CHAPTER V

The effects of the cutback:
Expectations and realities

There are two general laws of political reform. The first is that what was intended (or feared) frequently does not happen. The second is that what was unintended, perhaps not even considered, frequently takes place.¹ The adoption of cumulative voting in 1870 is a partial exception: the "reform" did produce the desired minority party representation. But cumulative voting also produced unintended consequences, such as partisan collusion, voter confusion and the

Average relationships of state population and legislative costs Source: Illinois Legislative Council File 9-160 (Sept. 24, 1980), p. 10 (Table 4).

extension of cumulative voting to primaries.

For the most part, proponents and opponents of the 1980 cutback amendment expressed their views in the extreme language of political polemic. Absent this rhetoric, the claims of both sides can be easily summarized. The proponents argued that the cutback would result in three major positive benefits: the costs of the legislature would be cut significantly; a smaller legislature would operate more efficiently; competition for seats in the House would increase, and consequently, the accountability of elected officials would be strengthened.

The case made by cutback opponents not only directly challenged the three major claims of the proponents, but also made the case for the unique benefits of cumulative voting in Illinois, The opponents argued that the diversity, creativity and representative nature of the House would be reduced by single member districts, and that minority representation would be diminished. They argued, for example, that Republicans from Chicago would be exceedingly scarce with single member districts, and that Democrats would be equally scarce in Republican strongholds such as the suburbs around Chicago. Opponents also argued that the cutback would severely reduce the number of women, minorities and political independents in the House.

The merit of these conflicting claims will not be determined for some time. The first members from the new single member districts have not yet been elected. There are, however, some bases for making guesses about the impact of the cutback.

Consider first the savings claims of the proponents. A careful analysis by the Illinois Legislative Council suggests that about $3 million might be saved by the cutback. This is far short of the $7 million claimed by the proponents. Comparative state research shows there is little relationship between the number of legislators in a state and the cost of the legislature. The more crucial question seems to be whether the legislature is "professional," that is, whether it has strong support services such as staff, meets annually and so forth. The factor which is most closely related to legislative costs is state population. The correlation between the size of the legislature and its cost was only .22 (that is, size explains about 4 percent of cost). The correlation of state population to costs was .91 (that is, population explains about 80 percent of costs). Figure 1 bears out the findings of the council that "the relationship between state legislative costs and population is strong," and, given Illinois' population, that the "Illinois General Assembly's costs are about what would be expected. ..." Although no final conclusion is yet possible, it seems likely that the costs for Illinois' highly professional legislature are not likely to be reduced substantially by the cutback.²

Will the legislative process in Illinois be more efficient and accountable because of a smaller House? Cutback proponents said yes, but their logic does not seem persuasive. The disorderliness of the legislative process in Illinois perceived by those who favored the cutback seems more fundamentally related to political culture than to political structure. Illinois has predominantly an "individualistic" political culture, although regions of the state have also been affected by moralistic and traditional influences as well. An individualistic political cultural is characterized by politics based on material incentives, i.e., patronage, in contrast to the moralistic emphasis on issues and the traditional emphasis on preserving the status quo. In the legislature, the individualistic political culture stresses the "conception of the democratic order as a market place."³ Thus politicians are individualists and entrepreneurs who operate under a code of mutual obligation. The capacity of individual members to introduce and bring to a vote constituency-oriented legislation is of paramount

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importance in such a political culture. It is hard to see how this legislative ethic, rooted in the political culture, will be changed by the cutback. There will still be a large number of bills introduced, passed out of committee and voted on the floor of the House. A greatly strengthened committee system and/or fundamental changes in political power relationships would be necessary to change this system. For example, the political party leadership would have to seize stronger control of the legislative process. (As we argue below, stronger party cohesion may be an indirect result of cutback.) Finally, it should be noted that the workload of the legislature is heavily determined by the population of the state and the complexity of its problems, not by the number of legislators.⁴

Nevertheless, reduction of the size of the House, along with the shift to single member districts, will probably tend to make the House a less colorful and more predictable institution — that is, more like the Senate. More predictability will largely be a function of smaller size and the increased strength of parties. A 177-member body selected by cumulative voting is likely to be more heterogeneous and less disciplined than one of 118 elected from single member districts.

Will the cutback increase political competition and, therefore, legislator accountability? Again, no certain answers to this question are yet possible, but the results of legislative elections in the 1970s can provide some clues. Research on cumulative voting and its effects (see Chapter 1) has concentrated on the degree of representation for the second party. But this research is incomplete since little research was done in the 1970s. A comparison of the Illinois House and Senate election results for 1972-1980 yields a more current view of the effects of both systems on the representation of the second party and the survival rate of incumbents.

A frequent indictment of cumulative voting has been that it is the incumbents' protection device. Patrick Quinn once asserted that "the complicated and collusive system is consciously designed to protect incumbents and limit political competition and accountability."⁵ There seems to be no research on Illinois which directly addresses this issue. The best possible comparison would seem to be the survival rate of incumbents in the Illinois House versus the Illinois Senate. In such a comparison, if everything is constant except the form of election (cumulative v. plurality voting), and if the survival rate is the same in both houses, the success rate in the House cannot be attributed to cumulative voting. The evidence from the 1972-1980 period shows that incumbents were only slightly safer in the House than in the Senate, and the practical difference is not great — 95 percent survival rate versus 92 percent (see table 1). Moreover, it should be pointed out that the 1974 election following Watergate heavily influenced the overall results for the Senate. It was an extraordinarily bad year for Republican incumbents in the Illinois Senate; fully half of the incumbent senators defeated in the whole decade were defeated in 1974. On the basis of the 1974 election, in which only 67 percent of Senate incumbents versus 94 percent of House incumbents survived, the incumbent protection provided by cumulative voting could be supported. However, the results from 1972-1980 do not support such a conclusion. Recent research⁶ on the survival rates of incumbents in other state legislatures shows similar results — a 90 percent reelection rate. All this evidence makes it difficult to argue that cumulative voting is the cause of incumbent reelection.

What about the primary elections? How successful are incumbents in primaries in Illinois? From 1972-1980, it was virtually impossible to defeat a Senate incumbent in a primary in Illinois, and it was only slightly easier to defeat a House incumbent (see table 2). The slight advantage for House incumbents in general elections is balanced by the Senate incumbent advantage in primaries.

The success rate of incumbents overall, in both the primary and general elections, is the most important evidence. In the Senate, there was a survival rate of 89 percent from 1972-1980. In the House, the figure was precisely the same 89 percent. In short, the overall record shows that cumulative voting does not aid reelection.

Another charge against cumulative voting is that it has permitted the election of representatives who faced little or no competition and who won with exceptionally low percentages of the vote. In the decade prior to the 1970 Constitution, nearly 45 percent of the House elections involved only three candidates for three seats.⁷ Opponents of cumulative voting contend that single member districts, with one-on-one competition, are more competitive. (See "Quinn v. Bernardini" above.) But this assumes that there will be one-on-one competition as opposed to one-on-none.

When Illinois Senate elections with no competition (one candidate) are compared to House elections with no competition (three candidates) from 1972-1980, Quinn's point can be tested (see table 3). The first observation to be made about this comparison is that the absence of competition was actually more frequent in the Senate than in the House from 1972-1980. The reason, of course, is that the 1970 Constitution does not allow the parties to

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nominate less than two House candidates per district.⁸ The second point to be made is that there was an increase in 1978 and 1980 in the number of districts with three candidates for the three House seats. The reason for this increase is candidate withdrawals prior to the election. That is, two candidates would be nominated by each party in the primary, but in some instances a nominee would withdraw just prior to the election, leaving three candidates for three spots. A way had been found around the Constitution. It should be noted that in 1980, none of the 177 representatives received less than 15 percent of the vote.⁹

Cutback proponents claim that single member districts will increase political competition. This does not seem likely. Smaller districts are likely to be more homogeneous and therefore less competitive.¹⁰ Moreover, to recapitulate the election results for the 1970s, incumbents were not really safer under cumulative voting either in comparison with other states or with the Illinois Senate, and noncompetitive races were no more frequent in the House than in the Senate.

Theoretically, single member districts should result in greater competition than multi-member districts with cumulative voting because of the one-on-one nature of the competition. In practice, however, greater competition is unlikely. Based on the experience of the '70s, it is doubtful that there will be increased competitiveness in House elections without cumulative voting and multi-member districts. Therefore, the argument that there will be more accountability under the new system is weak.

It has also been argued that cumulative voting has worked to prevent effective majorities in the House.¹¹ It is true (as the research cited in Chapter 1 shows) that cumulative voting is a very effective device for translating party vote shares proportionately into seats for the two parties. Single member districts and plurality voting enhance the strength of the majority party,¹² but cumulative voting kept the party division in the House extremely close.

If the statewide total vote for House and Senate elections for 1972-1980 is split by party and then compared with the party split for seats won, it is clear that cumulative voting is effective at maintaining proportional representation for two parties.¹³ (See table 4.) The average absolute deviation of votes and seats is less than 1 percent. The comparison also shows how evenly divided the seats in the House normally are: the average percentage share of the seats for the Republican party for the five elections was 48.2. On the Senate side, the deviations are about three times as large although a good portion of that difference is due to the lopsided Republican defeat in 1974, which was accentuated by single member districts and plurality voting. But on the whole, the results in the Senate for the 1970s have been reasonably proportional to the two-party vote and the Senate has also been closely divided. Again, the differences between the results of single member districts with plurality voting versus multi-member districts and cumulative voting turn out to be less than expected in the 1970s.

The value of a "working majority" is debatable. From a "responsible parties" perspective, an effective majority is desirable because it allows the majority to enact, and therefore to be responsible for, its program.¹⁴ On the other hand, close partisan divisions may foster compromise via interparty bargaining. Which view one takes is highly dependent upon which kind of political party system one favors: parties which encourage clear-cut policy differences or parties which encourage interparty consensus.

Minority representation

In arguing for the beneficial impact of cumulative voting on the representation of minorities, Charles R. Bernardini mentions four specific types of minorities: party, racial, philosophical and geographical. He also argues that

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"the value of cumulative voting as an aid to electing women legislators can hardly be doubted."¹⁵ There seems little question that party minorities in one-party districts will be hurt by the cutback. But what about other minorities?

One way to answer this question is to compare the percentage of women and blacks in the Illinois House with percentages in the Illinois Senate and in the legislatures of other states. A 1970 Illinois Legislative Council study compared black membership in Illinois with that in other states and concluded that the system neither enhanced nor weakened the position of blacks.¹⁶

More recent data on the representation of blacks and women, comparing the House and Senate of the 81st and 82nd General Assemblies, shows mixed results (see table 5). In both sessions, there were proportionately about twice as many women in the House as in the Senate. This might lead one to conclude that cumulative voting aided the election of women and that its elimination would reduce the number of women in the future. However, not all of that difference may be due to the election system. By 1980, 10 percent of state legislators nationally were women. The Illinois Senate is slightly below the national figure and the Illinois House slightly above. Several states including Connecticut, Colorado and Washington have more than 15 percent women without cumulative voting.¹⁷ The fact that some states with plurality voting elect higher percentages of women to their lower houses than Illinois suggests that factors other than the electoral system could be at work. It has been shown that more women are elected to state legislatures where "the state legislative office is less prestigious, less well paid, and . . . where there is less competition for the position."¹⁸ Of course, the Illinois legislature is precisely the opposite. Consequently, one could conclude that the percentage of women in the House will drop nearer the national norm.

With respect to blacks, the percentages in both House and Senate in Illinois are higher than the national average." The fact that the percentage of blacks in the Illinois Senate was the same as in the House from 1979 to 1982 leads one to believe that a switch to single member districts will not automatically result in a percentage reduction in black representation in the House. It is unlikely, however, that there will be any black Republicans from Chicago in the new House because it is unlikely there will be any Chicago Republicans.

With respect to philosophical independents, the expectations are not so clear. "Independent" generally means independent of party. It is probably safe to say that a majority of these independents are members of the minority party in their districts. According to Robert Schaller, these independents are "less likely to vote on party lines than representatives who are in the majority in a district." For example, Schaller said suburban Democrats "tend to be more liberal than their party as a whole." In terms of issue positions, Schaller concludes that "cumulative voting tends to encourage diversity in both parties."²⁰ There seems to be a broad consensus that the House has been more diverse than the Senate and that this was due to cumulative voting; representatives from the minority party in districts dominated by the opposing party contributed to this diversity.

The critics of cumulative voting have argued that the system encourages so-called "free riders," who are minority party members elected with exceptionally low percentages of the vote. Richard Wiste's analysis of roll call votes showed the expected: party members from districts where their party was the majority were most loyal to their party on party issue votes; and party ties were indeed weakest among the "free riders." His analysis further showed that a "minority" party member who was elected in the district

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with a respectable share of the vote, did not deviate from his party's vote as often as a "free rider." Wiste said, "These differences occurred not only on actual dissents, but also with absences or abstentions on key policy issues."²¹

The comment about abstentions is important. Clearly, when proponents of cumulative voting speak of the value of minority party members acting independently of their party, they are not praising those who abstain. Two other points should be mentioned here. The first is that in recent years, the number of "free riders" has not been great (see footnote 15). The second is that having some "independent" legislators is not an unmixed blessing for representative government. To the extent that a party should be reponsible for its platform,²² cumulative voting may have had a negative effect since it did contribute to more independence from party by individual members. Party responsibility is collective; therefore, when there are numerous defectors from the party position on important issues, it is impossible for voters to hold the political parties accountable at election time.

This leads to the next set of observations. Intraparty competition in primaries may decrease as a result of the cutback. A study by Charles Wiggins and Janice Petty concluded, on the basis of the high rate of intraparty primary contests and the persistent underestimation of party strength (especially among Democrats in the general election), "that cumulative voting appears to enhance intraparty competition, while at the same time depressing interparty competition."²³ The decline in competition within the parties should also work toward creating more cohesive parties in the legislature.

Strong two-party competition is considered a major element in two-party responsibility. Moreover, if there are landslide general elections, one party could dominate the House as it has the Senate. Because few representatives whose party affiliation runs contrary to the district's will be elected, and because there will be fewer dissidents challenging the party's choices in the primary, there will be fewer mavericks in the House as a whole. All of these factors may contribute to the ability of both parties to achieve discipline, to deliver on their programs and for each party to be held collectively

Table 5 Numbers of women and blacks, 81st and 82nd General Assemblies
	SENATE		HOUSE
	Women	Blacks	Women	Blacks
81st 1979-80	4 (7%)	6 (10%)	23 (13%)	14 (8%)
82nd 1981-82	4 (7%)	5 ( 8%)	25 (14%)	17 (10%)
TOTAL	8 (7%)	11 (9%)	48 (13.5%)	31 (9%)
Sources: Illinois Blue Book, 1979-80, and Ken Watson, "Women and blacks make big gains in legislature," State Journal-Register (Springfield], March 19, 1981, p. 6.

accountable. These changes could, in time, increase party responsibility in the Illinois House. Whether or not one views this as desirable depends upon one's view of the beneficial or negative effects of strong parties. To some, a strong party breeds "boss-ridden machines."

Whether opponents or proponents of the cutback are proven correct, in both the short and long run, the cutback has complicated the reapportionment picture in Illinois. Soon after the passage of the cutback, it was generally (and correctly) believed that reapportionment by the General Assembly was improbable, and one major reason was that 59 House seats had to be eliminated. In fact, the legislature did fail to act on reapportionment in 1981, leaving the decision to an eight-member commission of four Republicans and four Democrats. Nor could the commission agree, and the next step in the constitutional process was invoked: a drawing was held to select the tie-breaking ninth member, former Democratic Gov. Samuel Shapiro. The Democratic majority then adopted a plan favorable to the Democratic party. It would be incorrect to assume, however, that the cutback alone caused this series of events, since in 1971 when the legislature failed to pass a reapportionment measure, the eight-member commission did reach a compromise.²⁴ In the long run, the way in which the new legislative districts are drawn may affect the representation of minority groups more than the fact of cutback per se. For example, districts could be drawn so as to dilute minority voting strength and thereby restrict the probability of the election of minority members to the legislature. It was partly on these grounds that a court challenge to the 1981 plan adopted by the Democratic majority was launched in October 1981.

With single member districts, no matter how the map is drawn, two areas of the state will be solidly one party: Chicago will be Democratic; the surrounding surburbs will be Republican. The only area of the state which can be competitive is downstate. Therefore, assuming a rough balance between Democratic Chicago and the Republican suburbs, control of the House will be determined by what happens downstate: "Downstate holds the key to victory."²⁵ There seems little doubt that the influence of downstate legislators in the House will be enhanced.

Viewed from afar, the consequences of the change in the size and method of election of the Illinois House are not likely to be as great as the hopes of the advocates, nor the fears of the opponents, would suggest. The Illinois General Assembly is embedded in a political culture and tradition which defines the politics of the state in more fundamental ways than the method of selection to the House. The politics of the state will continue to be defined by traditional regional splits, laced with cultural differences, among Chicago, the suburbs and downstate. Illinois will continue to have a modern, expensive, professional legislature. No doubt changes will occur, but they will be responses to larger social, economic and political realities.

The struggle over the cutback was not meaningless, however. Far from it. Election and representation systems do matter. The style, substance and "feel" of the House undoubtedly will change. It will probably become more orderly and dignified like the Senate (although decorum breaks down there at times also). What may be gained or lost as a result of greater party homogeneity and cohesion is difficult to predict. Whether the public policy of the state will be significantly altered can be doubted. In that sense, the cutback was more of a ripple than a wave. Illinois' unique experiment in representation has been ended for reasons which seem, in retrospect, to be insubstantial.

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