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The state of the State                    

Less than a year later, 'ethics reform' chipped away By JENNIFER HALPERIN

Illinois lawmakers seem to have become adept at the art of moving two steps forward only to move one step back.

Take their dance last year with ethics reform. Nearly one-third of the legislators were new to Springfield, arriving with what they felt were orders from voters to clean up government. Dozens of ethics-related bills were introduced. The atmosphere under the Statehouse dome seemed as ripe as ever for reform.

With much fanfare, the legislature managed to pass one of the nearly 80 ethics proposals — the Lobbyist Registration Act, backed by Secretary of State George Ryan. The law requires people who lobby the General Assembly and top executive branch officers to register with the secretary of state's office, report all expenses, itemize those that are more than $100 and name the public officials on whom the money is spent.

After the law was passed, there was much back-slapping and self-congratulation going around. Lawmakers felt they'd taken a step toward ensuring that lobbying expenses are reported accurately — a step that would play well with voters starved for news of ethical progressions in government and politics.

So what happens less than a year later? Lobbyists begin complaining about the hassles the new law involves, and lawmakers start getting cold feet about making public the amount of money lobbyists spend on them. They aren't thrilled with the prospect of opponents rifling through the reports, looking for ammunition to use against them during upcoming campaigns.

In response, Sen. Stan Weaver (R-52, Urbana) and Senate President James "Pate" Philip (R-23, Wood Dale) sponsored a bill (Senate Bill 1711) that would require anyone wishing to examine these new disclosure forms to fill out their own forms. For each file people want to examine, they would have to give their name, phone number, address and reason for seeking the information. The Senate Executive Committee approved the bill, sending it on to the full Senate.

Opponents say individuals wishing to examine the records could find the forms inconvenient and time-consuming — especially if separate forms are required to examine each of the thousands of registered lobbyists. They likened the proposed restrictions to harassment.

But supporters justify their position by pointing out that current law requires similar information be disclosed to examine spending disclosure reports of political and campaign committees.

Maybe a better move would be to do away with these requirements as well, and just make such information unfettered public record. After all, the legislature would never dream of imposing such restrictions on people wishing to examine personal information about mere citizens — like which party's ballot a voter pulls in an Illinois primary election.

But put in place just one requirement of openness for lobbyists and lawmakers and the Capitol complex is thrown into a quandary.

On a similar note, the notion of taking steps to clean up the way state contracts are awarded was just about thrown out the window this session.

Last year, there were cries to reform the state purchasing system following newspapers' reports of "pinstripe patronage" — the practice of office-holders awarding no-bid contracts to friends and political contributors. The reports documented that hundreds of millions of dollars in state contracts were awarded to those with political connections. Along the same line, buildings owned by campaign contributors often are rented out to be used as taxpayer-funded state offices.

Perceived problems stemmed in part from the General Assembly's hasty changes to the state purchasing law in 1992. In the last few minutes of that year's legislative session, lawmakers

8/May 1994/Illinois Issues

relaxed several regulations on how the state buys goods and services. Some later said they didn't realize what they were voting on at the time.

All kinds of antidotes were suggested. One bill would have kept the state from awarding contracts to people or businesses that donate more than $1,000 to a state official. Another would have required state agencies to solicit competitive bids before leasing offices for state agencies. Another would have required competitive bids for contracts over $5,000 instead of the current $25,000 level. Prior to the 1992 changes, the threshold was $5,000.

Instead of adopting any of these measures last year, the legislature decided — in typical fashion — to continue studying the issue. A bipartisan committee spent 18 months coming up with 82 recommendations designed to make sure state contracts are bid competitively when possible.

Among the suggestions:
• Prohibit former state employees involved in any aspect of purchasing from doing similar business with their former employer    for a year.

• Require the state to get bids on contracts worth $10,000 or more, instead of $25,000, for services, equipment and    commodities purchases.

• Require the state to secure bids for "professional and artistic" contracts (such as legal services) over $25,000. Such contracts    now are exempt from the bidding process.

So what happened? The Senate Executive Committee — the same one that approved the lobbyist-protection measure mentioned above — said the bill needed more study. The measure was sent to a subcommittee from which few if any people expect it to emerge this legislative session. In other words, it was effectively killed for the time being.

Both of these issues help illustrate why voters become more cynical about politics and government, and therefore more apathetic. Scenarios like these are complicated and difficult to explain in a one-minute news segment, and therefore may not reach many people on the street. But they reinforce the image of Springfield and other seats of government as places where friends help friends, money talks, and the common voter doesn't have much of a voice. Those with friends in high places continue calling most of the shots.

May 1994/Illinois Issues/9