A few years ago I was on the floor of the Illinois Senate when I overheard a freshman Republican talking to one of the long-timers. It was the end of June, so the rookie had had six months to get his bearings.
“You know, when I first got here, I didn’t think I knew what was going on,” the rookie told the veteran. “But now that I’ve been here awhile, I know I don’t know what’s going on.”
He was serious. He’s still there, and he still doesn’t know what’s going on. I’m not going to put his name in the paper because I give him points for honesty, and because he’s no different from a lot of other people who waddle around clueless in Springfield.
Like the suburban Republicans who parroted the party line earlier this year when Gov. Jim Edgar asked for an income-tax increase for schools. “We have $800 million more to spend this year, so we don’t need a tax increase. We have plenty of money for schools.” That’s what their leaders told them to say, and that’s what they said.
They voted against Edgar’s school plan, and it died. Then their leaders handed them a budget that spent the $800 million, and they voted for it. But the $800 million didn’t go to their suburban schools. Some of their schools lost money. They got taken.
Now, having a clueless legislator isn’t necessarily a disadvantage over having a con artist for a legislator. The ratio of clueless to con artist is, oh, let’s take a rough guess here, about three to one. Among the con artists are many of the Chicago Democrats who voted in November against giving $132 million to Chicago schools. They voted that way because the riverboat casino owners and cigarette-makers didn’t want to pay for it, the teachers unions didn’t like it, and the legislators take money from all of them.
Plus, they figured they would get away with it. After all, they get away with taking credit for the reformation of Chicago schools. Most people don’t realize that only one Chicago Democrat voted for the bill that gave Mayor Richard Daley the power to take over the schools and install Paul Vallas and Gery Chico as saviors. Chicago legislators wanted to kill that bill.
So you have a whole passel of Chicago Democrats who in the last three years have voted against reforming the Chicago schools and against giving the Chicago schools $132 million.
This time, they didn’t get away with it because Daley and Vallas stood up and said, in effect, “Are you all crazy?” They got caught, so they switched their votes and passed a school bill this week.
Against all that, Jim Edgar looks pretty good these days.
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It’s tempting, still, to complain that he has been a caretaker governor, and his leadership style lends credence to that.
But it’s time to give Edgar credit for what he has done for education–not just this week, but over the years.
Edgar took a huge risk in his first run for governor by being on the unpopular side of taxes. He supported keeping the state income tax at 3 percent to fund schools while Democrat Neil Hartigan crusaded to roll back the tax to 2.5 percent. Hartigan had a phony plan to cut the income tax and make up the lost money for schools, and he picked up some Republican votes with it.
Edgar got hammered by Hartigan and by conservative Republicans, but he stuck to his guns and after he was elected he convinced the legislature to keep the income tax at 3 percent.
In 1995, Edgar signed the bill to overhaul the Chicago schools and give control to Daley. On that one, there was no real risk involved for Edgar. And credit for crafting that bill goes to Senate President James “Pate” Philip and others such as Sen. Dan Cronin (R-Elmhurst), the chairman of the Senate Education committee, who drafted the bill and passed it without Democratic help. Nevertheless, Edgar handed Daley the key to fix the schools.
Over the last two years, Edgar was the only consistent voice in Springfield pushing to get more money to poor schools and give people a break on school property taxes. He got half of what he wanted. The bill passed this week means that the poorest schools in the state will get more money, but it won’t give anyone a property-tax cut.
Edgar’s governing style is still uninspiring. With a little more aggressiveness, he might have gotten everything he wanted. His negotiators stooped to vindictiveness–at one point, they froze House Minority Leader Lee Daniels out of the negotiations because they suspected Daniels had talked to me about the details of what was coming.
But give Edgar credit. Without him, the legislature would have done nothing at all for schools.
Now, there are a couple of loose ends to tie up that could make the next battle over school funding a little easier.
One, Edgar should sign a bill that gives the parents of private-school kids a $500 income tax credit on tuition. No self-interest here–my kids are in public schools. But if he gives the private-school parents a financial stake now, that will make it easier to build a constituency for the next fight over school funding.
Two, Lee Daniels should dump Rep. Mary Lou Cowlishaw as Republican spokeswoman on the House Education committee. Daniels might excuse her for voting against Edgar’s income-tax plan–Daniels didn’t like the plan either. But she also voted twice against the school-reform bill that Daniels touted, the one that finally passed. Daniels’ chief voice on schools is an education obstructionist.
Neither of those things is likely to happen. The school bill passed, and everybody’s probably going to take a breather for awhile. So, two parting observations:
Jim Edgar did all right by schools.
Jim Edgar did all right by himself when he decided to retire. There’s only so much of that nonsense in Springfield you can take.