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BRIEFLY

Edited by Donald Sevener

WELCOME WAGON

Federal immigration, welfare reform promise costly remedies for state

Here's a holiday recipe sure to give state policy-makers indigestion: Take one part immigration legislation, one part welfare reform, season with federal devolution and heat in a budget-balancing pressure cooker. Presto! You've got vast new responsibilities for state government.

While passing welfare and immigration reform in recent months, Congress and the president whipped up numerous new restrictions on immigrants' access to government services. Trouble is, the messy details of implementing the new law are left up to the states.

Illinois has about 1.2 million foreign-born residents. About 532,000 are naturalized citizens, about 433,000 are legal immigrants or refugees and about 244,000 are undocumented. Given these large numbers, federal immigration policy changes affect the state in a big way. (See Illinois Issues, October 1995, page 34; April 1996, page 38.)

Under the welfare reform law served up in August, 39,000 tax-paying legal immigrants will lose their food stamps and 22,000 will lose Supplemental Security Income payments. The SSI cuts will hit people hard, as they mainly affect the elderly.

Losing the 100 percent federally funded food stamp and SSI payments leaves Illinois holding the tab. The savings head to the D.C. Beltway, while the low-income immigrants remain here — still low income, still needing help. The welfare reform law lets states decide whether immigrants will continue to receive Medicaid, an issue that may be on next year's legislative menu in Springfield.

For immigrants arriving in the future, the new legislation requires state government to complete complicated assessments of the income of an immigrant's sponsor when the immigrant applies for any federal means-tested benefit. The state also has to pursue getting reimbursements from these sponsors when the immigrant uses services. The state picks up the tab for these time-consuming and expensive new duties.

Other changes to current law should give the state heartburn, including a new requirement that Illinois verify that each applicant for a state professional, commercial or driver's license is legally residing here. Also, the Illinois Department of Public Aid is now required to report to the Immigration and Naturalization Service the names of undocumented persons it knows about. Again, the state won't get a federal dime to pay for these expenses.

Hungry for change, state governments have clamored for welfare and immigration reforms. When it comes to the new rules about immigrants, however, the final product will prove hard to swallow.

Rob Paral

Split decision on kids

Kids were one for two in recent decisions of the Illinois Supreme Court. Last month, the court ruled that the issue of public school finance belonged in the legislative, not judicial, chambers. It dismissed a lawsuit brought by more than 60 school districts that argued significant disparities in funding from one district to another violated constitutional guarantees of an efficient and high quality system of education.

The court ruled such guarantees are not an enforceable legal mandate. The justices also noted the high court has historically taken a limited role in school issues, recognizing "that educational policy is almost exclusively within the province of the legislative branch."

And so it will be when a new General Assembly convenes next January. The new legislature is likely to bear the same impediments to finance reform that has characterized its predecessors, including regionalism and an allergy to tax increases.

Kids fared better in a second decision handed down in September. The justices ruled the state had a right to discharge a children and family services caseworker who reported three children were "doing fine" three months after they perished in a fire. Vera DuBose was fired in 1991. She challenged the discharge as a violation of her union contract. The court ruled "the state's interest in its children's welfare and protection" was more important.

Donald Sevener

8 / November 1996 Illinois Issues

A STAR IS BORN

Hollywood finds Illinois' 'sea of corn' a fertile backdrop for a film on an Iowa farm family

There was quite a bit of stargazing in northern Illinois over the summer. No, not John Kennedy Jr. or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jason Robards. And cornfields — acres and acres of cornfields. A thousand acres of Illinois cornfields in all, starring in the movie version of A thousand Acres, which was filmed recently in and around the Ogle County city of Rochelle. Principal photography for the film based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jane Smiley began August 26 and wrapped up in late September in the Rock River valley. The big screen drama, loosely based on Shakespeare's King Lear, stars Lange, Pfeiffer, Leigh and Robards as the daughters and patriarch of the Cook family. The fertile farm that spans 1,000 acres is a central feature of the saga that Smiley set in Iowa, "where the earth was Hat" and the topsoil was 10 feet thick.

So how did Illinois supplant Iowa? "They were looking for a sea of corn and that meant flat," says Ron Ver Kuilen, director of the Illinois Film Office in Chicago, about the Touchstone Pictures' criterion. Illinois beat out Iowa thanks to a picturesque Queen Anne farmhouse just east of Rochelle and the community's proximity to Chicago. The movie set is just 80 miles west of the city and its wealth of film support services.

Major scenes for the movie were filmed during August and September on the farms just east of Rochelle in the town of Creston. Downtown Rochelle and some surrounding towns also were used.

Rochelle residents enjoyed the novelty of moviemaking. Kama Plumley, whose family owns Plumley's Interiors in Rochelle, says, "I can't believe the amount of paint they bought from us. One morning they came in in a hurry because they had to paint everything orange" to make the farm settings look like early fall. The movie company also built a brand new Victorian farmhouse and replanted corn around it for the daughter Ginny's home. In nearby Mendota, a new hog confinement center was built. Some businesses went out of their way in hospi- tality. One specialty ice cream store had a sign up: "Free ice cream for Michelle Pfeiffer."

All in all, it was a fun experience, though a funnel cloud nearly ruined the first day of shooting in downtown Rochelle. "I was in town to watch," recalls Ver Kuilen. "After everyone ran into the basement of the Masonic Hall, the producer turned to me and said, 'Wrong studio, wrong movie."

Don't look for Twister II,but rather lots of the scenic northern Illinois landscape when the film debuts in late 1997.

Mary Galligan

Illinois Issues November 1996 / 9

BRIEFLY UPDATE

BALLOT BATTLE

Republicans surrender: 'Motor-voter'
registration takes effect for all elections

After a series of court defeats, Illinois' top Republicans threw in the towel on their two-year battle against the federal "motor-voter" law.

The decision came last month — just before the deadline for registering to vote in the November 5 election, and just as county clerks were preparing to send out absentee ballots.

"I wish I felt a tremendous satisfaction, but I don't," says Peoria County Clerk Mary Harkrader. "I thought they should have implemented it [at the beginning]. This has been expensive, aggravating and time-consuming." (See Illinois Issues, July 1995, page 8; August 1996,page 11.)

The National Voter Registration Act, which took effect January 1, 1995, was designed to make it easier for potential voters to sign up. It requires states to permit citizens to register by mail or when they apply for or renew driver's licenses, and to enlist voters at social service, military recruiting and other public offices.

However, Republican officials in this state argued the federal mandate would be costly and could lead to fraud. The GOP-controlled legislature refused to pass enabling legislation, and Gov. Jim Edgar, Secretary of State George Ryan and Attorney General Jim Ryan chose to fight the law in court.

After adverse rulings in federal courts, state officials set up a so- called "two-tier" system, forcing some would-be voters to register twice. (Registration for federal elections was available through motorvoter; registration for state and local elections was not.) Opponents, who charged the Republicans were worried more Democrats would register under motor-voter, sued in state court. Last spring, Cook County Circuit Judge Francis Earth ruled the two-tiered system was unconstitutional. The appeals court upheld that ruling in October, and state officials decided not to take the matter to the Illinois Supreme Court.

Harkrader, the immediate past president of the National Association of County Recorders, Election Officials and Clerks, says the two tiered system cost her county roughly $80,000. She says her office had to keep separate lists of voters registered for the primary, as well as print two sets of ballots and set up extra voting machines and booths. But Harkrader says her cost estimate would be modest compared to some counties. "I just said, 'This is crazy. I'm not going to do that again,'" she says. Instead, after the primary she got an opinion from Peoria County State's Attorney Kevin Lyons that the two-tiered system was unconstitutional. As a result, unlike some other county clerks, she did not prepare federal-only ballots for the fall election.

Harkrader sees a silver lining in the long-running political battle over motor-voter. All the conversation about the issue, she says, may have piqued people's interest and sparked an increase in voter registration. "[Motor-voter opponents] may have accomplished the opposite of what they wanted," she says. "We may be in for a tremendous turnout this election."

Peggy Boyer Long

10 / November 1996 Illinois Issues

WEB SITE OF THE MONTH

Election Day is nigh — here's how you can Vote Smart

Feeling discombobulated, are you?

Had your fill of campaign pitchs and posters, buttons and bumper stickers? Seen maybe one too many political ads?

Relax, the end is in sight. And with it, your responsibility not just to vote, but to Vote Smart.

Fortunately, there is help for voters seeking to sort out fact from fabrication: Vote Smart Web at http://www.vote-smart.org. Project Vote Smart, operated by the nonpartisan and nonprofit Center for National Independence in Politics, has a data base of 20,000 candidates, links to other political sites and documents, as well as special features to enable you to easily and thoroughly access information to make you an informed voter. For instance, you can type in your zip code and get a list of your congressional and legislative candidates and links to their positions on issues, backgrounds, voting records and other pertinent information. You can compare candidates and issues, voting records and campaign donations, positions on issues and votes on those issues.

It's sort of a user's manual for democracy — in cyberspace.

So, be smart: Vote.

And vote smart.

Donald Sevener

Illinois heads to court to recoup funds spent treating smokers

Attorney General Jim Ryan is marching down tobacco road.

Ryan announced recently he would join his counterparts in 15 other states who are trying to recover taxpayers' share of billions of state dollars spent on smoking-related health care costs. Since 1994, 15 states have sued to recoup public funds spent treating illnesses linked to cigarette smoking.

Ryan sees a long road ahead after the suit is filed in Illinois courts within the next several weeks. He says he will propose a state law requiring those who sell tobacco products to be licensed, and creating new restrictions and fines to prevent tobacco sales to minors.

Other states seeking similar compensation include Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and West Virginia. Washington, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, Maryland, Louisiana and Kansas also are among the states that have sued in state or federal courts for billions of dollars in Medicaid spending on tobacco-related illnesses.

While defendants vary from state to state, some include such tobacco product manufacturers as R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris, as well as such groups as the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research. Even some tobacco distributors and public relations firms have been named as defendants.

Some of the lawsuits seek punitive damages, funding for past and future treatment of smoking-related sicknesses that are insured by state health insurance plans and disclosure of research information on the effects of cigarette smoking.

Jennifer Halperin

QUOTABLE:

"I'm not going to name" a man or a woman just because they're a man or a woman.'

"We've made a very concerted effort to find women, qualified women. ... I'm going to make sure that people have the qualifications. Now, some of these boards require certain backgrounds, certain work experience that has made it more difficult, in some cases, to find women because those professions have been very slow, perhaps, in seeing that women get more of a role."

Gov. Jim Edgar's answer when asked at a Statehouse news conference October 1 to respond to an Illinois Issues study showing he appoints from two to three times as many men as women to state boards and commissions.

Illinois Issues November 1996 / 11

12 / November 1996 Illinois Issues

In case You missed it

It's still the economy, stupid

If the 1992 Clinton campaign slogan — "It's the economy, stupid" — captured the essence of the American voters' angst in the last general election, then a recent article in Barron's magazine suggests not much has changed.

"Despite five years of economic growth, employees remain anxious about job security," writes Maggie Mahar in the magazine's September issue. "Millions of workers are desperate to find full-time jobs with benefits and some promise of a future." Mahar says that today's worker knows from experience what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us in the numbers: One in 14 American workers lost his or her job in the past three years of economic recovery, down just a notch from one in 12 during the recession of the early '90s.

Barrons cites the low 5.6 percent unemployment rate, but asserts that the real figure is double that because it doesn't account for those workers who have given up looking for a job or have taken a part-time job because they can't find full-time work. And for those with a job, wages have stagnated because workers are required to pick up a larger share of their health benefits.

Mahar quotes Stephen Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley, who anticipates a worker backlash arising from today's stagnant wages and rising corporate profits. "In the arena of public opinion, corporate leaders and shareholders are being vilified as never before." Roach says that 2.7 million workers have fallen victim to corporate restructuring since the current recovery began in the spring of 1991 and that as of June announced work force reductions are running 33 percent ahead of last year.

The political implications of ongoing economic anxiety will soon be apparent.

But the next administration may find that "It's the economy, stupid" is not an admonition limited just to political campaigns.

Beverley Scobell

UPDATE_____________________________

TAX CAP CREEP

19 counties to vole on limiting property levies

The ceiling on property taxes may soon cover a lot more property in Illinois.

Property tax caps, now limited to the surburbs of Chicago, are up for a vote throughout the state this month. Nineteen counties — from Winnebago in far northern Illinois to Union and Massac down south — are taking advantage of a new state law allowing county boards to place property tax cap referendums on the ballot.

Voters may decide to approve the caps, which limit how much local governments can raise property taxes — to 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is smaller. Larger increases must be approved through referendum.

The caps first were put in place by state lawmakers in 1991 in the suburban "collar" counties of DuPage, Lake, Will, McHenry and Kane. Cook County was included in 1995.

The caps have drawn criticism, though, in suburbs that now lack money for needed school expansions, as well as street improvements and law enforcement officers. (See Illinois Issues, May 1996, page 30.)

Jennifer Halperin

Illinois Issues November 1996 / 13

BRIEFLY

POISON PEN

Cartoonist's book makes sure that fame brings a high price for Illinois politicians

Dawn dark Netsch, clutching a sign raise your taxes," is flattened on the grill of a truck while Walter Mondale offers sympathy. Illinois Supreme Court Justice James Heiple hangs from a tree limb — lynched by his own knotted tongue. Pate Philip's "speech process" bypasses his brain altogether. And Mel Reynolds' very large new prison cellmate greets him with, "Did I win the lotto?"

Cheap shots? Exactly.

These images all appear in Cheap Shots: An Incredibly Inexpensive Collection of Political Cartoons by Mike Thompson. The book, recently published by The State Journal-Register, contains 142 pages of Thompson's editorial cartoons from the Springfield newspaper (where his cartoons have been published since 1990) and Copley News Service, which syndicates his work nationally. The book is divided into four sections: "Campaign '96," "Illinois," "Life in America" and "Springfield."

At seven bucks (and apparently less if you buy hundreds of copies to give to unsuspecting school children), Cheap Shots is worth its price just for the Illinois section. There, Thompson throws sucker punches at Chicago and New York, two of my favorite cities. But he also hits all my favorite cartoon targets, including the Department of Children and Family Services, Mike Madigan, Rich Daley, Dick Durbin and, of course, Jim Edgar — his perfectly coiffed hair perpetually adorned with a prominent price tag. In the book's introduction, former Gov. James R. Thompson praises the cartoonist's talent, but suggests that political cartoons are "for those who refuse to wade through lengthy news analyses." Naw, those people are watching Entertainment Tonight, not reading newspapers.

In an age when newspapers are dying like bugs on a zapper and editors are more interested in not offending people than in publishing strong opinions, Illinoisans are fortunate to have cartoonists like Mike Thompson. So go buy this book. It's cheap.

Mike Cramer

Cartoons by Mike Thompson, used with permission of The State Journal-Register.

14 / November 1996 Illinois Issues

MIDWEST

Presidential battleground

Illinois should be right in the thick of things come Election Day. The Midwest sits at the heart of the November 5 presidential election. Though opinion polls indicate President Bill Clinton has made inroads in traditionally Republican states, both he and GOP challenger Bob Dole base their electoral strategy on holding onto their core support while duking it out in the industrial/agricultural Midwest. (Clinton is strong in the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic states and the Pacific Northwest Dole has the edge in the South and western and Great Plains states.) These maps show that Clinton and Vice President Al Gore nearly swept the region four years ago, losing only Indiana, a Republican stronghold and the home state of then-Vice President Dan Quayle. The Democratic ticket did equally well in Illinois, where Clinton won 73 of 102 counties and captured support in every region of the state. The Democrats amassed a margin of 700,000 votes over the Republican incumbents in 1992, capturing 49 percent compared to 34 percent for President George Bush and Vice President Quayle, and 17 percent for Ross Perot.

Donald Sevener and Brian Lee

Illinois Issues November 1996 / 15