to do more than was politically possible; the public always does. But for once the commentators had underestimated what was politically possible and forgotten what was politically necessary. Hence the pronouncements on what was judged to be a gentlemen's agreement to sit the session out, the lack of bitter partisan

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brawls, et cetera.

In truth, 1982 was a business-as-usual session because 1982 is an election year, an election year in which everybody from the governor to the legislature to the judges, not to mention the mayor of the City of Chicago, is on the ballot. Nothing was more important that getting reelected. Everyone had something to gain, something to lose and something to trade.

The agendas were never really hidden. It was no secret that Thompson, running for a third term, had been lossing sleep over the state's cash flow crisis for a year. And Byrne, who is up for reelection next spring, had had nightmares of mass transit shutdowns and teachers' strikes ever since she took office. But the deals can't be cut until the last minute. Despite the ERA diversion, lawmakers were, as usual, suffering from the Monty Hall Syndrome: They had to find out what was in the box before they could decide whether to go for what was on the floor, what was on the floor before what was behind the curtain. The game is won or lost in the strategy. Just how badly did Thompson need $45 million in transfers? Just how badly did Byrne need $57 million in property tax revenue? Or $100 million in bonding power? Apparently enough to make an even trade. But the leaders in the legislature couldn't tell until the end of the session, and even then it took them four days in caucus to convince the rank and file.

What did the Illinois General Assembly give Thompson and Byrne, exactly?

The governor can now transfer up to a total of $45 million from dozens of special trust funds to the general revenue funds during the first six months of the state fiscal 1983, provided he puts the money back where it belongs during the second six months. This allows Thompson to artificially, but legally, raise the balance in the general funds from the $187 million available July 1, to $232 million by November 5. (It's to Byrne's advantage to see Thompson reelected, since, historically, the mayors of Chicago have found it easier to "work" with Republican governors of Illinois.) This measure constitutes an unprecedented legislative blessing on a notorious gubernatorial practice: manipulating cash flow to political advantage. The bill went to the governor on a 119-47 vote in the House, 39-19 in the Senate.

The mayor (actually the Chicago school board) can now raise the property tax rate for the teachers' pension fund from 5 to 48 cents per $100 equalized assessed valuation without a referendum. This allows the school board to generate another $57 million during the 1982-83 school year, which in turn allows the board to continue its practice of paying the teachers' share of contributions to the pension fund, a settlement teachers agreed to a few years ago when the board began to run out of money for pay raises. The bill went to the governor on a 93-70 vote in the House, 36-19 in the Senate.

The RTA can now raise another $100 million in revenue by selling bonds and repaying the bond debt from anticipated sales tax receipts. The RTA Board must spend the initial $20 million on suburban buses and trains, but the next $35 million is earmarked to pay CTA debts. Also, Democrats lose control of the RTA in June 1983 when suburban Republicans gain a 7-6 majority on the board. The bill went to the governor on a 116-53 vote in the House, 39-17 in the Senate.

Will Thompson's transfer balance the fiscal 1983 budget? Will Byrne's property tax revenue keep Chicago schools solvent? Permanently? Will the bonding power keep the RTA running? Permanently? Of course not. But that was never the point. The deal cut provides only enough money to defuse the cash flow crisis until after the gubernatorial election and to keep teachers from striking and buses and trains from shutting down until after the mayoral election. That's all the lawmakers intended to do, all they wanted to do, all they could do. And they succeeded.

Only the new legislature, the one to be sworn in next January, can solve the big problem: how to raise the income tax, and so guarantee the solvency of the government.

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