Politics                                                                           

Did the spring session leave
our glass half full or half empty?

Republicans are entitled to crow about fast-track passage of their wish list. Democrats say they're pleased they had no role in the work product

By CHARLES N. WHEELER III

Is the glass half full or half empty? The answer depends on whether you're pouring or drinking.

Though the answer might have come from Forrest Gump, the underlying point is valid — perception depends upon one's point of view. It's an insight that's worth recalling as one reflects upon the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly, from start to finish a session unlike any other in recent memory. Perhaps most extraordinary was its timing: When lawmakers declared their work finished and headed for home on May 26, it marked the earliest adjournment date in 62 years. During those five months, the Republican majority reshaped state policy in critical areas like welfare and civil justice and produced the most suburban-friendly state budget in years. And they did it without Democratic help, or even consultation with the erstwhile majority.

While Gov. Jim Edgar and the GOP leadership team, Senate President James "Pate" Philip and House Speaker Lee A. Daniels, took more pride in averting legislative gridlock than was warranted — after all, Mussolini SHOULD have made the trains run on time — they are entitled to crow about the fast-track enactment of a long-stymied Republican wish list. Democrats, meanwhile, professed themselves pleased to have had no role in the session's work product, which they contended favored the rich and the powerful over the needy and defenseless.

Partisan rhetoric aside, the session produced significant legislation in a number of areas that will have dramatic impact on the lives of many Illinoisans. Whether the changes are desirable, of course, will depend on one's vantage point. Consider, for example, the GOP action on some key issues:

• Property owners in Cook County will enjoy the same real estate tax caps available to collar county residents for the last four years. School districts will feel the pinch, though, especially in the south suburbs, where the cap will cost schools some $45 million, further eroding their ability to provide an adequate education to local youngsters.

• Changes in the civil justice system will limit what an injured person can collect from those who caused the injury. Proponents contend the so-called tort reform will improve the state's business climate and save consumers money. If you're the victim of someone's negligence, however, you might resent the $500,000 limit on awards for pain and suffering.

• The state welfare program that provides a safety net for needy mothers and their children will be eliminated in 1999, whether or not a replacement has been devised. In the meantime, benefits have been capped for women who have more children and taken away from teenage moms who won't live at home and go to school. While "ending welfare as we know it" is a popular political slogan, it ignores the harsh reality — there just isn't any great demand for high-school dropouts with few job skills and no work ethic.

• More defendants would serve longer prison terms with less chance of time off for good behavior under truth-in-sentencing legislation. While citizens generally support such get-tough policies, there is a downside. As one supporter, Sen. Ed Petka (R-Plainfield) noted, the state must embark upon "the most ambitous prison-building program" in its history, at a cost of some $320 million over the next 10 years, to house the expected influx of 3,700 more prisoners.

• Local schools will be able to seek waivers from state mandates, if they can show that they can achieve the same result cheaper or easier, and responsibility for Chicago's troubled school system was dumped squarely in Mayor Richard M. Daley's lap. Concern for the schools did not extend to their financial plight, however. Under the new budget, the state's share of total school costs will

6/July 1995/Illinois Issues

slide again, to about 32 percent. The $33.5 billion budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 also merits mixed reviews. Its Republican authors contend the spending plan will meet state needs without raising taxes or resorting to such traditional budget tricks as inflating revenue estimates or lowballing caseload projections. Yet the spending plan has some glaring holes, most obvious the absence of funding for prison expansion and other construction projects, which fell victim to a game of political chicken between Daniels and House Democratic Leader Michael J. Madigan. While the leaders opted to place partisan advantage ahead of the public good, lawmakers of both parties should feel obliged to provide money for new prison beds in the fall veto session. The budget falls short in other areas as well.

• The increase in general state aid, the workhorse school funding program geared toward helping poorer districts, is only $41 million, an amount so slight that almost one-third of the state's 920 school districts will get less general state aid this year than last. In contrast, there is an $84 million boost in funding for categorical programs, under which well-to-do suburban districts usually fare better.

• The state will end fiscal 1996 owing more than $1 billion to providers of health care to the poor, a $300 million improvement from this year. To shave that amount while cutting by one-third a hospital tax particularly unpopular in the suburbs, GOP budgeteers chopped some 11,000 blind and disabled persons off welfare rolls, eliminated dental, optometric and certain other health care for poor adults, and sliced some $340 million in payments to hospitals for trauma, maternity and infant care for poor people, which hospital officials warned could force some inner-city hospitals to close.

A first indication of how outsiders rate the GOP handiwork could come this fall from bond-rating agencies, who already have downgraded the state's credit rating four times during Edgar's tenure. The final assessment, however, will be made in November 1996, when Illinois voters decide at the polls whether the glass is half full or half empty. *

Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.