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Guest Column                       

Illinois: diversity and division By CAROLINE GHERARDINI

Politics and government in Illinois are the grist for plots and subplots. The faces may change in the lead roles of lobbyist, lawmaker, governor, etc., but the issues and the pathos remain the same — or at least they have for the last 20 years.

Taxes, government waste, education, child welfare, law enforcement, environmental protection, jobs creation. These are just some of the issues debated endlessly, and they should be. After all, state government exists as a civilized way to settle who gets what among the wealthy and not so wealthy: favorable laws or subsidies for doing business, and the protections and services of government that take taxes to pay for people to supply them.

Illinois has always been divided on every issue from school funding to road building because the state itself has never been homogeneous. Some say the diversity and competition are strengths; others argue the opposite. Nothing, it seems, is decided in the Statehouse unless everybody gets something. Witness the present debate on riverboat gambling. If Chicago is to get one or six licenses, then some balancing number will go to suburbs and maybe to downstate, which got the first licenses. And the "underdog" industry — horse racing — will probably get some type of subsidy to replace revenues lost to the new gambling enterprises in Chicago. Twenty years ago the example would have been coal development.

Underlying the state's diversity are the 11 million people who seldom if ever think of themselves as Illinoisans, but who seem in need of another label.

While Illinois' diversity and divisions remain, much has changed.

Twenty years ago Chicago and Illinois' other major industrial cities — Rockford, Peoria, Decatur, Moline, East Peoria — began their slide from an apex of manufacturing might. At the same time, Democrats wrested control of both the Statehouse and the governorship from the Republicans. The Democratic governorship lasted only one term. Since 1976, first James R. Thompson and then Jim Edgar have held onto the governorship for the Republicans. Democrats have dominated the legislature for almost as long, but the Republicans in the last election regained a majority in the Illinois Senate.

The party in power represents major interests who want to control any change. For example, Senate President James "Pate" Philip evidently will use every negotiating tactic to get business part of what it wants from state government.

But the party leaders will be the first to admit that political parties don't hold the allegiance they used to. Instead, people, when they do vote, are as likely to vote for a candidate based on partisan loyalty as they are on a single issue or basic personal characteristics.

But all of the traditional issues — taxes, education, law enforcement, etc. — will take on some new configurations as the state and nation change to adapt to the new electronic technologies transforming communications, manufacturing, marketing, etc.

The question is how will government handle the transition, not for government itself but for all of the economy and its work force — and those not in the work force. The academic types talk about new policies. But what exactly is policy in the politically pragmatic state of Illinois? Policy seems to be a catchall term applied by those beyond the inner circle when they have finally figured out which way the wind is blowing.

Many were surprised a few years ago that, by golly, Illinois actually passed a statewide policy setting out exactly what local governments were to do with garbage and yard wastes. The first question for many was: Who wins and who loses? Who will get the contracts? Who will control the jobs in the expanding field of waste management? Of course, lots of local governments fumed aloud that the new policy was just one more mandate that would mean more local taxes.

Now that the door is opening to a future of "electronic" highways connecting computers at home with computers everywhere, opportunities abound for change — such as parents able to work at home on a computer and at the same time, new opportunities for fraud, abuse and invasions of privacy.

Illinois and every state will be players in setting the regulations for these new highways of communications and information. Consider privacy of phone calls as one example in this new age, perhaps based on wireless communication.

It seems that there is no guarantee to privacy in a personal phone call if you are using a wireless phone. People who use a wireless phone will either have to get used to the idea that they have given up any claim to privacy, or push for some new state law or regulation to give them some guarantee of privacy. Is that guarantee even possible with the wireless telecommunication technology?

Welcome to the new world of plots and subplots in Illinois government and politics.

Caroline Gherardini left Illinois Issues at the end of March after serving as its editor since 1978.

May 1994/Illinois Issues/11