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State legislators: the fewer the better

THERE are people on the Illinois political scene who are worried about the possible loss of two seats in Congress as a result of the 1980 census. They should stop worrying about the congressional delegation and start worrying about the makeup of the Illinois House and Senate.

True, the size of the state legislature can't be changed as a result of changes in the population. But there is another threat to the size of the legislature. That's the legislators themselves.

Those who have been paying atten tion to the Illinois political climate sense a feeling of antagonism toward the whole of state government -- and toward the legislature in particular. The feeling was intensified by the pay raise issue -- an issue that irritated just about everyone. The unusually intense expression of public outrage has abated, it is true, and even passage this spring of the bill that funded the raises was not enough to draw a renewal of the hue and cry that greeted the raises themselves. But, even if the specific irritant has departed from the mind of the electorate, you can bet that resentment still lingers.

Something else is there, too -- a serious attempt to retaliate for the pay raises by cutting the size of the legislature itself. There are several measures before the House and Senate that would shrink the size of those bodies. And, more important, Patrick Quinn and his Political Honesty Coalition are on the legislature's case. The solons have demonstrated repeatedly that they can ignore the public will when it comes to their own pocketbooks -- or their own continued political existence. But Quinn also has demonstrated, through the late, lamented "Honesty Initiative," that he can draw enough grass-roots support from irate voters to force the legislature into action. He did it once -- using the "Honesty Initiative" to force the lawmakers to end the practice of taking their whole two years' salary in one lump sum when they took office.

Quinn, now encouraged by the hot feelings about the pay raise, is back with another citizens' initiative. This one would reduce the size of the House from 177 members to 118.

The coalition needs only 252,000 signatures to get the question on the ballot, and there is little doubt that it can round up that many names before the May 4, 1980, deadline.

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the necessary 252,000 signatures are forthcoming, it then will be up to the voters to decide if they want to continue the House at 177 members or reduce it, with a considerable saving in salaries, staff and expenses.

And that brings us to the point. If the legislature is to have any serious chance of defeating what Quinn calls the "Cutback Amendment," it would seem it would have to rely on the argument that a larger number of legislators provide better representation and a better deliberative process than a smaller number.

(The amendment also would eliminate cumulative voting -- a significant change in the system of government and one which politicians undoubtedly would try to use against the amendment. But an esoteric political phenomenon --which confuses most voters on election day anyway -- does not seem like a very good bet as an argument against such a popular cause.)

So, realizing already that they face a serious challenge to their continued political existence, we assume, the legislators are taking special pains this session to conduct their business in a dignified, businesslike fashion which will impress the voters.

Ha.

Both houses this session have looked more like Gilbert and Sullivan parodies than hardworking deliberative bodies. Part of the time, they haven't been deliberating at all.

The Senate, for instance, found it necessary both to limit debate for a time to one minute per bill per senator and then to lump together 105 bills for passage on a single roll call. The House, not to be outdone by the "House of Lords," put together a "no debate calendar." Bills on that list -- originally there were 270 of them -- were called for a vote individually but no debate was permitted.

Leadership justified the decision to scrap the deliberative process by referring to the committee process and the noncontroversial nature of the bills. "The deliberative process happens in the committees," Speaker William Redmond said. "These bills have already been heard in committees." Anyone who has seen what happens in commitees on a routine bill would have to chuckle at Redmond's description of the process as "deliberative."

But the speaker then put his finger on the root of the problem as he said, "The big problem is that there are just too many bills."

No matter how you view it, as long as the state's legislators continue to file 4,000 or 5,000 or more bills per session, they will have chaotic committee hearings, limits on floor debate, wholesale passage on mass roll calls and a blizzard of poorly understood conference committee reports at session's end.

They'll also be providing ammuition for Quinn. Because fewer legislators could translate into fewer bills, fewer bills into more time for consideration, and more time -- dare we hope it? -- into a return of the deliberatve process.

July 1979 / Illinois Issues / 34