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CHAPTER II



The passage of the cutback amendment:
A unique experiment ended

The preelection battle over the cutback amendment was brief but vigorous. There was no statewide, media-oriented campaign over the amendment; instead, there were many intense local skirmishes. Although it is uncertain how much the voters were affected by the arguments put forth by the proponents and opponents, their positions are worth examining.

The supporters

On one side, led by Patrick Quinn's Coalition for Political Honesty, were a number of "reform" groups. These included the League of Women Voters of Illinois; Robert Bergstrom's Committee for Legislative Reform, whose membership included many former Con-Con delegates; the American Association of University Women; the American Association of Retired Persons; several organizations of senior citizens;1 and several groups of Spanish-speaking citizens. Quinn's coalition was relatively decentralized, and it coordinated the activities of affiliated citizens' groups in 40 to 50 downstate counties. The coalition fielded a team of approximately 20 debaters who were on call to appear on radio and TV talk shows, to speak at public meetings and to serve on panels discussing the cutback amendment. It also supervised the distribution of approximately 250,000 flyers throughout the state. The League of Women Voters of Illinois, now fully behind the cutback amendment, also circulated thousands of brochures. The benefits of the cutback amendment listed in the league's brochure provide a good summary of the position of the cutback amendment's proponents. The league argued that passage would:

  • Guarantee majority rule.
  • Clarify voting procedures by ending the use of three votes.
  • Force political parties to become competitive and to recruit candidates with voter appeal.
  • Restore the principle of one person, one vote.

In reply to the charge from female legislators that the amendment would reduce the number of female and minority legislators, the league brochure stated: "A bad system should not be preserved just to save the political career of any single incumbent."2

The arguments of Bergstrom's Committee for Legislative Reform focused more on the defects of cumulative voting and multi-member districts. His committee argued that under the old system:

  • The political parties never give us six candidates to fill the three seats. Many times only three candidates are offered. Under the three member district system, it is difficult for the majority to express its will.
  • Very few voters understand cumulative voting, leaving special interest groups to use the "bullet" vote to get a candidate elected. (See "The bullet vote" on p. 11).
  • The large size of the House makes it difficult to function properly as a parliamentary body.
  • Money will be saved in salaries, staff allowances, pension benefits and expense allowances.
  • A bad system should not continue in order to save any particular legislator. The new system would restore accountable government to Illinois.

The supporters of the amendment also argued that there would be more accountability if districts were reduced in size. Under the old system, they argued each representative was accountable to 190,000 residents; under the new, only 95,000. Of course, whether one representative could serve 95,000 residents better than three could serve 190,000 was open to debate. And debated it was. Proponents of the amendment and their opponents met in dozens of forums — on radio and TV, in the op-ed pages of the states' newspapers, in public libraries and at colleges and university discussion panels. Each side had its articulate spokespersons, but those in favor of the cutback were better organized and, it seems, more numerous.

Perhaps the clearest and most comprehensive summary of the arguments in favor of the amendment were contained in the material mailed to voters by the Illinois Secretary of State. (Arguments against the amendment distributed by the Secretary of State are given later in this chapter.) This official statement explains that amendment supporters held that passage would:

  • "Save taxpayers an estimated $7 million a year in reduced legislative expenses."
  • "Streamline the legislative process by making the House a more efficient and productive body."
  • "Enhance legislative accountability on issues by forcing political incumbents to run in one-on-one contests."
  • "Increase electoral competition by returning Illinois to the traditional American system of electing representatives: each person will have one vote to cast for one candidate."
  • "Bring government closer to the people by cutting the size of House districts in half."
  • "Bring Illinois in line with other major industrial States which have smaller and more effective houses of representatives."
  • "Give taxpayers a responsible way to demand better performance from State representatives who gave themselves a 40% pay raise after the last election and are now the highest paid in the nation."

The strongest newspaper support for the cutback amendment was down-state. In Peoria the Journal Star championed the amendment and continued its attacks on the legislature that it began after the legislative pay raise passed in 1978. On December 17, 1978, the Journal Star published an editorial which listed the number of representatives in each of the 50 states and their 1978 salaries. The editorial pointed out that the total outlay (before the pay


Illinois Issues Special Report | 23


Cutback amendment voting
Percentage of Yes votes by counties

iisr23-1.jpg
Source: Peoria Journal Star, December 14, 1980, p. A-6.





raise) for legislative salaries in Illinois was $4,720,000, which was greater than in every state except New York, and more than twice as much as Ohio ($2,057,000), which had recently raised legislators' pay. One reason for the size of the expenditure, according to the editorial, was the large number of legislators — three representatives and one senator from each district. Before the Illinois pay raise, the editorial stated, only two states (California and New York) paid higher salaries per legislator. After the pay raise, no state paid a higher salary per legislator. The editorial went on to say that because Illinois has so many legislators, its staffing, expense accounts and pensions are also higher, and sessions are longer. In this editorial and in later ones the Journal Star hammered on the same point: "Bigger numbers of legislators radiate costs. Fewer radiate reductions."3

Other major newspapers supporting the cutback were the Herald and Review (Decatur), the Jacksonville Journal Courier, the Commercial-News (Danville), the Daily Dispatch (Moline) and the Rock Island Argus. The Chicago Defender also supported the amendment.

The opposition

A number of powerful groups was arrayed against the amendment's supporters. The most important of these was the Committee for Representative Government, a loose association of legislators and lobbyists, which also included former governors Richard Ogil-vie and Samuel Shapiro. State Rep. Giddy Dyer (R., Hinsdale) served as one of the committee's co-chairmen, and dozens of legislators from both parties contributed to the committee's coffers. Among the lobbying groups that donated to a fund established by the committee to oppose the amendment were the: Illinois Education Association, Illinois Association of Realtors, Illinois State Medical Society, Independent Community Banks in Illinois, Association for Modern Banking, Illinois Dental Laboratory Association, Illinois Trial Lawyers Association and United Auto Workers."4 Also listed among the committee's contributors was the National Organization for Women/Equal Rights Amendment Committee (NOW). This support by NOW put it on the same



24 | Illinois Issues Special Report


side of the cutback issue as Stop ERA and prompted coalition leader Quinn to comment: "I see we've been able to do something that no one else has been able to do. . . . We brought together Phyllis Schlafly and the National Organization for Women."5

The Committee for Representative Government worked in conjunction with the Independent Voters of Illinois — Independent Precinct Organization (IVI-IPO) to oppose the cutback amendment. The IVI-IPO, which had originally been formed by independent Democrats in opposition to the Chicago machine, was now a reform organization which supported both Democratic and Republican candidates. Because of cumulative voting, this group in 1956 was able to nominate a state representative, Democrat Abner Mikva (then living in Chicago), with only 40 percent of the vote.6

The committee argued the disadvantages of abolishing three member districts and cumulative voting. Members of the committee maintained that the power of the voters would be greatly reduced if they could no longer cast the "bullet" vote (see "The bullet vote" on p. 11 for description). They contended that the bullet gave a group of citizens the means to offset the power of a political machine or special interest group. Most of the 23 women in the legislature owed their election to cumulative voting. Those opposing the amendment argued that under the new system most of the women would not be reelected. The same argument was Applied to racial and ethnic groups.

Finally, opponents of the amendment argued that cumulative voting almost always insured the election of at least one member of the second party in a district, thus increasing access to the legislative process. The fair representation of both major parties was stressed as more important than any savings which the amendment might bring. The Committee for Representative Government attempted to refute the claim of the Coalition for Political Honesty that the amendment would save taxpayers $7 million. The committee pointed out that research conducted by the Illinois Legislative Council had shown that approximately $3.2 million might be saved each year.7 The committee argued that this was only a tiny fraction of the state's $14.5 billion budget.

The Illinois Legislative Council also conducted a comparative cost study of the 50 states and found that population rather than the number of members in a legislature was the key variable related to legislative costs.8 The analysis concluded that the Illinois legislature's costs are what could be expected for a state with a population of over 11 million. Amendment opponents, however, presented other evidence that a smaller legislature would not be less costly. They pointed out that:

  • The Senate has only one-third as many members and has almost as many staff people.
  • The secretarial pool would probably not be reduced. Under the old system one secretary worked for three legislators. Under the new system one secretary will likely work for two legislators.9

The Illinois Legislative Council also studied the effects of a reduction in the membership of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, which was reduced by one-third from 240 members to 160 in 1979.10 (One of the groups promoting that cut was the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts.) As in Illinois, proponents argued that a smaller House would be more efficient, more accountable and more cost-effective.

The opponents of the Illinois cut-back seized upon the Massachusetts experience as evidence that the proposed benefits of the cutback would not materialize. Citing the Massachusetts reduction, they listed several drawbacks. First, instead of decreasing costs, the Massachusetts legislature's budget had gone up. Second, before the Massachusetts cutback, each legislator served 24,218 people; after the cutback each served 36,328. Third, Massachusetts legislators argued that they were more out of touch with their districts after the cutback, and that because their districts were larger, the costs of running for office were greater. Finally, it was also claimed that with fewer members, the Democratic leadership had gained more control and that the number of blacks and women decreased slightly.

Paralleling Illinois with Massachusetts was not, however, a precise exercise. Massachusetts did not have cumulative voting. Also, the Massachusetts cutback gave each representative 50 percent more constituents; the Illinois cutback would cut each legislators' total constituency in half. A Massachusetts representative now serves 36,328; the Illinois representative would still be serving 95,000 after the cutback.

As with supporters, the opponents' arguments on the cutback's effects were clearly summarized and presented in information mailed to voters by the Secretary of State's Office before the election:

  • "Deny representation to independents, to Democrats in Republican areas and to Republicans in Democratic areas."
  • "Allow one political party to dominate the legislature."
  • "Fail to reduce costs."
  • "Promote regional rivalries, particularly between rural and urban areas."
  • "Discourage electoral competition."
  • "Increase the influence of special interests, power brokers, and party bosses."
  • "Decrease legislative accountability to the people."
  • "Reduce independent and issue-oriented deliberation in the legislature."
  • "Create dangerous legislative deadlocks."

Opponents also argued that a smaller General Assembly would be less responsive and accountable because representatives would be representing one-third more people (95,000 apiece instead of 190,000 for three).

Many organizations that regularly lobbied the legislature opposed the amendment. The Journal Star in Peoria was a strong proponent and presented the following list of opponents: Farm Bureau, Farmer's Union, United Auto Workers, United Mine Workers, the railroad brotherhoods, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Illinois Education Association, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Chicago Teachers Union, Illinois Bar Association, Illinois Municipal League, Illinois Medical Society, Illinois Nurses' Association and Independent Insurance Agents of Illinois. The Peoria paper also listed the Planned Parenthood Association of Champaign County and women's organizations both for and against ERA. The Chicago Democratic organization, Republican legislative leaders and the governor were also opposed to the cutback amendment.


Illinois Issues Special Report | 25


It is clear that many more organized interest groups actively opposed the amendment than favored it. There is one major reason for the opposition of these lobbying groups. Change means uncertainty; a drastic change like the cutback amendment would mean that the usual methods of getting things done would be disrupted. These groups also feared losing some of their valued friends in the legislature.

Table 1
1970 vote to retain multi-member districts and cumulative voting V. 1980 vote to retain same, i.e., 'No' vote on cutback (selected counties)

 1970 "Yes" vote1 1980 "No" vote2Difference
TOP TEN COUNTIES supporting multi-member districts in 1970
1. Cook
2. Crawford
3. Perry
4. Lake
5. Vermilion
6. Warren
7. Union
8. Will
9. Adams
10. Johnson
64%
59%
56%
56%
56%
55%
55%
55%
54%
53%
36%
28%
36%
27%
31%
22%
50%
26%
36%
48%
-28%
-31%
-20%
- 29%
-25%
-33%
-5%
-29%
-18%
-5%
BOTTOM TEN COUNTIES supporting multi-member districts in 1970
93. Hamilton
94. Washington
95. Marshall
96. Morgan
97. Marion
98. Woodford
99. Edwards
100. DeKalb
101. Tazewell
102. Peoria
39%
38%
38%
37%
35%
35%
33%
33%
31%
30%
41%
42%
14%
27%
41%
12%
43%
28%
11%
13%
+ 2%
+4%
-24%
-10%
+6%
-23%
+ 10%
-5%
-20%
-17%

1These are "Yes" votes on Proposition 1A to retain multi-member House districts and cumulative voting.

2These are "No" votes on the Cutback Amendment to establish single member House districts, thereby abolishing cumulative voting.

Source: State of Illinois, Official Vote Cast at the Special Election, December 15, 1970, and Official Vote Cast at the General Election, November 4, 1980.

Papers that opposed the cutback amendment included the Chicago Sun-Times, the State Journal-Register (Springfield), the Quincy Herald-Whig, the Daily Journal (Kankakee), the Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale) and the Daily American (West Frankfort). The Chicago Tribune eventually came out against the proposal.

The Chicago Sun-Times argued that the amendment would diminish the quality of the work of the General Assembly. It acknowledged that cumulative voting was confusing to voters, but argued that the election of quality people to the legislature was more important. Throughout the campaign, the Sun-Times called attention to the accomplishments of innovative and independent legislators who would be lost if cumulative voting were eliminated.

The Sun-Times also argued that abolition of cumulative voting would eliminate the election of political reformers running against the Chicago Democratic machine. Basil Talbott Jr., Sun-Times political editor, predicted that the Chicago GOP would dissolve, that Chicago regular Democrats would become even more powerful in the House, and that independent political groups would become less powerful.11

The noncampaign

It should be noted that neither side spent large sums on a media campaign. The proponents' effort, coordinated by the Coalition for Political Honesty, relied heavily on radio commercials which ran on approximately 40-50 stations throughout the state. The coalition spent $25,000 on radio ads, and the League of Women Voters, the Committee for Legislative Reform and some local groups paid for some other individual ads. These radio commercials began to run approximately one month before the election, but most of the ads were broadcast during the two weeks prior to the November 4 election. As noted earlier, the coalition also sent speakers to every receptive public meeting and media talk show.12

The opposition, headed by the Committee for Representative Government, also had an active speakers' bureau and sent its spokespersons to citizen meetings, panel discussions and TV and radio talk shows, particularly in the heavily populated areas of the state. In addition, the committee spent much time trying to convert the editorial boards of newspapers and television stations to its point of view. For example, some Massachusetts legislators were flown into Illinois to argue that the Massachusetts cutback was a failure. It is believed that these legislators played a key role in influencing the Chicago Tribune's final position on the amendment.13

Voting patterns

At the general election of November 4, 1980, the voters of Illinois decided the fate of the cutback amendment. A total of 2,112,224, or 68.8 percent of those voting on the amendment approved it while 958,782 or 31.2 percent opposed it. This majority easily met one test for approval in Article IV, Section 15 of the 1970 Illinois Constitution in that it received a three-fifths majority of those voting on the amendment. The other constitutional test requires the approval of a majority of those voting in the general election. The latter option was not met because the amendment received only 44 percent of the nearly five million votes cast in that presidential year election. Yet, the margin of victory was an impressive showing when compared to the 1970 vote when only 45 percent supported the change to single member districts and the abolition of cumulative voting.

There was considerable drop-off (total votes cast minus votes cast on the amendment divided by total votes cast) in the voting on the amendment. Only 63 percent of the voters (that is, a drop-off of 37 percent) who went to the polls in 1980 registered their views on the cutback amendment, despite the fact that it was first or second on the ballot in all jurisdictions. In states where initiatives are frequent, it is not unusual for them to receive 70-90 percent of the vote cast.14

The fact is that the cutback was not a burning issue in the minds of many voters. Candidate elections, especially the presidential contest, far overshadowed the cutback vote. It also seems that there was considerable voter confusion over the origin, meaning and intent of the amendment. Indeed, the total cutback vote was only 75 percent of the total vote cast for the top Republican and Democrat in the race for the least visible statewide office —


26 | Illinois Issues Special Report


Table 2
'Yes' vote for Cutback Amendment v. vote drop-off (selected counties)

 "Yes" voteDrop-off
TOP TEN COUNTIES in favor of Cutback Amendment

1. Tazewell
2. Woodford
3. Peoria
4. Marshall
5. Knox
6. Fulton
7. Putnam
8. Stark
9. Logan
10. Henry

89%
88%
87%
86%
85%
84%
83%
81%
80%
79%
45%
28%
32%
32%
28%
43%
32%
35%
30%
39%
AVERAGE OF TOP84%34%
BOTTOM TEN COUNTIES in favor of Cutback Amendment
93. Pulaski
94. Edgar
95. Union
96. Fayette
97. Pulaski
98. Gallatin
99. Alexander
100. Wayne
101. Hardin
102. Pope
52%
50%
50%
50%
48%
48%
48%
44%
38%
35%
42%
42%
52%
21%
42%
55%
53%
22%
52%
53%
AVERAGE OF BOTTOM46%43%
Source: State of Illinois, Official Vote Cast at the General Election, November 4, 1980.

University of Illinois Board of Trustees. In contrast, votes on initiatives in Colorado in the 1976 presidential election exceeded the vote for the at-large regent for the University of Colorado.15

In terms of overwhelming support for the cutback, nine counties registered 80 percent or more of the vote in favor, and all nine are clustered with Peoria County in the center of the state (see map on p. 24). These were (in order of support): Tazewell, Woodford, Peoria, Marshall, Knox, Fulton, Putnam, Stark and Logan. As the Journal Star exclaimed: "Tri-County [Tazewell, Woodford and Peorial was [the] epicenter of cutback earthquake."16 Clearly, the strong support of the Peoria newspaper accounts for this pattern, which even extended beyond to neighboring counties such as McLean and LaSalle. Part of the reason for the strong pro-cutback vote in Logan County was the work of the Concerned Citizens for Constitutional Action and the group's leader, Joseph DiLillo, professor at Lincoln College.

Only six counties bucked the statewide trend and cast a majority of votes against the cutback. These were (in order of opposition): Pope, Hardin, Wayne, Alexander, Gallatin and Pulaski, which are deep in southern Illinois and have a combined population of only 54,000 according to the 1970 census. Generally, these southern counties were following a venerable tradition of voting against constitutional change. Samuel K. Gove of the University of Illinois has noted that "historically, Southern Illinois has voted down proposed constitutional amendments."17 This conservatism regarding constitutional change may stem from southern and rural suspicion of political reform backed by "city slickers" from the north.

Because of its large population, more votes were cast in Cook than in any other county in the state. Fully 45 percent of the total vote on the amendment was cast there. Cook's support of 64 percent for the cutback was slightly less than the statewide average of 69 percent. Drop-off in Cook was just about the same as in the state as a whole. Nearly half of the vote needed for adoption was provided by Cook, and downstate would have had to oppose the amendment by an overwhelming margin to overcome Cook's supporting vote. But the opposite occurred; there was a 73 percent favorable majority downstate.

Suburban Cook County was stronger in its support of the proposition than the city, which voted 55 percent in favor. Suburban Cook gave 70 percent support, and the five collar counties around Cook were more than 70 percent in favor. This difference between the city and suburbs may be a vestige of the Chicago Democrats' opposition to single member districts in the 1970 vote (see below).

Another low approval vote was in Sangamon County, the seat of state government where only 55 percent voted in favor of the cutback. And, not surprisingly, drop-off on the proposition was quite low in Sangamon; 81 percent of those voting cast a vote on the cutback. The cutback was an issue of some magnitude for those in the shadow of the Statehouse dome, and this proximity apparently did not breed as much contempt for cumulative voting as was exhibited statewide.

It is instructive to contrast the county results in 1970 with those in 1980. In 1970, as constitutional scholar JoAnna Watson put it, "most striking was the support, measured in terms of number of counties, for a change in the method of selecting representatives to the lower house of the state legislature."18 Of the 102 counties, 76 approved the change to single member districts in 1970. But the number of counties is misleading because Cook County produced a 280,000 vote margin in favor of cumulative voting which was sufficient to overcome downstate support for single member districts. If the 10 counties most in favor and the 10 most opposed in 1970 and 1980 are compared, it appears there was a striking reversal of support for cumulative voting, the most crucial of which was the 28 percentage point drop in Cook (see table 1, p. 26). Four of the counties most opposed to cumulative voting in 1970 were in the top 10 in support of the cutback in 1980. Peoria County was third in its support of the cutback in 1980, and first in opposition to cumulative voting in 1970. The correlation between the 1970 and 1980 votes is not large, a paltry +.18. In sum, the 1980 vote on the cutback was unrelated to the 1970 vote. The reason for the low correlation is that the votes in support of the cutback amendment in 1980 were always uniformly high in every county that supported it. Although, as noted earlier, there were pockets of extremely high support around Peoria and pockets of majority opposition in southern Illinois, the overall pattern of the vote is 60 to 70 percent support. In contrast, the pattern of voting in 1970 was more variable.

Drop-off on the 1980 proposition varied from a low of 13 percent in Richland County to a high of 63 percent in Alexander County. A comparison of the 10 counties giving the most support to the cutback with the 10 most in opposition shows no simple relationship between support and drop-off. Generally, there was less drop-off in the counties supporting the proposition, but there are anomalies. One county stands out: Tazewell had the highest percentage of support for


Illinois Issues Special Report | 27


the cutback but also had a 45 percent drop-off. Nevertheless, half of the 10 counties most opposed to the cutback also had a drop-off of over 50 percent. The overall correlation between support and drop-off for the 102 counties was very modest. From these data it could not be argued that a high level of support produced significantly more voter participation.

Although it is sometimes argued that initiatives increase voter turnout,19 this was not the case in Illinois' first statewide initiative. Turnout in the 1980 general election declined for the fifth consecutive election in Illinois (see "Voter turnout drops again" Illinois Issues, February 1981). It may be unfair, however, to judge response to initiatives in Illinois by the first test.

It has likewise been claimed that initiatives are a means of exercising popular sovereignty. In the cutback case, the Journal Star exulted that "the people proved who was really sovereign in Illinois."20 But one must qualify that conclusion to say some of the people. In fact, only half of those eligible to vote (registered to vote in Illinois in November 1980) voted on the cutback; the issue was decided by approximately one-third of those registered to vote. As usual, it was not a majority but an active minority which was really sovereign. In fairness, though, it should be stated that there is no credible evidence that if 100 percent of those eligible to participate had voted, the outcome would have been otherwise.

The election returns cannot tell us why the issue carried so overwhelmingly despite the lack of intense public involvement and extensive media interest. Clearly, the argument over representation — cumulative voting versus single member districts — was a major issue for only a handful of citizens. In the context of the politics of 1980, with the national elections giving a mandate to a conservative president, it seems that cutting the size of the Illinois House, and thereby cutting the costs of government, may have appealed to Illinois voters as the most effective way of "sending a message" to politicians about their concern over the size and responsiveness of government generally. The pay raise was undoubtedly the fuse that lit citizen discontent. It is clear that voters did not equate cutting an anonymous one-third of the House members with the fate of their own district's incumbents, most of whom were returned to office in the same election (see Chapter V).

Why did voting patterns vary, to the limited degree that they did, throughout the state? One explanation, noted by the Journal Star, and reinforced by the success of its efforts, was the intensity of local media, either for or against the cutback amendment. For example, in Chicago the papers voiced some opposition to the cutback and the support for the cutback was less than the statewide average. In the suburbs, some media were strongly supportive of the amendment and this was reflected in the vote. But causality is difficult to determine: Did media support cause the vote, or simply reflect area sentiment, or both?

In Chicago, the Democratic machine's concerted effort to defeat single member districts in 1970 stands in sharp contrast to its lukewarm effort against the cutback in 1980. It is probable that the issue was accorded lesser attention because of the consuming problem of intraparty division, especially between Mayor Jane M. Byrne and Richard M. Daley. The machine may also have realized that Democrats could be expected to capture nearly all of the city's single member districts if the cutback were approved.21

The pattern of opposition to the cutback in southern Illinois is largely a product of the area's "traditional political culture"22 which does not put much stock in the politics of participation and openness as advocated by the Coalition for Political Honesty. As scholar Alan Monroe has shown, in the deep southern counties, "the main purpose of government [is] preserving established values and institutions."23 The southerners have an innate suspicion of reform, especially of the type promoted by "moralistic" groups such as the coalition.

So the cutback passed overwhelmingly, even if there was not intense involvement and even if those who voted for it may not have understood its full implications. Opponents had issued dire warnings about the disasters which would result if it passed; proponents had proclaimed the manifold benefits of passage. The concluding chapter of this study examines the merits of these claims and counterclaims.


28 | Illinois Issues Special Report


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