The hosts for this year's annual Farm Progress Show, September 26-28, expect more than 250 exhibitors, 250,000 farmers — and maybe a couple of presiden-tial candidates — to converge on two farms in Cantrall near Springfield. With its ability to attract crowds, much like state and county fairs, this ag extravaganza draws candidates as well as farmers. Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore and Republican nominee George W. Bush have visited previous Farm Progress Shows and are likely to make the trip again.

"I suspect both will come," says Randal. "The ag world is still important when it comes to a campaign. In 1996, both [Al] Gore and [Bob] Dole came to the Amana show in Iowa. We welcomed them. We welcome the national media attention."

Dennis Vercler, a spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau, is equally enthusi-astic. "It's important to farmers that the candidates recognize the importance of the farm vote. It's a small portion of the total pie, but it is crucial, especially in the Midwestern states where it's critical that candidates show concern about the farm economy."

Still, some exhibitors aren't thrilled by the idea of visits from presidential candidates because they cut into the time farmers have to view new technology and equipment.

Randal is aware of the potential logistical problems. "There is the aura that you always have to do what the White House says. As a business, we have to protect our clients first. In 1988, when [George] Bush [Sr.] came to the Farm Progress Show, he appeared at the John Deere exhibit. It shut down half the show for half a day. We're going to avoid that happening," he says. "We'll do our best to get them in and out quickly."

In the meantime, there's still some sprucing up to do. At presstime, alfalfa was growing on the acreage. Before the show, it will have to be harvested as a cash crop. But by Labor Day, Kent Weatherby and Wayne Heissinger, who work the host farms, probably won't recognize their own fields. The 1,300 acres they rent from a trust held by Bank One will have been transformed into a tent city to accommodate displays from seed dealers and implement salespeople, all aiming to showcase the latest in farm equipment, including global positioning systems.

The Farm Progress Show, established in 1953, changes its farmbelt venue each year. It's been 30 years since the Springfield area has played host. That one was held in Buffalo. Organizers have already announced next year's show will be held on 2,500 acres in Indiana.

Charlyn Fargo
agribusiness editor
The State Journal-Register, Springfield

CONTROVERSY AT ALLERTON
Locals question
the sale of gift land

A controversial effort to transform 1,800 acres of east central Illinois farmland into the prairie found by colonial settlers has been delayed, says Carl Becker, an assistant planning director with the natural resources department.

A proposal to allow the University of Illinois to sell farmland to the agency was put on hold for the rest of this fiscal year after it met with opposition from local taxing authorities and the the Piatt County Farm Bureau this summer.

Becker believes the size of the plot and the resources already at the site 20 miles southwest of Champaign mean the land could be developed into a combination of prairie, savannah, bottomland forest and floodplain river. "This allows us to restore an entire ecosystem," he says. "This will benefit wildlife. And we can see what Illinois looked like in the early 1800s."

Becker argues the open space would also attract migratory birds that have disappeared or are rarely seen in the state. The project would be used by bird-watchers, hikers and hunters.

But the end of ag production would mean an annual loss of $40,000 to local taxing bodies, according to Jim Reed, past president of the Piatt County Farm Bureau. The group also

8 . September 2000 Illinois Issues www.uis.edu/~ilissues ---

Ag interests argue that, by consider-ing the sale, the state is sending mixed messages on the use of the land. Terry Lourash has been farming about 600 of the acres with his father for 15 years.

The family earned state grants to rebuild slopes to reduce erosion. “Tax dollars paid to put this together. Now tax dollars will be used to take it apart,” says Lourash. “Why take this land out of production?”

The land was part of a massive 1946 gift to the university from Robert Allerton, heir to a banking and livestock fortune. Along with the adjacent tillable acres, Allerton gave the university his Georgian-style mansion, a series of elaborate sculp-ture gardens and surrounding woods to use as parkland. In his bequest, Allerton wrote that income from the farms should pay for upkeep of the park. Grateful university officials arranged for tenant farmers to work the land and split their profits with the school.

Allerton Park has become a popular gathering spot and conference venue. But in a letter to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees, Reed claims park overseers want the funds from the sale of the land to perform deferred maintenance projects at the park.

Meanwhile, members of the Piatt County Emergency Services and Disaster Agency say a tallgrass prairie would present a fire danger. In a written statement they argue that “the cost of firefighting equipment and personnel to adequately protect ... persons and property against this hazard is far beyond the means of the fire protection districts involved.” A resolution by the Mid-Piatt Fire Protection District claims that the loss of property taxes associated with the land’s transfer to the Department of Natural Resources would place a greater tax burden on neighboring property owners.

Assuming concerns of the local infrastructure and taxing authorities can be assuaged, the land alone could cost the Illinois Department of Natural Resources an estimated $5.4 million. According to Becker, turning it into prairie could cost $14,000 per 100 acres. To pay for it, the agency would have to apply to the state’s $160 million Open Lands Trust Fund.

Burney Simpson

After four years of negotiations with the administrations of former Gov. Jim Edgar and current Gov. George Ryan, the tribe filed suit last summer claiming that a good chunk of eastern Illinois — 2.6 million acres covering all or parts of 15 counties — belongs to them. The suit names individual landowners, one from each county, as defendants. Tribes have the right to conduct business on land they own. And the Miami Tribe’s ultimate goal may be the right to set up the state’s first land-based casino. “The tribe has been very straightforward about wanting a casino,’’ says Tony Leone, a Springfield lobbyist for the Oklahoma-based tribe.

However, the Miami’s attorney, Thomas E. Osterholt Jr., says the tribe is seeking to recover or be paid for the land, which it claims under the Treaty of Grouseland, signed in 1805 during President Thomas Jefferson’s administration. The federal government forced the Miami Tribe out of Illinois at gunpoint and eventually located it on a reservation in northeastern Oklahoma.

“In essence, the landowners are trespassers. They do not have valid title, and the tribe wants the land granted in the treaty,” says Osterholt of the law firm Dankenbring, Greiman & Osterholt of St. Louis. However, he says, the tribe has always been willing to “sit down at the table.” Though the state is not named in the suit, Attorney General Ryan, after The Oklahoma-based Miami Tribe filed suit claiming land in 15 east central Illinois counties.

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Indian tribes have had some success in negotiating settlements on past land deals after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1985 sided with the Oneida Tribe against the state of New York in a case stemming from an unlawful land transfer.

The Miami argue their claim to Illinois land is valid. "Just because we're talking about a document from 1805 doesn't mean we don't honor it," says Osterholt. "After all, we still honor and abide by the [U.S.] Constitution, and it is older than this treaty."
Beverley Scobell

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Gov. George Ryan’s self-imposed ban on accepting contributions from state employees may reveal the extent to which they have kicked into his campaign account in past years.

In his forthcoming book, Money Counts, University of Illinois at Springfield professor Kent Redfield analyzes contributions to Ryan’s campaign that fall under $150. These are labeled as “not-itemized” in campaign finance reports and their sources are not recorded.

For the two reporting periods in calendar year 1997, then-Secretary of State Ryan reported $629,656 worth of small contributions. For the two reporting periods in calendar year 1999, with the ban in effect, Gov. Ryan’s not-itemized contributions amounted to only $2,085.

“It is often assumed that a large percentage of the not-itemized contri-butions reported by statewide officials, particularly the governor and the secretary of state, represent contribu-tions from state employees who have purchased tickets to fundraising events,” writes Redfield. Tickets for most events sell for less than $150.

Shortly after becoming governor, Ryan forbade state employees from soliciting one another for contribu-tions to his campaign fund “in order to avoid the appearance of conflict of interest or undue influence.”

Redfield compares 1997 to 1999 figures because both were nonelection years. However, since 1997 preceded rather than succeeded an election year, timing may explain some, though not all, of the $625,000 difference. “If you look at the off-year following the election, you expect some drop off ... but not that kind of falloff.”

Redfield believes his analysis indi-cates that most of Ryan’s 1997 small contributions came from his employ-ees. He adds that in 1995, the year after Ryan was first elected secretary of state, his campaign fund showed small contributions of $414,374. And the latest post-ban figures indicate Ryan took in only $900 worth of small contributions during the first half of this year.

“But, because they’re not itemized, you don’t know.”

Though it’s impossible to determine for sure how much of Ryan’s past contributions came from state employ-ees, the concern with avoiding the appearance of undue influence may be well-founded. Guilty pleas in the Operation Safe Road investigation reveal that some former secretary of state employees funneled $170,000 in bribe money to then-Secretary of State Ryan’s campaign fund, much of it through the purchase of fundraising tickets. Ryan has subsequently given that amount to charity.
Rodd Whelpley

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Abortion opponents in Illinois, dealt a setback by a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, are mulling how — and whether — to try to preserve a state law banning the controversial late-term procedure sometimes called "partial-birth abortion."

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision handed down June 28, invalidated a Nebraska law that prohibited the procedure. The Nebraska statute made it a crime to perform an abortion by "partially [delivering] vaginally a living unborn child before killing the unborn child and completing the delivery."

The high court's ruling in Stenberg v. Carhart prompted state Attorney General Jim Ryan to curtail his defense of a similar law in Illinois. Ryan said in July that he was "regret-tably" making that decision because he believed the Illinois law couldn't be upheld in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. Ryan personally supports banning partial-birth abortions. Under the Illinois law, enacted in 1998, doctors who perform partial-birth abortions could be charged with a Class 4 criminal felony. Because of ongoing legal battles, however, that law never has been enforced.

Officials from anti-abortion groups in Illinois say they would face a difficult task in continuing to pursue a legal ban on the partial-birth procedure. But they haven't yet decided how to proceed. An outright prohibition that would pass muster in the courtroom doesn't look feasi-ble at the present time, says Ralph Rivera, legislative chairman for the Downers Grove-based Illinois Citizens for Life.

The Supreme Court found that one of the flaws in the Nebraska law was its failure to include an exemption allowing doctors to perform the pro-cedure if it is the best way to preserve a woman's health. The health exemp-tion can be broadly interpreted, says Rivera, referring to it as "one of those Mack truck loopholes."

Opponents of the procedure came up with the term "partial-birth abortion." Doctors call it dilation and extraction, or D&X. It generally is performed in the 20th to 24th week of pregnancy. It refers to a manner of abortion in which a fetus is extracted part of the way through the birth canal. The fetus' skull is then cut and its contents drained.

Adriana Colindres
Statehouse reporter,
Copley Illinois Newspapers

UPDATES
• University of Illinois entomologists found pollen from one type of Bt corn was not harmful to butterflies, a conclusion that differs from a 1999 Cornell study (see Illinois Issues, July/August 1999, page 8; September 1999, page 12; and October 1999, page 12).
• The EPA in July required states to make plans to bring waterway pollutant runoff up to federal standards within 15 to 25 years (see Illinois Issues, July/August, page 24).
• Vandalia Work Camp inmates were pressed into service this summer to clean a neglected cemetery near Sandoval in Marion County, one of many rundown cemeteries throughout the state (see Illinois Issues, April, page 36).
• The National Conference of State Legislatures found that, nation-wide, half of the money states have received from the tobacco settlement is going toward health-care services, but that Illinois used $315 million of its $437 million for property tax relief and an earned income tax credit (see Illinois Issues, October 1999, page 30, and May 2000, page 10).
• Will County circuit court judge Thomas Ewert ruled that the 1998 gift ban act that limits lobbyists' gifts to public officials is unconstitution-al because the restrictions are too vague (see Illinois Issues, June 1998, page 38; July/August 1998, page 6; and May 1999, page 9).

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Gas tax
Spiraling prices at the pump drove Ryan and lawmakers last June to cut the state’s motor fuel sales tax, at least temporarily. The legislature quickly approved the plan and Ryan signed it immediately. House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, one of only five no votes, argued the bill was a gift to gas station owners because there was no guarantee they would pass the 5 percent savings on to consumers. But gas prices were down about 30 percent in mid-July. Republican Senate President James “Pate” Philip of Wood Dale says he will push to make the cut permanent.

Juvenile defendants
Juveniles aged 12 and under accused of murder or sexual assault must have a lawyer present when they are detained and questioned by the police. In signing the bill, Ryan urged the General Assembly to clarify how an attorney represent-ing an indigent juvenile would be compensated.

Clear-cutting
An anti-erosion measure that would prohibit clear-cutting trees within 15 yards of the state’s navigable waters won the governor’s signature. It would still be OK to cut trees on farmland, in drainage systems and near utility lines. The measure takes effect next January.

School expulsion
Ryan vetoed a proposal that would require students who are expelled or suspended for committing a violent crime in school to serve the full term of their punishment. The governor argued he supports the idea but the measure should also have required school districts to place suspended or expelled students into an alternative education program.
Burney Simpson

Sky-high plans for Illinois high-speed rail
Prospects of high-speed rail service accelerated over the summer with the announcement of plans for a satellite system that could control trains from afar and the release of a draft environmental impact study.

The $60 million satellite system would monitor trains as they travel between Chicago and St. Louis. A command center in Omaha, Neb., will communicate with an on-board computer and have the ability, in the event of an emergency, to stop a train. By federal rule, trains traveling faster than 79 miles per hour need advanced signal systems. Plans call for the trains to go 110 miles an hour in Illinois.

The environmental study outlines changes that may be necessary at 300 rail crossings. The completed study may be released by early next year.

Still, those hoping to ride one of these trains in Illinois may have to be patient. A high-speed service between Washington, D.C., and Boston that was to get underway by the end of 1999 still has not begun operating (see Illinois Issues, March 1999, page 16).
Burney Simpson

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