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POLITICS
Do you care which
petulant pol prevails on Meigs?
by Charles N. Wheeler III
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Unless you're a state official or a corporate executive, chances are the fate of Northerly Island, nee Meigs Field, is not among your top issues. |
What ought to be of concern |
Oh, you may agree with Gov. Jim Edgar that it's convenient for business people (and governors) to have a landing strip just a few minutes away from the Loop. Or you may like Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's plan to turn the 91-acre island into a park, complete with campgrounds and a snorkeling lagoon. And you probably find it both passably strange and slightly amusing that two of the state's most powerful political leaders are eyeball-to-eyeball over the tiny airport in the lake.
But do you really care which of the petulant pols prevails? Probably not. Perhaps what ought to be of concern, however, is what the current hostilities could portend for the coming legislative session. The danger is that residual ill will from the personal battle between Edgar and Daley over a relatively inconsequential issue might poison the legislative climate, stilling productive action on more important matters.
As the lame-duck Republican majorities moved to wrest Meigs from city control last month, some legislators downplayed such concerns. Rank-and-file lawmakers knew they were mere pawns in a battle of behemoths.
With no personal stake in the outcome, they figured there was no reason to hold grudges for the next legislature.
The combatants, too, sought to allay the fears, insisting the feud would not carry over into other areas. The governor repeated his standard line that nothing in Springfield is connected to anything else, while the mayor insisted he could deal separately with as many as a dozen unrelated items at the same time. Those are welcome reassurances for the vast majority of Illinoisans who have never set foot on Northerly Island or flown into Meigs Field. They would be more believable, however, were it not for the apparent inability of either man to work well with the other and the legislative penchant for tit-for-tat retaliation.
Comity, not confrontation, is what will be needed from the governor, the mayor and lawmakers of both parties for the incoming legislature to deal successfully with the critical issues before it.
Top priority, of course, ought to go to revamping school finance. What's wrong with Illinois' current system of paying for public schools is no secret. State funding covers less than a third of education costs, so schools must rely heavily on property taxes. As a result, there are huge disparities between have and have-not districts and tens of thousands of Illinois youngsters don't have the financial backing experts say is needed to provide an adequate education.
The solution is equally obvious. More of the burden should be shifted to the state income tax from local property taxes, with an accompanying guarantee of enough dollars in each district for an adequate education for all students.
Indeed, such proposals have been offered for years from sources as diverse as former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dawn dark Netsch, the school funding commission appointed by Edgar and headed by former University of Illinois President Stanley Ikenberry, and a current coalition of parents, teachers, principals and other school officials.
What's been lacking, of course, is the political will to enact the change. Now imagine that Edgar and Daley agree on a school funding plan and are willing to devote to its passage the same amount of time, energy and political muscle that have been squandered on Meigs. Education finance reform would be a foregone conclusion — and a well-prepared work force surely would do more for Illinois' future than either a convenient landing strip or another few acres of lakefront parkland.
While school funding is perhaps the most fruitful vineyard in which Edgar and Daley should be laboring, the example of cooperation and civility they should set would produce a more agreeable legislative climate for productive consideration of other issues with major implications for state residents. Consider these:
• Health care. Legislation to ban "drive-through" deliveries and outpa-
38 / January 1997 Illinois Issues
tient mastectomies merely foreshadows a coming debate over the extent to which health maintenance organizations and other managed care providers should influence doctors' decisions about medical care. Lawmakers will be asked to strike the proper balance between traditional notions of medical care and the desire of employers and insurers to hold down costs. Their response will help shape the future of health care for all Illinoisans.
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• Electric deregulation. Congress seems ready to order states to allow competition in the electric industry, ending the monopolies power companies have enjoyed for years. Deregulation advocates believe competition will reduce the price of electricity, spurring economic growth and job creation. Battle lines already are |
Consensus, not conflict, |
forming here, where lawmakers must decide such knotty questions as whether large industrial users should be first in line for cheaper electricity, what provisions should be made to protect utilities like Commonwealth Edison that can't sell power as cheaply as companies that don't have to pay off the costs of nuclear power plant construction, and how to insure that low-income households have access to affordable electricity.
• Campaign finance reform. True, expecting the legislature to tighten the state's lax campaign funding regulations is probably wishful thinking. Still, even a few small improvements would be welcome. One place to start: pushing the primary date ahead from March, preferably to September, thus shortening the campaign (and spending) season.
None of these issues needs to be dealt with on a partisan basis; instead, each deserves careful study, then action on the merits. Consensus, not conflict, will be required if lawmakers — and the governor and the mayor — are to meet the challenges of the 90th General Assembly.
Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Illinois Issues January 1997 /39
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