Campaign '90 out of the Thompson era and into the 21st century

By CHARLES N. WHEELER III

When Gov. James R. Thompson announced two months ago that he would not seek a fifth term, it heralded the end of a remarkable era in Illinois politics. Thompson will leave office in January 1991, having spent more time than anyone before him as governor of, in his words, "this large, important, challenging, diverse and sometimes contentious state."

While future historians must decide his ultimate rank among his 36 predecessors, the initial inclination among politicians and academics alike seems to be to rate Thompson as good, but not great, an intriguing case of what might have been.

Certainly Thompson's tenure provides ample ammunition for both his admirers and his critics. Almost universally the governor is credited for ending a period of debilitating warfare between the executive and legislative branches of government, a product of former Gov. Dan Walker's confrontational style. Thompson in contrast has been a conciliator, a compromiser, a consensus seeker who has enjoyed amazing rapport with a legislature in which his party has been consistently in the minority. He also is given high marks for his skill at bringing talented men and women into state government and moving them into high-ranking jobs, including several department heads who've gone on to federal Cabinet posts. Moreover, his administration has been virtually free of scandal, no small feat in a state with as checkered a history as Illinois, although the governor himself has come under fire in the past for ethical blind spots, such as accepting costly gifts like South African gold coins, art work and cash from people with state government interests.

Thompson has been a builder, too, whose most notable accomplishments have been in bricks and mortar, concrete and asphalt. Prisons, highways, state office buildings, college campuses, sewage treatment plants and scores of other projects, most of them financed through borrowing that will have to be paid off by future generations, stand as the bright spots in his legacy.

But his tenure also has been marked by nagging shortcomings in education and human services, areas with complex problems whose solutions require more than a set of blueprints. Chronic underfunding of these programs has been a key factor, of course, and Thompson's dissemblance on the revenue issue during his last two campaigns did nothing to help his later efforts to secure the tax increases so sorely needed. Nor is the task of justifying higher taxes to a skeptical public made easier by the all-too-frequent reports of jobs, no-bid contracts, low-interest loans and other patronage plums being doled out to well-connected cronies.

These, too, are part of the legacy awaiting whomever the voters choose in November 1990 to succeed Thompson, be it Atty. Gen. Neil F. Hartigan, the likely Democratic candidate, or Secy. of State Jim Edgar, the probable Republican standard-bearer.

Although the general election is still more than 14 months away, both candidates have begun to sketch in broad strokes the themes they hope will bring them victory. Hartigan is pledging to end years of Republican mismanagement and make state government more accountable to taxpayers; Edgar is promising new leadership to prepare Illinois for the next century. This early in the campaign, neither would-be governor has gone much beyond rhetoric in describing the programs and

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policies he would implement. But because neither Hartigan nor Edgar is a new face on the state government scene, both men bring prior records as well as a certain anount of political baggage to the gubernatorial race.

In some respects, the two have remarkably similar backgrounds. Early in their public lives, both enjoyed the mentorship of powerful political figures whose help advanced their careers. Hartigan's patron was the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, whom he served as an administrative aide and who slated him for lieutenant governor in the 1972 election, Hartigan's first venture into elective public office. Edgar teamed the political ropes on the staffs of former Senate President Pro Tem W. Russell Arrington and former House Speaker W. Robert Blair before winning a House seat in 1976. Thompson picked him, first as his top lobbyist, then to fill a vacancy in the office of secretary of state in 1981. Both were elected to their current jobs in 1982 and reelected by comfortable margins four years later. And during their tenure both have fashioned high-profile images on popular causes unlikely to engender much political heat. Hartigan has waged war on polluters and con men who prey on the elderly; he has championed disabled rights and consumer protection. Edgar has battled drunk drivers, auto chop shops and securities swindlers; he has become a national leader in adult literacy efforts.

Despite their years of public service, however, both men remain largely untested quantities in the crucible of an Illinois gubernatorial campaign. As former Secy. of State Michael J. Howlett, as likable a public figure as this state ever saw, sadly discovered in 1976, running for governor is a whole new ball-game from seeking any of the "lesser" constitutional offices.

Only Hartigan has dipped his toe into these waters in the past, and then only to back out rather than face a primary challenge from the hapless Adlai E. Stevenson III. Memories of the disaster of four years ago still hang over his current effort like a dark cloud, raising nagging questions about his resolve and his decisiveness that he must dispel if he is to win. Indeed, Edgar touched that raw nerve when he described himself as a leader with "the guts to govern" in declaring his candidacy.

The persistent doubts were not allayed by Hartigan's handling of the first tough issues he faced, abortion and taxes. When the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for tighter state restrictions on abortions, it took Hartigan a couple of days of agonizing to come up with a position on the issue, ultimately deciding that he was pro-choice. His answer angered right-to-life activists, who read support for their position into his past defense of restrictive legislation in the federal courtroom. And the delay made pro-choice forces wonder whether Hartigan acted only out of political expediency, given their strength within Democratic party ranks.

On taxes, too, the attorney general seemed less than candid when he sought to condition support for an extension of the current higher income tax rates to demonstrable improvements in the schools receiving the new revenues. Few reasonably informed people would argue that educators do not need those extra dollars, and then some, to begin to address some of the immense challenges they face in preparing the state's human capital for the 21st century. To suggest that the dollars be shut off if relatively instant results aren't produced is both short-sighted and naive. There's no rational basis to argue that if improvements aren't immediate with more money, they'll come any faster — or even at all — by financially strangling the state's educational system. Indeed, that approach has not worked for the last several years. Nor is the legislature likely to cut school aid by the several hundred million dollars that won't be available if the higher rates aren't extended; instead, other worthy state programs probably would be cut to provide resources for schools. On the other hand, his critics suggest, Hartigan simply might be trying to temporize on taxes until he gets a clear signal from his new patron, House Speaker Michael J. Madigan of Chicago.

Edgar, meanwhile, fared better on both issues. In quick response to the Supreme Court decision on abortion, Edgar reaffirmed the pro-choice position he voted as a state lawmaker in the '70s, although some abortion activists later were dismayed when he said as governor he could approve legislation requiring parental involvement before a teenage girl could have an abortion. And the GOP hopeful correctly noted that unless the higher level of education financing is sustained, the inevitable result will be either devastated school systems or skyrocketing real estate taxes.

But Edgar, too, has potential weaknesses, perhaps none greater than his ties to Thompson, whose popularity has ebbed, pollsters say, in the wake of his approval of the tax increases, pay hikes and pension sweeteners enacted in the waning hours of the spring session. If the secretary of state can minimize the Thompson factor to merely a question of whether Republicans should control the Executive Mansion for another four years, its impact probably will be marginal. But if Hartigan succeeds in tagging Edgar with the sins, real and imagined, of Gov. Thompson, that could be the determining factor in a close race. That's why Hartigan opened his campaign with an assault on the Thompson record, as though the incumbent were his opponent, and then labeled Edgar as a carbon copy of Thompson who could offer only more of the same time-worn, tax-and-spend policies.

Hartigan's strategy is not entirely without risk, of course; anyone familiar with government knows that Thompson imposed only those tax increases which cleared the Democratic-controlled General Assembly and spent only those dollars the same Democratic majorities appropriated. Thus, one might reasonably wonder what responsibilities Hartigan's legislative party-mates hold for whatever excesses mark the Thompson years. The attorney general adroitly dodged that question when he announced his candidacy, in the process impressing reporters who recalled his bristling, defensive responses to such impertinent queries in the past.

Of course, as Campaign '90 gets underway, one can always hope that the governor's race will turn not on what kind of governor Thompson has been, nor the size of Edgar's warchest (the well-heeled GOP hopeful started with about a three-to-one advantage over his rival) nor the skills of Hartigan's campaign operatives (drawn largely from Madigan's formidable team), but on the voters' response to the vision each man has of Illinois' future. For it seems virtually certain that upon one of them will fall the task of leading this state and its "sometimes contentious" people out of the Thompson era and into the 21st century. □

Charles N. Wheeler III is a correspondent in the Springfield Bureau of the Chicago Sun-Times.

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