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Illinois Issues
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State of the State: Gov. Rod Blagojevich Left A Mess

Bethany Jaeger
WUIS/Illinois Issues

Illinois has become a joke after Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s December 9 arrest.

The national media flew in like hawks hunting prey for the 24-hour news cycle. They interviewed Illinois lawmakers and commented on how strange the situation had become, particularly for the state that produced the next U.S. president. 

A case in point is CNN’s headline the day after the governor’s arrest: “Illinois state politics read more like a script from ‘The Sopranos’ than a page out of the history books.”

But Illinois’ reputation isn’t the worst of its problems. After the national attention fixates on something else, legislators will face the aftermath of a governor who used retribution to decide public policy. The impeachment proceedings could further distract from the legislature’s role to conduct business on behalf of its people.

“It makes it much more difficult, and, quite obviously, there’s the possibility that this impeachment inquiry will overshadow the entire session,” said House Speaker Michael Madigan the day the legislature formed a committee to investigate cause for impeachment.

Both Madigan and House Minority Leader Tom Cross emphasized swift but fair action, ensuring that the process protects the governor’s constitutional rights.

Until Blagojevich is out of office, however, the state cannot fully function. 

“The state’s going to be on hold,”?Cross said during a Statehouse news conference the day the impeachment inquiry began. “And all those issues that we’re concerned about — whether it’s short-term borrowing, whether it’s next year’s budget, whether it’s an infrastructure bill, how we’re going to spend money if we get money from the federal government — all that is going to be on hold.”

In fact, since Blagojevich’s arrest, numerous policy decisions remain in limbo: the $4 billion in unpaid bills; the closing of state parks and historic sites; the shuttering of a state prison; the transfer of a transportation division and the expansion of a health care program. Each delay affects average citizens who rely on state services.

Blagojevich, Comptroller Dan Hynes and Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias agreed to borrow the $1.4 billion to pay service providers before Christmas, but the governor’s arrest complicated and delayed the approval process.

Carol Knowles, spokeswoman for Hynes, says if the state can’t pay its bills, the ramifications will continue to spread throughout daily life. “It means that payment delays will continue even longer than they are, which means that the state will be paying additional money in interest to all the vendors who are awaiting payment. And if you’re a vendor, it could be catastrophic and mean that you’re going out of business if you depend on the state of Illinois for your business,” she says. “The people of Illinois suffer from both ends. They’re paying more in interest, and they’re also getting reduced services.”

Standard & Poor’s Rating Services also reduced the state’s bond rating, citing Illinois’ budget deficit and Blagojevich’s legal problems.

Earlier, in a move he said would help the state make up for a $2 billion gap between revenue and spending, Blagojevich closed eight state parks and about a dozen historic sites.

Blagojevich also started to close Pontiac Correctional Center, a maximum security prison, and gradually open an unused maximum security unit in Thomson Correctional Center in northwest Illinois. He said the state could save about $4 million.

But that plan is at a standstill because of two pending lawsuits, leaving 570 Pontiac employees unsure about their jobs.

About 140 Springfield employees are wondering about their jobs, too, with the Illinois Department of Transportation’s Traffic Safety Division. Blagojevich last June proposed moving the positions from Springfield to Harrisburg in Saline County, three hours south, to find a cheaper lease and to spur economic development in the region.

Sen. Larry Bomke, a Springfield Republican and one of the leading forces trying to prevent the move, says Blagojevich was punishing Springfield-area legislators for supporting a constitutional amendment that would have allowed voters to recall elected officials. The recall measure was targeted at Blagojevich, but it failed.

Since Blagojevich’s arrest, the IDOT employees’ job security is much better, Bomke says.

Meanwhile, patients who recently enrolled in a state health insurance plan are caught in the middle of a different legal battle with the governor. 

Blagojevich unilaterally expanded the so-called FamilyCare program so middle-income families could qualify for Medicaid benefits. Three businessmen sued the administration for expanding the program without legislative approval. And because federal reimbursements only pay for low-income patients, the state now foots the bill for Medicaid benefits offered to middle-income patients. An Illinois Supreme Court ruling has allowed the state to continue paying medical providers during the appeals process.

But the FamilyCare expansion is just one example of the “abuse of power” that Madigan cited as evidence for impeachment. “The many instances where the governor took governmental action without authority by the legislature, took governmental action without an appropriation having been adopted, instances where he ignored directives from the legislature.”

The speaker’s staff has collected such examples throughout the past year, and federal prosecutors added fuel to the fire with allegations that Blagojevich used his public powers for personal gain.

Kent Redfield, political scientist at the University of Illinois at Springfield, likens Blagojevich to a Chicago ward boss who operates in a political culture that takes a hard edge on “rewarding your friends and screwing your enemies.”

But Blagojevich’s approach to governing was enabled by powers that come along with the executive office. That is, the power to reward, punish, persuade or threaten to advance an agenda.

“Those are the tools. Those are the resources that a governor has,”?Redfield says. “I think you will find everyone who’s held the office will use those tools at times.”

Other governors were just more discreet, said Taylor Pensoneau, a longtime journalist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and an author, a few weeks before Blagojevich’s arrest. 

If Blagojevich were a boxer, he’d telegraph his punches, Pensoneau said.

He added that much of what drives the approach to govern by retribution is the pressure to raise money for political campaigns.

“The cost of both running for and then retaining high public office, certainly in this state, is just incredible. And one never seems to feel he or maybe she has enough money.”

Minority Leader Cross said he anticipated a healthy dose of discussion about campaign finance reforms this session, and the one positive that could come out of the impeachment process is the opportunity to learn what went wrong. “And we can make government better. We can reform government out of this process.”

Without additional campaign finance reforms, Illinois’ chapter of “The Sopranos’’ is unlikely to close. But it’ll also take a new effort by the top four legislative leaders — Madigan, Cross, as well as incoming Senate President John Cullerton and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno — to communicate as they try to address the fiscal and policy decisions of 2009.

Madigan said having Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn become governor would help.

“I think that a Gov. Quinn would take a completely different approach to working with the legislature than Gov. Blagojevich has,”?he said last month. “And therefore, there’d be a great improvement in the relations between the two departments of government.”

The day after Blagojevich’s arrest, Quinn immediately said he was ready to serve as governor, if needed. And if he became governor, he said, he would reconsider closing the parks and historic sites, the Pontiac prison and the Traffic Safety Division.

Perhaps most encouraging is Quinn’s prescription for the kind of government Illinoisans deserve: “We need a humble governor who’s proud of our people. I don’t believe in the imperial governorship or an imperial anything in a democracy. I think we need to have people in a high office like governor understand the fears and concerns and needs of ordinary, everyday people who live from paycheck to paycheck.”

He said he would live in the Executive Mansion in Springfield a few blocks from the Capitol. Calling it the people’s house, he said, “I really envision the governor’s mansion as being sort of the epicenter of a place where people in Illinois can come and see special things and individuals.”

He attends as many funerals of Illinois soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan as possible. He also chairs several state commissions, including the Governor’s Rural Affairs Council, the Illinois Main Street Advisory Council and the Broadband Deployment Council. He said he has a pretty good finger on the pulse of average citizens. “I think they are not very happy watching TV every night, the national news, and seeing their state and their governor in this sad state of affairs.”

Whenever and however Blagojevich leaves office, the governorship will still carry extraordinary powers. But let’s hope the vindictive, personal politics don’t continue to feed into Illinois’ reputation as a political joke.

 

Numerous policy decisions remain in limbo: the $4 billion in unpaid bills, the closing of state parks and historic sites, the shuttering of a state prison, the transfer of transportation jobs and the expansion of a health care program.

Blagojevich’s approach to governing was enabled by powers that come along with the executive office. That is, the power to reward, punish, persuade or threaten to advance an agenda.

Bethany Jaeger can be reached at capitolbureau@aol.com.

Illinois Issues, January 2009

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