Politics

There's no production schedule for writing laws

By BARBARA J. HIPSMAN
and BOB SPRINGER

THERE'S a good chance that as you read this the Illinois General Assembly will not yet have resolved the major issues it faced at the start of this spring's session. That may not strike you as startling. After all, June has only begun and lawmakers have until the 30th to settle their differences — and the people's business.

But these words were written six weeks ago. Even then, the prediction could be made with some confidence that the assembly on June 1 would be no closer to settling most of the key contested issues than it was on April 15.

In April, June looked this way in terms of issues escaping accord:

•  The $14.2 billion state budget for fiscal year 1983. Its bottom line is relatively certain, but its thousands of internal lines are fuzzy. "The key issue this spring will be money. How much do we have and how are we going to split it up. That's what's going to keep us here in the last days," says House Speaker George Ryan (R., Kankakee).

•  Downstate roads. They are a perennial last-minute headache. Road-related interests want more money, but few legislators are willing to vote higher taxes to finance repair. They're even less interested this election year, especially those House lawmakers running in single-member districts in November for the first time.

•  Education. Held hostage by Gov. James R. Thompson's proposals for higher liquor taxes and a new tax on domestic insurance policies, the education budget could generate a fight between Chicago and a coalition from downstate and suburban areas that will be more intense than in previous years. Chicago can claim only a quarter of the state's elementary and secondary public school children, yet it snares a third of the state treasury's school aid. In higher ed, community colleges say they are being dealt an unfair share of scholarships and financial aids. Public universities, meanwhile, complain of state overgenerosity toward more expensive, private universities.

•  Thompson's tax increase plans. Sen. Aldo DeAngelis (R., Olympia Fields), sponsor of the Republican governor's industry-contested 2 percent tax on insurance sold by Illinois firms to Illinois consumers, says he's not optimistic the fight will be settled until the 11th hour. Thompson's other tax, a 66 percent boost in alcohol taxes to generate some $50 million a year in new revenue (mostly for schools), is in the same boat, says Senate GOP Leader James "Pate" Philip (R., Elmhurst), its sponsor.

In April, the prediction was that, despite votes in one chamber or the other on these issues, no resolution would be reached by June 1. Some would say the problem is the body's procrastination, or its general belief that you "never settle this week what might be a bargaining chip next week." Others say it has to do with the nature of the assembly's job. The legislative process is not exactly like going to school where you have regular assignments and evaluations and move through an orderly course toward graduation.

Laws, after all, are the written code of society's deepest values, its evolving standards, changing whims and, sometimes, its accidents. Making them is not like being in business. There is no production schedule for writing laws. There is no pricing scale below which you dare not fall or above which you risk competitive disadvantage. Most laws of any note — the ones that were

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hard-fought issues in muggy Junes of yore — generally resulted from an idea that spent a great deal of time germinating and struggling against opposed ideas.

Heated political battles and rhetorical carpings, headlined each June to delighted or disgusted citizens, not occur spontaneously. The battles of summer are usually the fruit of winters of discontent. And the battles are only a small part of the legislative process. There is much more waiting. Waiting while leaders negotiate settlements. Waiting while individuals trade votes on numerous bills to try to ensure that their own will get to the governor's desk. Waiting, for years sometimes, for the most propitious moment to catapult an idea into the public's consciousness.

In past sessions, the horse trading and waiting have seen coalitions made and unmade in upstate v. downstate spats and more traditional Democrat-Republican splits. In 1979, for example, the pressure of the complex transportation issue and the Supreme Court's enforcement of the Constitution's edict to replace the corporate personal property tax pushed lawmakers into a series of post-June 30 special sessions. Other years have seen June finales stymied by nearly insolvable disputes: upstate-downstate battles over school aid, partisan feuds over business tax breaks, labor-management bargaining over injured workers' compensation, liberal v. conservative standoffs over dogma and a dozen other things.

Cynics may say that since the crucial problems of each session rarely are resolved until the chaotic final days of June or early July, the General Assembly should meet only during the last two weeks of June. That would save taxpayers money, headaches and blow-by-blow descriptions from the media. That simplistic notion accounts for the annual free-for-all and Romper Room-like atmosphere that envelops Springfield early each summer. But it fails to consider that the battles headlined in June are on issues that have been simmering for months or years.

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