Can Mel Price save Illinois' military bases at Rantoul and Chicago? THE PROPOSED shutdown of three of Illinois' major military installations poses the first real test of the Capitol Hill clout of Rep. Melvin Price (D., East St. Louis, since he took over the House Armed Services Committee chairmanship three years ago. Price's immediate predecessor in the job. F. Edward Hebert (D., La.), got a little-used naval hospital built in New Orleans — and the Navy named it after him. Hebert's predecessor, Mendel Rivers (D., S.C.), saw so many bases built in Charleston that a standard Washington joke (which had some grain of truth in the sheer numbers of installations) was: "If you put another base into Charleston, it'll sink." The question is whether Mel Price will live up to those precedents and save the Chanute, Fort Sheridan and Great Lakes facilities in Illinois. So far, the jury on Price's performance is still out. When the Defense Department announced it proposed closing Chanute Air Force Base near Rantoul, and Sheridan and the Great Lakes Naval Air Station on Chicago's North Shore, it was the other members of the Illinois congressional delegation who were upset. Closing the three bases would cost Illinois 4,567 military jobs, 2,937 civilian jobs, hundreds of reservists and millions of dollars in revenue. Yet Price told the Elgin Courier on April 26 that the Defense Department hadn't even bothered to notify him in advance about the closings. And one of his top aides didn't seem too concerned. "The members who had something to lose were more concerned," he said. "If anything is to happen, it will be several years down the road — at least four years for Chanute," he added. He also said there would be no closings until after the Defense Department formally submits its base closure list to the Armed Services panel. After promising that hearings on the move would be held, he also noted that any member could introduce a bill to stop the closings at any time. But if Price and his staff were not very upset, Reps. Edward Madigan (R., Lincoln) and Robert McClory(R., Lake Bluff) were. The bases on the list are in their districts. Madigan went home to visit Rantoul and Chanute and pledged his all-out support to a local letter-writing drive to keep the base alive. He also assigned one aide to full-time duty on the issue, and the aide started investigating the economic case for keeping Chanute open and the way other communities have saved their bases against similar odds. Madigan had a personal, as well as a political incentive, for all this activity: the Defense Department had left him with egg all over his face. He dedicated a new dormitory at Chanute on May 20, right after the Defense Department announcement. McClory, faced with two base closings in his district alone, drafted what Price's aide called a "hardline" letter to Defense Secretary Harold Brown, denouncing the moves. Price's aide added that the delegation received the "expected" response — a form letter from the defense secretary's office pointing out that the moves were only under consideration. McClory's letter said, "We seriously question whether any actual cost savings would accrue from the proposed actions. Based on preliminary information, there would be significant construction and personnel transfer costs, not to mention the intolerable loss of investment of Sheridan and Chanute. It makes little sense to study the closing of facilities where there has been significant construction in the last few years." But while the entire Illinois House delegation signed the letter, support against the closings is more fervent with some of the state's political officials than with others, and that may hurt Illinois' efforts to keep the bases open. The most notable latecomer was GOP Sen. Charles H. Percy, and by early June Gov. James R. Thompson had yet to protest the closings here in Washington. However, a good index of the attitude of the Illinois delegation towards the base closings comes from a Democratic representative not directly affected by them. He sees the closings as another in a long series of Carter blunders in communications with Illinois' members of Congress — and he warns of future consequences. "It seems funny to me that the administration wouldn't be aware that the bases were in the home state of the chairman of the Armed Services Committee [Price]," the Democrat said. "This is just another incident in the failure of the administration to consult properly with members of Congress. They don't have much credit in the bank with the Illinois delegation," he warned. "I don't see any conscientious effort on his or his staffs part to cultivate the Illinois delegation," he adds. "Maybe this is a conscious decision and he [Carter] has decided to run against Congress. With that in mind, we will have to make our decision on supporting him accordingly." Still, when you talk about major issues such as base closings here, you don't talk about economic impact, or Carter's support in the delegation or snowbelt-versus-sunbelt distribution of federal defense dollars, though all of those issues will enter into the debate over closing Chanute, Fort Sheridan and Great Lakes. When you talk about the closings, you talk about clout. And clout in Washington comes from committee chairmanships — and that, in this case, means Mel Price August 1978/Illinois Issues/35
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