Politics By BARBARA J. HIPSMAN and BOB SPRINGER

WHEN VOTERS in 1980 cut the Illinois House by a third, they thought — indeed, had been promised — they were embarking on a journey toward reform of state government. The road to reform normally is long and arduous; but through the Cutback Amendment, many believed they had found a shortcut, an express lane.

The first scaled-down House under the Cutback is five months old and entering the hectic, final month of its novice spring session. The question for advocates of the change is: Did they, indeed, take the fast lane to reform?

The General Assembly, of course, is anything but a controlled laboratory. It does not lend itself easily to pure scientific inquiry. Chief among impure variables clouding every study's picture are less-than-obvious motives of political greed and political integrity. Nevertheless, some early signs of the Cutback's effects are emerging.

The Cutback lopped off 59 of the House's 177 seats. The reduction came by substituting 118 single-member districts for the antiquated cumulative voting — unique to Illinois — in which three House members were elected in each of 59 districts.

Through such radical constitutional change, the amendment was to achieve a range of secondary goals. For example it was to save taxpayers money. It has, but far short of the $7 million a year predicted by its driving force, Patrick Quinn of the Coalition for Political Honesty. The half-year savings from fewer legislators' salaries and reduced secretarial staff and other changes should have been $3.5 million. The actual savings in the fiscal year ending June 30 have been roughly only $2 million. The savings next fiscal year, woefully shy of $7 million, are likely to shrink further as the legislature, bit by bit, satisfies its traditional spending appetite.

During preelection debate, the Cutback's arch opponents — who, not surprisingly, included a sizable number of lawmakers targeted to fall victim to the amendment's arithmetic — warned legislative costs are driven mainly by a state's population, not by the number of its legislators. Indeed, this was supported by an Illinois Legislative Council study. The Cutback's foes were either darned accurate or, since many played a role in setting the current legislative budgets, indulging in prophecy they knew they'd fulfill.

The Cutback also was to result in fewer pieces of legislation, much of which is useless anyway, Quinn said, because there'd be fewer people to file such time-wasting commodities. That hasn't happened at all because — as is painfully obvious to lawmakers — most bills are inspired by special interests or constituents, not dreamt up by legislators.

With one House legislator serving people who previously could look to two others for help, many members of the trimmed-down House have been extremely skittish, even afraid, of bruising a voter by refusing to carry a bill designed to solve that voter's troubles.

The Cutback, said Rep. Sam Vinson (R-90, Clinton), "probably had the effect of increasing. . .the number of bills filed for self-serving public relations purposes."

What Vinson sees as self-serving p.r. may be what Cutback drafters had promised would be "increased accountability" of lawmakers.

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Something happened. In the House this spring, 396 more bills were filed than in the comparable 1981 session, when the session for filing was two weeks longer. Rep. John Cullerton (D-7, Chicago) complained the Cutback cost the House some of its finest experts on particular issues. But lobby groups and constituents still want bills. Budget cuts have heightened some groups' tendencies to seek legislative protection for their shares of public dollars. So, Cullerton said, fewer lawmakers handle more bills — and understand each one a little less.

Other promised effects of the Cutback, heralded by supporters or damned by enemies, are tougher to measure or are muddied by intervening circumstances such as 1982's reapportionment to conform to population changes.

For example, Quinn said the Cutback would produce lawmakers whose allegiances were with voters, not the political parties. This implied independence, even fierceness, to some who voted for the change. But without being arrogant or condescending, it is fair to say that voters, taken generally, tend to be highly inconsistent in their demands, easily swayed by emotional issues that may not be important and instinctively vengeful. Knowing that, many of the most liberal and most conservative legislators in the House acknowledge they have gravitated like survivalists toward the political center. "It used to be that we had honest-to-god crazy right-wingers and progressive progressives who could say what they thought," said Rep. Alan Greiman (D-l, Skokie). He thinks the first Cutback House is more homogenous, "and that's not good at all for the voter."

Numerous legislators interviewed, though, said the most important measure of the Cutback's true, long-range effects will be on power — who has it, how it's shared. But that won't begin to show up until this last, crazy month of the session. That's when the balance of power decides the fate of all this year's key issues, especially of Gov. James R. Thompson's proposed state income tax increase. □

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