Q & A Question & Answer

by Peggy Boyer Long

A fter two terms, Gov. Jim Edgar will leave the Executive Mansion in January.Illinois Issues interviewed him on October 28, shortly before the election to select his replacement. We asked him to look back over 30 years in public life, and the following is an edited version of that interview.

Q. What do you think are some of the stumbling blocks to leadership today?

An awful lot of folks are here to get re-elected. Now people always want to get re-elected. But the feeling that you want to get something done, too-unfortunately, I don't think it's as dominant as it should be. So when you go in and talk to the people about trying to get them to do things they don't want to do, you've got to recognize what motivates them. Re-election. Which party's going to control the House and the Senate. Those are the major things. Reapportionment. I can't say that 30 years ago those weren't concerns. But they were more involved back in their communities. They had a life back home. So it's tougher today to get them to make the tough decisions. Even if Dick Ogilvie and Richard J. Daley were still in power, and even if they still had patronage and all the things they had that we don't have to use as leverage, I'm not sure they could get legislators to bite the bullet. I don't think they'd get an income tax hike. People are so afraid.

Q. I was going to ask what your greatest frustration has been, but it sounds like that's it.

Just trying to get them to solve it. If you look into my style-to me the most important thing a governor does-he's a manager. It's not a real exciting issue, not one the media writes much about. They like to talk about the word vision. Now if you have vision and you can't manage, there isn't going to be anything around to have vision for. The most important part of management is the budget. So you've got to make sure that is in place. Again, they might want to take money here and move it there. But if they move it, that's one thing. They just can't spend it both places. There aren't many real true fiscal conservatives. True fiscal conservatives would be people that don't want to spend it, and they don't want to raise it. We've got an awful lot of folks that want to spend it, but they don't want to raise it.

36 / December 1998 Illinois Issues

Q. What do you foresee as the top unfinished business?

You've got to continue to be diligent. It's real easy in a very short period of time-I don't believe we have a surplus; I think we've got a cash balance. A surplus means you've got extra money. For a $37 billion budget, I don't think $1.2 billion is a surplus. I think that's close to a reasonable amount of money just to keep in ready reserve. But you've got to keep on top of that.

And now there's going to be a lot of pressure because we have $1.2 billion and these legislators- nobody can get used to having that much money in the bank account. They want to all go spend it. There's going to be a lot of pressure on the next governor to go spend that money. I think if they go off on a spending spree, that's the worst thing they could do. And they could find in two years they're back like we were in 1991.

Other areas-we're in the midst of moving people from welfare to work. We're doing good [work] there, though it's going to get tougher because the ones we've moved are the easier ones to move. Now, every month as we keep trying to move more people, you get more folks that have some real obstacles.

We did not come out that well on the transportation bill in Washington this year. So transportation funding is the thing they're going to have to address. They can't do it with a sleight-of-hand. I don't think they can do it by just saying, 'Let's take some of that surplus and end diversion [from the road fund].' There's no diversion. To say that the State Police and the secretary of state's office that does driver's licenses is a diversion of road fund money-I just don't buy that. That's a legitimate road fund expense. So transportation is something they're going to have to deal with.

I think it's going to be a lot easier coming in to be governor in 1999 than it was in 1991. And I feel good about that. Being governor the last four years-maybe it's the second term and you know what you're doing, times are better-has been a much more enjoyable time as governor. And I think the next governor is going to be able to come in and enjoy it more like I did the second term than I had hoped to the first term. ž

36 / December 1998 Illinois Issues