Legislative Action

By CYNTHIA PETERS

Commission reform: Reality or rhetoric?

ALTHOUGH legislators met in February to hear Gov. James R. Thompson's State of the State message, they didn't get down to business until after the March primaries. Republicans seemed to get the message when Thompson said that he would reactivate his 1978 Cost Control Task Force, and they appear to be following his lead.

According to a preliminary study by House Minority Leader Lee A. Daniels and his House Republican Policy Committee, taxpayers are picking up the $15 million tab for a "cornucopia" of 53 legislative commissions — some of which have produced nothing so much as patronage.

Tackling legislative commissions is the first effort of the session by this committee that Daniels created last year. It has studied mass transit, income tax and prisons. The 53 commissions reviewed in the report all receive direct appropriations from general revenue funds, but they are only a portion of the total number of legislative, executive and judicial commissions on the books.

In many cases, the committee said, the commissions are accountable to no one, have no clear goal and duplicate other groups — failings reformers have been pointing out over the last decade. Commissions once helped to fill in the gaps when the General Assembly met only once every two years, and the standing committees "died" along with the House and Senate upon adjournment. That function was necessary under the 1870 Constitution which called for a biennial legislature, but the 1970 Constitution calls for annual sessions.

Commissions are a patronage haven because there are no standardized personnel practices — which the minority, be it Republican or Democratic, never fails to point out. (Patronage, after all, is most useful to those in control.) It is no secret that House Republicans are outraged at Democratic House Speaker Michael J. Madigan's blatant manipulation of commissions to strengthen his burgeoning power base downstate.

During last year's spring session, a sharpness entered the perennial partisan debate over commissions. The controlling Democrats defeated an attempt to force the sun to set on some 103 boards, commissions, committees and advisory boards under H.B. 608, sponsored by Rep. Mike Tate (R-102, Decatur) and Rep. Jill Zwick (R-65, Dundee). The Senate also held up an appropriations bill last spring in a debate over commission funding. During those debates, Sen. Roger A. Keats (R-29, Wilmette) suggested that reporters conduct their own investigation into funding: "Some of you might ask Speaker Madigan why his chief of staff sat in his office and called in executive directors from commissions and said 'you put one of my patronage hacks on your payroll or I'm cutting your budget.' And when you look at Speaker Madigan's methods of cutting and increasing, it had to do with how many new hacks they were willing to hire."

This spring, the Republicans may try again to take some of the spoils of control from the Democrats. Daniels said his committee's final report may be used to draft legislation for the spring session. But such reform usually fails when reformers are in the minority — in this case 48 Republicans to 70 Democrats in the House.

So while the Republicans have nothing to lose by raising the banner of good government in an election year, there seems to be no chance that the Democrats will allow them to lower the flag on commissions. And Madigan, who prides himself on a well-run House, will no doubt try to fly the flag of reform to his advantage.

When the General Assembly was in session on February 7 and 8, legislators tied up a few loose ends — including appropriation of $4 million to dispose of cyanide-tainted film chips stored in Chicago and Dixon. A Cook County Circuit Court judge had ordered the state to devise such a disposal plan by February 24, even though the state may eventually receive federal aid from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "Superfund."

Meanwhile, Thompson had agreed to spend $400,000 in general funds for domestic violence shelters in the wake of another court ruling which struck down an increase in divorce filing fees to finance the shelters (see "Judicial Rulings," April 1984, p. 39). He also promised Senate President Philip J. Rock that he would spend $500,000 in general funds to cover the start-up costs for Rock's new insurance program for job training (see "Legislative Action," February, p. 31).

In another item of business, the House and Senate scheduled deadlines for the spring session, with the powerful rules committee in each chamber set to monitor the flow of legislation in this so-called "off year" devoted to appropriations. The deadlines are: introduction of substantive bills — April 12 (House) and April 13 (Senate), appropriations bills — April 6 (House) and April 13 (Senate); committee action on substantive bills — May 4, appropriations bills — May 11; and floor action on substantive bills — May 25, appropriations bills — June 1. For bills that survive their house of origin, the cycle then starts over in the other chamber for committee and floor action. □

April 1984/Illinois Issues/35