The state of the State
By MARGARET S. KNOEPFLE

The ultimate cutback?

DATELINE, Springfield, 1984: The State Board of Elections (SBE) has vowed it will work until midnight Saturday if necessary to come to a final decision on petitions submitted this May by the Coalition against Political Hacks (CPH). CPH is claiming it has close to 500,000 valid signatures supporting its proposal to completely abolish the General Assembly — and everyone knows full well from what happened in 1980 (when the size of the House was cut by one-third) that Illinois is in another muddle.

Whatever SBE decides, the matter is expected to go to the courts because of the delicate constitutional issues involved. But if the proposed amendment gets on the ballot and is passed by a majority of voters voting in the election (or three-fifths of those voting on the amendment), all of Illinois' current lawmakers will be replaced in 1986 by Hal, a giant computer — probably an X-500 model — made either by IBM or one of its competitors. The Department of Administrative Services, which is reported to be "tickled pink" at the idea, is hiring a consulting firm to prepare specs for Hal, though it is probable that if and when the thing is installed, it will have a nonsexist name. The Secretary of State's office, meanwhile, is gearing up for a contest among Illinois school children to name the new State Computer.

Still, if the controversial proposal does get on the ballot, it will be a long and hard-fought campaign with lawmakers committed to fight every inch of the way. "We will not go down easy," says Rep. Patrick Quinn (D., Oak Park), who was elected in 1982 to the 118-member House by a grateful constituency. Quinn has formed the Coalition for Human Politicians (CHP), mostly lawmakers and lobbyists, to fight CPH's drive for electronic democracy. Quinn also introduced H.B. 882 (quickly passed and signed into law by the governor) which requires that in petitions involving the legislative article, signers be of the same election jurisdiction and blood type as petition circulators. It is this last requirement which has proved to be such a hassle for the exhausted SBE staff.

When it first started, the Coalition against Political Hacks was a mere mote in the legislative eye, causing only a minor irritation. Composed largely of minority groups, who felt they had lost representation when cumulative voting ended in 1980, and a few members of the press who found the new 118-member House almost as boring as the Illinois Senate, CPH was considered a frivolous and off-the-wall organization. But when the 1982 election produced a tie in the recently apportioned and remodeled House and no work was done for the entire session, voters joined CPH in droves.

Many of these were disillusioned signers of the 1980 "Cutback Amendment" who saw nothing but "politics as usual" when the polarized General Assembly failed this year to hack the last penny off the sales tax, and the collar counties seceded from the RTA. "We just didn't get to the roots of the problem the first time," said a CPH petition passer who had also worked on the Cutback.

But deprived of a tax cut and left with no means of transportation between the Chicago Loop and downtown Downers Grove, even middle-of-the-road voters have come to feel that Illinois taxpayers can no longer afford the General Assembly. The sentiment is particularly strong Downstate where the road program — dependent on deals cut by the now-defunct "odd ball" representatives — has gone down the tubes. One small central Illinois town has not been heard from since its only bridge went out last April, and political pundits feel this will not be the last of such cases. There are, of course plenty of voters who are still hesitant about getting rid of their lawmakers. "I'm not sure it's the right thing to do, yet I feel we have to do something, so I'll probably vote for it," is a comment typical of this group.

Opponents of the CPH proposal have not been napping, however Former Sen. John Knuppel (D., Virginia) has come roaring out of retirement to start a petition drive of his own for a "hot-blooded unicameral assembly."

Whatever the outcome, the current debacle has put Illinois on the map as the state to watch. "Illinois is so far ahead of the trends that the only people we can talk to are science fiction writers," said a prominent lawyer-lobbyist who has resigned to work for Omni. Many have wondered how a solid midwestern state like Illinois could move so far ahead of California, long the national leader in new ideas, and fearsome possibilities. Certainly, the concept of Hal and a terminal in every home makes California's computerized initiative campaigns look primitive. What people fail to realize is that Illinois, the only state in the union to try cumulative voting, has been ahead of the rest of the country since 1870. "We are not surprised at all that the state is once again in the forefront of legislative innovation," remarked the London Times in a recent editorial, ". . . what Illinois thinks today, the union will surely think tomorrow."

As for the legislators themselves, what can an outsider say? It's best summed up by a former member of the old 81st. Cut out by the Cutback, he refused to become (as so many others did) a "commission-haunt" and has removed himself from public life except for occasional appearances on Saturday Night Live. "It wasn't easy to be a legislator," he says. "We had to live in the present. We were like a tribe — hunting, gathering, sharing each other's food. . . . The tea bags were the beginning of the end," he adds softly. "We should have seen coming. We should have known."

2/September 1980/Illinois Issues