Politics

Folks who live in central Illinois are all too familiar with the discomfort index — combining temperature and relative humidity to provide quantitative backing for your suspicion that the world is really a giant sauna.

If political scientists wished to borrow a page from their meteorological cousins, they might devise a similar gauge to help voters decide how discontented they should be with their elected officials.

Our hypothetical "government annoyance gauge," or GAG, could relate productive activity — actual achievement — to political posturing and partisan rhetoric. Using that methodology, the GAG rating for the spring legislative session would be off the scale. Seldom before have so many debated so shrilly or schemed so deviously to produce so little.

In fairness, the legislature should be credited for its major accomplishments — both of them.

Lawmakers enacted a long-term pension financing plan designed to bring the state's retirement systems — now facing a near $15 billion shortfall — to 90 percent of full funding by the year 2045. Most notably, the measure calls for automatic transfer of the required amounts into the pension kitty each year, even if the governor and legislature don't appropriate the money — something like the chronic snacker who padlocks the refrigerator.

Also approved was a far-reaching plan to revamp the way health care is provided to the poor. The ambitious reform calls for shifting some 1.1 million poor and disabled Illinoisans into an HMO-like managed care system, in hopes of slowing down runaway Medicaid costs.

Gov. Jim Edgar and legislative leaderalso would credit themselves for approving a $33.4 billion budget for fiscal year 1995. But the spending plan relies on the time-honored Statehouse tradition of jacking up revenue estimates, ratcheting down spending projections and hoping the package won't unravel before year's end. Moreover, its approval came after 12 days of legislative overtime, and even now one can't help but wondering whether the stalemate would still be on were it not for Edgar's heart bypass surgery.

What didn't lawmakers accomplish during the second-longest session in state history? The list is substantial, but major omissions might include:

•School financing. The legislature's refusal to grapple with the question of how public schools should be funded was predictable, especially after Comptroller Dawn dark Netsch, the Democratic candidate for governor, made the issue a key plank of her campaign. Still, even though the new budget boosted aid to local schools by $185 million, the gap between rich and poor districts will remain wide. Also scuttled was the worthwhile charter school experiment Edgar proposed in his State of the State address.

•Gun control. Lawmakers shrank from modest attempts to regulate handguns; they also shot down an assault weapon ban despite its backing from both the governor and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. House members who can derive some political firepower from the issue need not fear, however; House Speaker Michael J. Madigan (D-22, Chicago) engineered enough roll calls to give everyone brochure bragging rights.

•Purchasing reform. Both chambers approved measures intended to crack down on state contracting abuses, again giving lawmakers roll calls showing they're on the side of the angels. But no reform bills cleared both chambers, thus saving pinstripe patronage from the wild- eyed reformers for another session.

•Voter registration. The Senate pigeonholed House-approved legislation to conform Illinois election law to a federal statute that permits would-be voters to register by mail and at driver's license facilities and other state agencies. Senate President James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale) deems the fall veto session soon enough to consider what many

6/August 1994/Illinois Issues

Republicans see as an open invitation to vote fraud. Should the so-called "motor- voter" bill stall then, however, election officials face the nightmare of establishing two separate registration systems — one for those eligible to vote only for federal candidates, the other for those qualified to vote as well for state and local hopefuls.

And the Illinois primary date remains fixed in March, instead of shifted to a more sensible time later in the year.

•Chicago riverboats. Whether you're for them or against them, there's no denying that the city's push for floating casinos is a big-ticket item. Of perhaps greater interest from a political standpoint, the fact the boats still are in dry- dock, despite Daley's single-minded pursuit and Edgar's lukewarm endorsement, illustrates the extent to which Chicago mayors and Illinois governors have lost the power to dictate legislative events.

In compiling the GAG rating for the 1994 spring session, of course, you have to pay special attention to one issue above all others — pay raises for lawmakers, judges, statewide elected officers and key department managers that will take effect for most officials when new terms begin next year.

Set against a backdrop of constant partisan bickering and election-year gridlock, the recommendations of the Compensation Review Board come at a most inopportune time, and the manner in which they were approved fueled public cynicism.

Under the law, the board's salary schedule takes effect unless turned down by both chambers. The Senate — where only about a third of the membership is up for reelection — refused to say no to higher pay. That afforded House members the chance to vote against the raises — which 105 did — secure in the knowledge they'd still collect if they win another term.

Perhaps the folks back home might want to ask the 105 who voted to reject the raise whether they'll return the extra money. It might be an interesting way to measure your local lawmaker's GAG.

Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at Sangamon State University in Springfield and former correspondent in the Springfield bureau of the Chicago Sun-Times. 

August 1994/Illinois Issues/7