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Illinois Issues
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Illinois' 40th Governor: First Democrat in a quarter century

Taking a page from former Gov. Jim Edgar’s first days in office 12 years ago, Gov. Rod Blagojevich launched his term by cutting personnel and imposing a hiring freeze.

Blagojevich fired Scott Fawell, the $190,000-a-year head of the Chicago Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, shortly after taking the oath as governor. Fawell faces charges of political corruption. The next day, Blagojevich fired 35 of outgoing Gov. George Ryan’s last-minute appointees.

Blagojevich argues an administrative rule change that reduced the probationary period for those appointees from six months to 30 days is invalid, and that, therefore, the appointees were still on probation and subject to dismissal. The legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules had approved the change at Ryan’s request.

The new governor also imposed a freeze on hiring and promotions within agencies under his control.

When he was sworn in as Illinois’ 40th chief executive, Blagojevich promised change and said, “No more business as usual. No more cutting corners. No more ducking the tough choices.”

The choices will indeed get tough as lawmakers and special interests clamor for attention when budget cutting begins this spring. The new governor, the first Democrat to hold the post in 26 years, projected a deficit of $4.8 billion by the end of the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Blagojevich was scheduled to deliver his first budget address on the 19th of this month, but he said in mid-January he likely would ask the legislature for a 30-day extension.

He appointed John Filan, managing partner of Chicago-based consulting and accounting firm FPT&W Ltd., as budget director. And he formed a committee to advise him on economic growth. Co-chairs are financial executive James Annable and Paula Wolff, senior executive at Chicago Metropolis 2020. He also appointed state Rep. Julie Curry, a Mt. Zion Democrat, as deputy chief of staff for economy and labor. 

Blagojevich didn’t say how he might cut spending or raise revenue to fill the widening budget hole, but he did repeat a campaign pledge not to raise income or sales taxes (see Illinois Issues, January, page 16 and October, 2002, page 15). He also renewed his plan to save money by consolidating agencies and eliminating “unnecessary” boards and commissions.

“It took years of mismanagement and waste to create the mess we now face, and it will take tough times and tough choices to fix it,” he said in his inaugural speech. “Some say it will take higher sales or income taxes to fix the mess we now inherit. I say we shouldn’t ask taxpayers to bail out a flawed system in desperate need of reform.”

Also sworn in were Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Secretary of State Jesse White, Comptroller Daniel Hynes — all Democrats — and GOP Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka.

The new governor renewed his vow to restructure the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, improve schools, create jobs and help lower the cost of prescription drugs. And he pledged to fuel small business growth. “I’ve never understood those people who love jobs but hate business.” 

Still, the immediate concern among lawmakers and special interests remains how Blagojevich will propose to balance the budget. 

Blagojevich tried to make light of the fiscal challenges he faces. Speaking to a crowd at a barbecue the day before his inauguration, he said, “I have to confess that sometimes I think, had I known the budget deficit was going to be as bad as it is, maybe I would have rethought my decision to run for governor.” 

Aaron Chambers

Illinois’ 39th governor

He didn’t go quietly

George Ryan went out with another of those dramatic strokes that had characterized his term as Illinois’ chief executive. On the last weekend before turning the Executive Mansion over to Rod Blagojevich, Ryan cleared Death Row. The governor who had shepherded a $12 billion public works project through the legislature in the first year of his term said he couldn’t pick and choose among the inmates who sought clemency.

He commuted to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole the sentences of 164 condemned inmates, according to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. That figure includes some who were awaiting resentencing after courts vacated their death sentences, and prosecutors are challenging clemency in these cases. Ryan also commuted death sentences to 40-year terms in three cases where the inmates’ co-defendants were not sentenced to death. 

And he pardoned four who maintained their murder confessions were coerced by Chicago police. Ryan had previously pardoned Rolando Cruz and three other former condemned inmates found to have been wrongly convicted.

Ryan’s action was the culmination of his efforts to reform a capital system he called flawed (see Illinois Issues, June 2002, page 17). He declared a morator-ium on executions in 2000, a year after taking office, and formed a commission to study death penalty procedures. The panel issued 85 recommendations for reforming the system. 

Ryan grew increasingly frustrated with lawmakers who failed to act on any of the panel’s recommendations, and with prosecutors who opposed them. 

“The legislature couldn’t reform it. Lawmakers won’t repeal it,” Ryan said in a speech at Northwestern University’s law school in Evanston, where he announced the commutations. “But I will not stand for it.”

Sen. William Haine, an Alton Democrat and former Madison County state’s attorney, says clearing Death Row decreases any sense of urgency among lawmakers to approve reforms. Haine calls the commutations an “unprecedented obstruction of due process.”

But Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s spokesman Billy Weinberg said legislative reform remains a priority for the new administration. And Sen. John Cullerton, a Chicago Democrat and chair of his chamber’s Judiciary Committee, says reform efforts won’t fade.

“The leverage is still there,” he says. “The desire is still there.”

Bethany K. Warner

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