The fiscal fiasco otherwise known as state budget-making has a lot of Illinoisans searching for descriptive terms harsh enough to fully express their disdain for state legislators.

Lawmakers left Springfield a few weeks ago without accomplishing the only chore they really needed to do before their self-imposed May 7 adjournment deadline — fashion a spending plan for the fiscal year that starts July 1.

Granted, the task was Herculean, starting as it did with a $13 billion deficit, roughly half of the state’s total operations budget for the current year. The choices were few, none pleasant: raise taxes, cut spending, borrow, or some combination thereof. Senate Democrats cobbled together a half-baked, makeshift concoction designed to get past November and the general election, then used their supermajority to push the plan through the upper chamber over Republican opposition. But the proposal stalled in the House, where every Republican and many Democrats wouldn’t vote to borrow money, let alone raise taxes or cut spending.

Though Senate President John Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan pledged to finish the job later, the temptation was strong to write the spring session off as governmentally obscene, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court: “utterly without redeeming social value.”

In fairness, however, if one looks beyond the breakdown over the budget, lawmakers posted some noteworthy achievements, both large and small. Only one of the 542 measures that cleared the legislature before the Mother’s Day weekend exodus was an appropriations bill. Senate Bill 1182, approved in late April, added about $400 million to the current budget, most of it federal stimulus money.

But on some other big issues, bipartisan majorities in both chambers overwhelmingly endorsed legislation to:

• Revamp the state’s school code to bolster Illinois’ chances for federal Race to the Top funds, including for the first time linking teacher and principal evaluations to student performance.
• Rewrite the law regulating landline telephone service to allow the largest provider, AT&T, to shift money into broadband and wireless technology, which the company promised would create jobs without hurting old-fashioned phone service.
• Provide a $2,500 income tax credit to small businesses for every new hire they make in the coming budget year.
• Establish new retirement provisions for public employees hired after January 1 that would require them to work longer for smaller pensions than current workers. The slimmed-down benefits package covers all state and local employees except police and firefighters.
• Reform nursing home regulations to shift mentally disabled residents into community-based care and to raise industry safety standards overall.
• Craft exhibitor-friendly reforms at McCormick Place to rein in price-gouging that threatened Chicago with the loss of conventions and trade shows to competitors such as Orlando and Las Vegas, two cities seen as less costly and less burdened with union work rules.

While such pressing issues commanded attention, lawmakers also approved dozens of other measures intended to fix problems — some the work of previous General Assemblies — for the state’s citizens.
Consider two sensible changes in election law. With no partisan rancor and only one “no” vote, lawmakers endorsed and Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation to move the state’s primary election back to the third Tuesday in March, where it had been for 38 years, from the first Tuesday in February. Democratic and Republican leaders set the earlier date in 2007 to give Illinois voters a greater say in the 2008 presidential sweepstakes but reconsidered after an anemic turnout this February.

Moreover, the legislature also voted to require candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run together as a ticket in primary elections. The change came in the wake of Democratic embarrassment after political unknown Scott Lee Cohen won the party’s lieutenant governor nomination, only to be pushed off the ticket when revelations surfaced about skeletons in his closet.

While the red faces all belonged to Democrats, Republicans joined in to link the two positions; the measure cleared the House 90-5 and the Senate 56-0.

Or, note a pair of environmental safety bills with bipartisan sponsorship that went to the governor with nary a dissenting vote in either chamber. One would require manufacturers to add a chemical to antifreeze that would make it taste bitter to cut down on accidental poisonings of small children and pets lured by the sweet taste of ethylene glycol. The other would ban the sale of children’s jewelry with unsafe levels of cadmium, a toxic metal that has replaced lead in some wares.

Lastly, here are two examples of bipartisan cooperation on public safety issues:

• Lead-footed drivers caught going 40 mph or more above the speed limit no longer could get court supervision, which could wipe the ticket off their driving record. Rather, they could face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine, under a measure that enjoyed overwhelming support, 53-0 in the Senate and 105-3 in the House.
• A teen younger than 18 who electronically sends nude pictures of another teen could be deemed a “minor in need of supervision” and ordered to undergo counseling and to perform community service, under another measure sent to the governor 52-0 in the Senate and 114-1 in the House. Under current law, a 17-year-old caught “sexting” would be subject to child pornography charges and required to register as a sex offender, penalties lawmakers viewed as too harsh for what many saw as youthful bad judgment.

The list could go on, but the point seems clear. Sitting lawmakers from both parties can cooperate to fashion worthwhile legislation that serves their constituents, as legislators have done for generations. If the state’s budget crisis is to be met, its political leadership, from the top echelon down to the last rank-and-file member, will have to put the public’s interest above partisan gain and work together to craft a solution, just as Democrats and Republicans in both chambers have done so admirably on so many other issues this year. Their fellow citizens deserve no less.
 

The temptation was strong to write the spring session off as governmentally obscene, as defined by the U.S. Supreme Court: “utterly without redeeming social value.”

Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. 

Illinois Issues, June 2010