POLITICAL BYTES

The comptroller's bid to upgrade the state's computer puts the Republican outside her party's mainframe

Story by Jennifer Halperin
Photographs by Judy Spencer

18 ¦ September 1996 Illinois Issues

If you're looking for a model of the ideal politician's wife, this woman could fit the bill: Active in charitable causes; mother of three beautiful children; never a bad hair day.

In fact, Loleta Didrickson played that role when she first moved to the south Chicago suburbs in the early 1970s. Her husband Charlie was an assistant committeeman in the once solidly Republican Bloom Township, and a local trustee for the village of Flossmoor. Didrickson recalls days when the coffee tables of her home were overrun with other candidates' campaign brochures.

But somewhere between the tennis courts and charity teas, she struck out on a career of her own in politics, running for the Illinois House of Representatives. Rather than stick to the school boards and park commissions that might have satisfied another woman raised in the '50s to be a good wife and mother, she became a rising star in Illinois' Republican Party.

In part, Didrickson can thank Gov. Jim Edgar for being her benefactor. He tapped her to head a state agency after she served four terms in the House. Her name had been popping up as a possiblity for statewide office, including lieutenant governor. Edgar supported her candidacy for comptroller — a post she won in 1994 — by donating $30,000 to her campaign.

But while Didrickson may also have seemed to Republican leaders to be the ideal second-tier officeholder — smart and polished, a go-along-get-along attitude — her tenure as comptroller reveals a more complex political persona.

"If Loleta's political agenda conflicts with somebody else's, she'll put her own ahead," says her longtime friend, state Sen. Aldo DeAngelis.

Just when Didrickson's future seemed brightest — when there was talk she'd make a great candidate for governor one day — she began clashing with party leaders, including Edgar. She criticized his administration for the way it handles state accounting and, against his wishes, pursued purchase of a new computer accounting system so accurate it would allow the comptroller's office to check state spending and receipts almost to the penny every working day. Legislative leaders and the governor denied the funding for it.

"She has violated the cardinal rule of politics," says one lawmaker. "You dance with the one that brung you."

At the same time, morale among many workers in her office is reportedly terrible. Pointing to budgetary constraints, she fired 58 of them this summer, prompting angry union officials to file an unfair labor practice complaint with the Illinois State Labor Relations Board as well as several grievances with the comptroller's office.

Now, even Didrickson's biggest fans wonder whether she can salvage herself politically — whether she will enjoy the fruits of higher offices to which she aspires and, some say, deserves.

"Loleta has moved forward and will move forward with what she thinks is right to do as comptroller," says DeAngelis, a Republican from Olympia Fields. "She may bruise a few egos and step on a few toes along the way. But you don't develop a heck of a base being comptroller in Illinois. The million-dollar question is whether she'll be able to nail down financial support for future runs from people who feel she's angered them. Gov. Edgar has a lot of say-so in who gets political money in Illinois."

Didrickson was raised in Chicago's 41st Ward in a family that was politically aware if not intensely involved. "There were the dinner-table discussions of current events and an awareness of politics," she says. "My father was involved with the local Republican precinct committee, but there was not a lot of heavy focus on it."

She met her husband at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. They married after her junior year, and she finished her communication degree at Governors State University in University Park. They made their home in Rockford for several years before moving to Flossmoor.

"I lived in the suburbs, but I didn't love them," Didrickson says. "It was a fabulous, wonderful place to raise your kids. I never worried about them. But for me, I just need a little more stimulation and diversity."

Just when Didrickson's future seemed brightest, she began clashing with party leaders, including Gov. Jim Edgar. She criticized the state's accounting and bought a computer system.

She put her communication degree to use doing public relations for DeAngelis' first campaign for the General Assembly. They belonged to the same church and their children are near the same ages. DeAngelis' Senate district sits near the region Didrickson eventually represented in the House.

From her first week on the job with his campaign, DeAngelis could tell Didrickson was bitten by the political bug. He says she soon showed an ability to "read the political tea-leaves."

For example, in her first run for public office, she entered what she sensed was an overcrowded primary race for state representative from the south suburban 37th legislative district. She emerged the winner, says DeAngelis, in large part because the other three candidates split the bulk of the votes.

"I'm not so sure she would have won if it was a one-on-one race," he says. "But it's an example of her being able to read a political situation extremely well."

Once in office, she became minority spokeswoman for the House Labor and Commerce Committee, and a noted advocate of women's health issues.

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She also co-sponsored the 1985 Education Reform Act, which aimed to change the state aid formula for school districts to encourage consolidation of schools, and set up testing in reading, math and language arts for students in four grades.

But Didrickson says her work on the Labor and Commerce Committee piqued her interest in and expanded her knowledge of business issues. She helped forge agreement on legislation that eliminated the state's $2.5 billion unemployment insurance deficit, earning her recognition from Illinois' business community and setting the stage for her later appointment to the state employment security agency.

During her eight years in the legislature, her image back home blossomed, says former colleague Bill Mahar, whose Senate district encompassed the area Didrickson represented. The region is in political flux — once solidly Republican, it has been attracting African-American and blue-collar Democrats from Chicago, and has become a key battleground for the two parties over legislative seats. It's a different base of support than GOP-dominated DuPage County, represented by Speaker of the House Lee Daniels and Senate President James "Pate" Philip, which gave Didrickson a little independence from her party leaders while in the House.

Mahar says her popularity in her district is illustrated by the fact that she held her legislative seat so long.

"The voters elected Loleta four times before she went to head employment security," he says. "Then Manny Hoffman was elected for one session before he was turned out [in the Republican primary]. Then John Sheehy was in for one session before he was beat by Ed Zabrocki. Then Zabrocki retired, and now John Doody's been in for one term.

"She's the only one that's had any stability in that district," he says. "I think that was because she stayed visible in the community and she worked hard to help constituents — with flooding problems in the south suburbs, for instance. She's stayed very popular in the area. She's continually asked to speak at local groups, and it's a definite plus [for others seeking office] to use her name."

In 1991, Didrickson was appointed to head the state's employment security department, which administers the state's unemployment insurance program and public job training and placement services.

Taking that spot was a shrewd political move, says DeAngelis, since it occurred after new House districts were drawn for the 1990 remap. Didrickson would have had to run in a district that looked quite different from her old one, he notes; there was no guarantee she would win.

"Loleta's always been successful at making a problem into an opportunity," he says. The position gave her increased visibility to run for comptroller, the state's chief fiscal officer who oversees all state payments.

A relatively innocuous post steeped in accounting systems and fiscal documents, the comptroller's office is seen as a stepping-stone to more auspicious political positions, although that hasn't yet panned out for the relatively new state post. Michael Bakalis and Dawn Clark Netsch each had the job before their respective unsuccessful runs for governor and, though Roland Burris moved from comptroller to the state attorney general's office, he also was unable to parlay the comptroller's post into the state's top political job.

But rather than toil quietly in the role until the next election cycle, Didrickson took on the job with a vengeance that has thrilled some fiscal watchdogs and horrified others.

Most visibly, her effort to bring her office's 22-year-old computer accounting system up-to-date has earned the wrath of many. Essentially, the new system would give her office an almost up-to-the-minute picture of state finances, which she does not have now. She sought $8.1 million this year from the legislature to finance purchase of an upgraded system. While making her case, she has questioned the Edgar administration's management of state finances, calling the current accounting system wasteful and unreliable.

The problem, critics say, was that the proposed computer system would have allowed "real-time" accounting, enabling lawmakers and the public access to up-to-date numbers on state spending.

Her assessment is that the problem involves both hardware and software. The computer equipment is so old that beginning next year the manufacturer will no longer service it. Parts for the system are no longer made.

"Good, timely, detailed information is scary to some in government," she wrote in a guest column published in several Illinois newspapers. "And good decisions are not always politically popular. This is the right thing to do."

Previous Democratic comptrollers also had tried to secure funding to update the state's accounting system, but were thwarted by Republican governors. With Didrickson in the same party, it seemed a sure thing the reforms would take place.

Instead, her request was dropped during final budget negotiations between legislative leaders and the governor's office. The problem, some lawmakers say, was that Didrickson's proposed system would have allowed "real-time" accounting — something the Edgar administration does not want because it would allow lawmakers and the public access to actual numbers on state spending; now everyone relies on projections from the Bureau of the Budget. Under Didrickson's plan, future comptrollers would have more power to criticize a governor's administration because they would have a more up-to-date picture of state finances. And it would allow the political party that doesn't hold the governor's office a larger say in the budgeting process, says GOP state Sen. Chris Lauzen of suburban Geneva, an advocate of reforming the state's accounting system.

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"It's a turf battle," he says. Republicans in power fear that they'd be vulnerable to future attacks from future Democratic comptrollers and lawmakers, as well as reporters, he says.

Didrickson says she now regrets even going through the legislative process to fund the new system. "In retrospect, I should have just gotten private financing for the project. I could have saved myself a lot of grief."

Then, in what can only be characterized as a major public relations blunder, Didrickson held a press conference that left reporters with the impression she was going to fire dozens of employees to free up $5 million to begin purchasing the computer and accounting system. It made big news. A day later, her staff said the layoffs were due to cuts in the comptroller's personnel budget, and the dollars saved would not be used to pay for the new system. Her office acknowledges it would be illegal for her to do so.

The day before Didrickson planned to present an outline of employee layoffs, she replaced a member of the board that guards employees' rights in her office. The Associated Press reported that she appointed Springfield attorney Bruce Stratton to the Comptroller's Merit Commission to replace Democrat John Whitney, a member since 1981. The selection of Stratton, and her earlier appointment of prominent Republican Don Adams Jr., meant that two Didrickson appointees held the majority on the three-member board.

Whitney told the AP he had raised questions earlier in the year regarding layoffs.

In the end, Didrickson went for a scaled-down version of the computer plan, on which she'll spend $5 million this year. She fired 58 employees, prompting the unions that represent many of them to ask the legislature to investigate expenses in the comptroller's office. Union officials also filed an unfair labor practice charge against the comptroller for refusing and failing to provide them information about the layoffs. Her image hasn't been helped by scenes of tearful laid-off employees and dozens of picketers in front of one of her offices. At the same time, minorities charged they bore an unfair proportion of the firings.

So at the midpoint in her term as comptroller, Didrickson can't be characterized as popular with her party's elite or her workers.

Still, she has her defenders. "I'm glad she's got the guts to take on the political establishment," says Lauzen. "How many people do you know in Springfield who would go to bat against the powers- that-be for what they think is right?"

If the answer is "not many," there may be a reason. In politics, it's risky to disdain the loyalty of those above and below. Come election time in 1998, will Didrickson be back on the Republican ticket with the necessary financial and personal support, or back home on the tennis- court-and-charity-luncheon circuit?

Illinois Issues September 1996 ¦ 21