by Jack Van Der Slik
Legislatures are frequent targets of criticism and scorn. The Illinois General Assembly is no exception. But as a longtime observer, I think many of the critics are uninformed.
While I was in graduate school, my dissertation mentors published a 1964 essay in the Antioch Review titled, "Why Our State Governments Are Sick." The main problem was that state legislatures were behind the times. They were badly apportioned, overrepresenting rural and small town issues and attitudes. They were filled with political amateurs and part-timers. Rapid turnover prevented the accumulation of expertise. There was little partisan clarity and responsibility for issues. Constitutional powers were limited, sessions short and policy expertise haphazard. State spending was the sum of hundreds of appropriations made without any overall budgetary plan. My teachers believed state governments' maladies would not be cured until legislatures were modernized.
The Illinois General Assembly shared those maladies — and participated in the cure. The contrast between the past and the present can hardly be greater. Malapportionment in this and other states has been overcome, the result of one-person, one-vote rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Illinois' new state constitution hastened legislative reforms begun in the 1960s, increasing the independence of the legislative branch. Now, lawmakers set their own
| The legislative leaders are accountable to their partisan colleagues/or the terms of agreements reached with the opposing party, |
calendar. They have office space and professional staff. Budgets, political entities as always, are built upon informed estimates of revenues and costs. The legislature is representative of the great ethnic, geographic and partisan diversity of Illinois. And there are strong partisan leaders with alternative policy objectives.
In short, the machinery of government in this state functions effectively.
Nevertheless, that effectiveness wins disregard from the press. Recently, Governing magazine returned to the subject of "sick legislatures." But these days, the image is reversed. The magazine's central argument is that "professionalism creates an institution filled with able, full-time legislators, talented staff and generous resources. And yet many state legislatures have become hopelessly polarized, from the back benches to the rostrum." Governing argues that, as legislators become careerists focused on re-election, the legislative parties become solidified, meaning hard bargaining in the legislative process looks like bickersome partisan sniping.
Indeed, in this state most critics of the General Assembly complain that the legislative leadership has become too dominant. The media bemoan the fact that major issues go unresolved until the "powerful" legislative leaders, dubbed the Four Tops, meet with the governor to negotiate compromises in a back room. Until then, "nothing gets done." This description is partially true, but it is hardly the whole story.
First, as a matter of course reporters and editors are knee-jerk critics of a political process whenever major matters are resolved in the "back room," the back room being any location where the press is not permitted full access to sessions of hard bargaining. They respond by demeaning the results of such negotiations as "deals," vaguely implying that public interests have not been fairly served.
Second, a great deal of legislation is enacted to little media attention, much less applause. Hundreds of bills of small-to-medium scope are passed to help constituents, local groups, small businesses and units of local government. They affect public safety, roads, insurance, agency regulations and health care. The legislature hears thousands of such requests each session and, typically, dozens of them pass with little fanfare. Similarly, legislators inconspicuously satisfy hundreds of casework requests from constituents great and small, often giving help that requires no legislation.
Third, what should be understood about the "too powerful" legislative leaders? They have always had great procedural control in their chambers: the authority to dominate the flow of business from committee to floor. What has changed here, and in many other states, is that the leaders use procedural powers to partisan policy advantage. This change is closely connected to shifts in party organization, campaign styles and campaign finance.
In past decades, most legislative candidates were recruited and supported by county and local party organizations. What changed? The redistricting revolution requiring equal population
6 / January 1999 Illinois Issues
districts caused a disconnection between legislative boundaries and traditional party jurisdictions. And the strength of local party units eroded as patronage jobs declined. So legislative candidates became independent agents, running their own campaigns with the help of media consultants. And legislative leaders.
In earlier years, party leaders in the General Assembly were active only when the legislature was in session in Springfield. In our day, they have become year-around political organization managers and fundraisers. The objective: gain and hold majority party control in the House and Senate.
That is no small task. Illinois is a well-balanced partisan state. That is evident in the closeness of statewide elections. But because the state's legislative districts are fairly apportioned, the party balance in the legislative chambers also is usually close. Majority control, epitomized in the positions of speaker of the House and president of the Senate, is up for grabs every election. As a result, all four legislative leaders — including one from the minority party in each chamber— wanting the benefits that go with majority control, have assumed the tasks of recruiting candidates for the toss-up seats, "targets" in the political lingo, and of defining the issues and media strategies.
The leaders hire polling services, media consultants and phone banks, becoming one-stop shops for legislative candidates in competitive districts. This effort takes money, but in the race to trade cash for access, the political action committees of lobbying organizations are available to fuel the leaders' campaign war chests.
These political changes have affected governance, of course. Legislative staff was once hired only for its policy expertise. Now, key staff members must also be skilled at running campaigns during the election season. And the election season is never over. Thus, the leaders' staffs have begun to merge campaign sensitivities and rivalries into policy deliberations.
Major issues — tax policy, school funding, business and health care regulations, environmental protection, economic development — divide the two parties into rival interests.
Still, the leaders must answer to their party caucuses. No mean feat in itself. And in Illinois, the urban concerns of Democrats differ from the suburban needs of Republicans. The traditional pursuits of rural Democrats from the southern end of the state clash with those of Republicans in agribusiness and the small towns of central and northern Illinois.
When the legislative leaders negotiate policy solutions, they have to defend the outcomes and consequences to their contrasting constituencies. Their proposals are only meaningful because they can be backed up by member votes. Inside the caucus, the leader is concerned not just with member wishes, but member intensities. And frequently, the leader advocates at the bargaining table for what an intense few of his members seek.
In short, the leader's power is checked in his party caucus, and he is accountable to his colleagues for the terms of agreements reached with opposition leaders. Without rank-and-file supporters, compromises cannot pass in the legislative chambers. Of course, having funded campaigns on the outside and bargained for members on the inside, the leaders do have the leverage to say, "On this roll call I need your vote," or "We can't get our way on this bill, so I need your help to bury it in committee."
Certainly, highly touted policy proposals sometimes don't win legislative acceptance. Sometimes the consensus after a long battle is to disagree and walk away with no change. Last session, pressure to regulate health maintenance organizations produced a Republican version that passed the Senate and a House version favored by Democrats. But neither chamber would adopt the other's, so no policy change resulted. I expect that in the upcoming session agreement will be achieved and legislation is likely to be adopted. That such tough issues don't get resolved in a single biennium is no proof that the system is not working.
Gov. Jim Edgar could not get his preferred version of the Ikenberry Commission education reforms adopted by the legislature because he couldn't get suburban Republicans on board. Eventually, however, a quite different education bill passed, heralded mostly for putting $500 million into the state's poorer school districts. True, it did not shift the tax burden for funding schools, and it offered no property tax relief. Still, lawmakers achieved some reforms and an increase in school spending.
This education bill, and a more recent utility rate regulation measure, are examples of challenging legislation addressing policy needs that aroused harsh debate, partisan rhetoric, procedural moves and countermoves and eventual compromise.
The essential point is that we do get consensus, even on sticky issues. Not always quickly. Often not quickly enough for media critics.
Our noisy, partisan legislature is not always pretty to look at. And I often counsel school teachers not to bring their students into the galleries to see the legislature in action. The scene on the floor — members ignoring speeches, pizza and popcorn at the ready, periodic fits of shouting among members — belies the fact that the legislature is an effective arena of consensus-making.
Despite the bad manners of contemporary members, though, we should recall that the "get along, go along days" of greater bipartisan tranquility covered petty graft and fetcherism, along with a lot of just plain policy incompetence.
And our costly legislative election campaigns are a result of partisan competitiveness in both statewide and local jurisdictions, not the cause. Issues count because legislative leaders and members count votes. Representational democracy is inherently messy, but our legislature certainly is not sick.
Actually, it works pretty well.
Jack Van Der Slik retired last month as director of the Legislative Studies Center at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
7/ Illinois Issues January 1999