Under the state Constitution the governor must take action on each bill 90 calendar days after its passage (the legislature must send bills to the governor within 30 days after passage and he must then act within 60 days), or it automatically becomes law. Thus Gov. Thompson had to finish considering all bills no later than September 30 this year, since the legislature adjourned July 2, and any bill passed before that date had to be signed earlier. In other words, with at least two-thirds of the bill-signing period past, the governor had signed about one-third (32 percent) of the bills sent to him.
Why is the governor taking so long? "That's what the process is all about," says Zale Giauberman, assistant to Gov. Thompson and chief coordinator of his bill consideration system. "We have the staff look over each bill," says Glauberman.
"First the lawyers take a look at it to check its constitutionality and to see that it does what it says it's meant to do," explains public information aide Jim Williams. "Next staff people write a digest and commentary on each bill."
"We have in the files memos from departments if they are to be affected by a bill, telling us how they feel about it and in what way they'll be affected," adds Glauberman. "Sometimes our policy group goes over bills with department liaisons." (The policy group is made up of legal counsel Gary Starkman, deputy to the governor Jim Fletcher, Glauberman and a program director.)
Letters from constituent groups, lobbying concerns and citizens are included in the files that are sent to the governor with each bill. "On some issues he goes into it more himself," says Williams. "Like on Laetrile — he did all the work on that himself."
Gov. Thompson dealt with appropriations bills first "because otherwise government will grind to a halt," according to Glauberman. "Of course we had the Bureau of the Budget advise us on those," he adds.
The governor has saved till last most of the controversial measures passed this year, including one outlawing the use of public aid funds for nonmedical abortions, and another that would allow pharmacists to substitute generic drugs for brand names. But along with those there were scores of noncontroversial, sometimes quite simple, bills that would appear to require soul-searching on Thompson's part to approve or reject.
A total of 851 bills were still to be considered as of September 1, meaning that Gov. Thompson needed to deal with an average of 28 bills a day — including weekends and holidays — throughout September. Yet his ink-slinging pace was perhaps not significantly behind that of recent governors. A survey of the bill-signing record of those governors who have served in office since the 1970 state Constitution went into effect shows Thompson running behind the pace former Gov. Richard Ogilvie set in 1972 and 1973, but matching that of former Gov. Dan Walker.
As of September 1, 1971, Ogilvie had signed 1,417 bills — 79 per cent of the bills he signed that year. By that same date the next year he had approved 866 or 83 percent. (Ogilvie signed 1,799 bills in all in 1971 and 1.040 in 1972.)
By September 1, 1973, Walker had signed 517 bills of the 952 he eventually OK'd that year (54 percent). In September 1974 - the second year of the General Assembly biennium when fewer bills are considered and passed — Walker had signed only 183 of the 345 bills he approved that year (53 percent). By the start of September 1975 Walker had signed 562 bills of the 1,187 he would sign (47 per cent). Last year Walker signed 216 bills (64 percent) by September 1 of the 338 he finally approved again in the second year of a session.
Although some observers, especially Democrats, say Thompson has fallen behind on signing bills because of his heavy schedule of out-of-state trips and state and county fair appearances, his staff says he is simply being cautious. "He wants all the bills gone over carefully and analyzed fully," they say.
Many political experts feel that a governor's decision to sign, amend or veto legislation reveals more about his political and governmental philosophy than any other indicator. On many issues a governor is unavoidably faced with the tough choice of offending one powerful constituent group or another by his actions. With that in mind, caution in bill-signing on the part of an ambitious young governor is understandable. Offending people unnecessarily is the last thing any man in politics wishes to do.
Moreover, the legislature often duplicates its bill-making efforts approving two or more bills which would effectively do the same thing. The governor must then be careful that he doesn't create loopholes in the law by signing both.
2 /October 1977 / Illinois Issues