By MARY C. GALLIGAN A graduate student in the Public Affairs Reporting Program at Sangamon State University, she has worked for the Decatur Herald Review and taught school in the St. Louis area since graduating from Illinois State University with a B.A. in English. Republicans' leader in House George Ryan

MINORITY Leader George H. Ryan of Kankakee is the official spokesman for the 83 Republican members of the House. With a 46-37 victory over opponent William Walsh of LaGrange Park in party caucus in December, Ryan became one of the four most powerful members of the 80th General Assembly.

The 42-year-old druggist faces the task in his third House term of pulling the GOP together after the bitter campaign for minority leader. Backed by his political "mentors" and past and present running mates from his own 43rd district — outgoing Minority Leader James "Bud" Washburn of Morris and Rep. (former Senator) Edward McBroom of Kankakee — Ryan received most of his support from downstate and the City of Chicago.

In an interview February 3 in his office, Ryan expressed his views on GOP unity, his role as minority leader and issues facing the General Assembly and the state in the next two years.

Q: What is your perception of the leadership position you hold and how do you view your role in that position?

A: Well, I was officially sworn in or elected as minority leader on the 12th of January, and I've found it to be almost overwhelming but very enjoyable — certainly very time consuming. My role at this point is to coordinate the Republican members of the House with Gov. Thompson's programs as much as possible. When you have a governor of your own political faith, it's important that you work together. I think the last four years under the Walker administration were not good. Walker had constant confrontations as much with the Democrats as he did with the Republicans, and certainly we don't want that again. We want to work. The state of Illinois has a lot of problems, and they can't be solved by a lot of political bickering.

Q: Will your party develop a legislative program of its own? Or will you follow Gov. Thompson's program?

A: Certainly we want to maintain our own identity as a branch of government, and we'll do that. We'll have proposals from time to time that I'm sure the governor will not be able to live with, but that's not going to be our intent. We want to work with him; I know he wants to work with us.

Q: How did you influence Gov. Thompson's position on pay raises for legislators?

A: A few days after I was elected, he invited the entire leadership of the 79th General Assembly and the 80th General Assembly's two minority leaders from the House and Senate, Sen. Shapiro and myself, to Chicago and the question came up. It's not that I don't believe in a pay raise for legislators; I do. Most people don't realize the time and the money that's involved in being in office. My objection was the timing of the bill. Illinois has a lot of problems that are a lot more pressing, financially, than a pay raise for legislators. Education's suffering, so is mental health. We've got people programs to take care of before we think about a pay raise.

Q: What degree of unity can we expect from the Republican side of the aisle after the hard-fought battle for the leadership with Rep. William Walsh [R., LaGrange Park]?

A: This is the first leadership fight I've been through. I thought it was a very clean -campaign. We gave about one- fourth of the House committees to Walsh supporters when we appointed five spokesmen from the Walsh side of the race. And I understand from some people who have been here a lot longer than 1 have that this is a first. There were 37 people who thought that Bill Walsh was the best choice. I don't have any grudge against those people for feeling that way. Maybe I didn't sell myself to them enough. If you talk to the Republican members, you'll see that 95 per cent of them are happy — and if I can keep 95 per cent of 83 people happy, I'm going to be happy.

Q: What effect on party unity have geographical differences had, especially downstate v. suburban Chicago?

A: I don't think it's had an effect and I believe we've dispelled that feeling with the suburban members. Certainly Bill Walsh is respected by everyone in the House, and he is a suburban member and consequently they supported him in the minority leader election. I did have three suburban people that stayed with me, and Bill Mahar (R., Homewood) of the suburban group is part of my leadership team. I named him as a conference chairman and he sits in on all our leadership meetings. I've also appointed two suburban people to committee spokesmanships, Rep. Edward Bluthardt (R., Franklin Park) to the Elections Committee and Rep. Donald Totten (R., Schaumburg) to the Motor Vehicles Committee. I also picked three of the downstate people that were with Walsh to be Republican spokesmen on committees.

Q: How do you compare Gov. Thompson's relationship with the legislature to Gov. Walker's?

A: Gov. Walker had no rapport, no relationship with the General Assembly - period. I don't think he had much in

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the Senate, and he may have had four or five fellows in the House — which I understand is very unusual for a governor. I don't see Thompson engaging in constant confrontation with the General Assembly. That was the Walker style of politics, but it's certainly not the Thompson style. I think we'll see the Democrat members try to get along. Most of them will probably get along better with Thompson than they did with Walker.

Q: What kind of session do you foresee for the 80th General Assembly?

A: The way the Senate's going, I'd say a tough one right now. We've got money problems. Thompson has vowed not to increase taxes. I agree with him, and I think most of the Republican members do too. We want to maintain the best level of service that we can in state government without an increase in taxes, and 1 think it can be done. It's going to take a lot of hours, but our members are prepared to be here for long sessions.

Q: What effect has the death of Mayor Daley had on the legislature and how will the scramble to succeed him affect the legislative process?

A: I think it's very evident in the leadership struggle in the Senate, although I'm not sure that the Mayor could have resolved the problem. Daley was alive when we had our deadlock over the House speaker two years ago. The Mayor could always command 40 or 45 House votes with a phone call. Now I think the independents will be a little more independent.

Q: How do you feel about legislative reform? Should legislators be limited in the number of bills they can sponsor?

A: I couldn't support that proposal. I do believe there are entirely too many bills introduced into the General Assembly ... for political reasons, public relations whatever reason — but how you can avoid that, I'm not sure. I don't know how you could limit a member in the introduction of his bills and let him do the job for his constituency. It might be better to increase the term of House members. Maybe that sounds self- serving, but you've got to remember we run every other year, and the political

'We've got money problems. Thompson has vowed not to increase taxes. I agree with him, and I think most of the Republican members do too'

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Q: Is the legislature becoming more professional? Should it remain part- time?

A: The whole theory of our form of government is not full-time representation. You've got to have the shoemaker and the attorney and the baker to re present all segments of society. When you get into full-time representatives, you either get the total political hack that can't go anyplace else, or you run into the fellow that's very wealthy and doesn't have to be concerned about any business he might have. There is such a high turnover rate because most legislators have other jobs and find out that being a legislator is such a hassle, so time-consuming, and so expensive that people just can't afford to stay in it and do justice to their own families.

The way to eliminate some of the legislation is to keep the legislature part- time. There have been several attempts to go back to biennial budgets where every two years legislators come down to pass the budget. With annual budgets you pass the budget and you come back in six or eight months, and agencies have got to have a supplemental appropriation and more bills are introduced. The longer we're in session down here, the more money it costs, and the more government grows and the more bureaucracies are created. Everybody here is throwing bills into the hopper.

Q: Can the state get by the next two years without a tax increase?

A: I don't know about the next two years, but the first year of the Thompson administration will tell the tale of whether we can or not. I would sure hope so. If we are successful the first year, I don't see why we can't be successful the second year.

Q: What are some of the major issues that you expect to work on during this session?

A: We've got to take care of education, which has been neglected over the last four years, although there's been an increase in money. A good education system is probably one of the most important functions of government, but money isn't always the answer for that.

Q. What is your position on the death penalty?

A. I voted for the last death penalty we had. It was a tough vote. It bothered me for a couple of days after I did it, but I believe that reinstating the death penalty will have an effect. We've tried everything else. Some experts claim the death penalty is not going to reduce the

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crimes that would require the death penalty. I support the death penalty on a limited basis like the bill we had . . . when prison guards, and others in that category, are murdered. I think the state should have the death penalty again for awhile and see what happens. It may be easy to talk about a death penalty, but it's a different matter to push the button to vote yes. To vote for a bill like that, I had to think about it very hard, and I was upset about it that whole day. But I feel that I did the right thing.

Q. Do you support collective bargaining for public employees?

A. There's got to be a point for public employees to collectively bargain. However, I certainly don't favor the right to strike for public employees. There's got to be some recourse for them to get the things they need and to maintain an equal living standard with those who have that privilege. But, I don't think collective bargaining should even be discussed for certain employees like health personnel and safety personnel. I could support some form of public employee collective bargaining, but it's going to have to be a very carefully drawn bill.

Q. Will the legislature this session come up with an alternative to the corporate personal property tax?

A. I know for a fact there's one drafted by a Republican. It will take a constitutional amendment to do it, but it would seem to me that maybe we should leave it where it is — the personal property tax on corporations. I'm sure it would be very popular with the electorate.

Q. How do you view the problem of overcrowding in the state prisons?

A. One of the first considerations is the cost. Can we build a prison facility cheaper than remodeling the existing ones and still meet the federal standards of today? If it would cost a lot more to remodel, I would suggest they go ahead and build new prisons because we're going to have to have them eventually. It's sad, but true that there will always be a need for prisons. I spent an afternoon going through the Joliet prison, Stateville. Some representatives told me how terrible the conditions were. I thought the conditions weren't that bad. It was crowded but for the most part clean. It's old and there's no question. that we've got to make some changes. Again it's the matter of priorities. The people in my district would probably not be happy if we had to spend more money on prisons. People want more and more services and less and less cost, and I don't know how you do that. ž

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