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player ready...The early line on Gov. George Ryan was that he’s a salty professional pol who may cut ethical corners from time to time but can get things done.
Don’t worry, the line went, that some of Ryan’s former employees in the Secretary of State’s office got caught selling truck driver’s licenses so the employees could buy their quota of tickets to the boss’ fundraisers. Or that, as the newly sworn governor, Ryan disbanded the state ethics board and named a new one loaded with old friends and lobbyists.
He’s no angel, say those who have followed Ryan over the years, but just watch this crafty veteran as he steers his legislative package through the Illinois General Assembly.
To tell you the truth, I hope the Ryan-watchers are right.
I, for one, had my fill of Jim Edgar. Like former President Jimmy Carter, the soft-spoken and high-minded former governor couldn’t make a deal with legislative leaders from his own political party, much less the opposition. For eight years, session after legislative session, whether his goal was fair funding for public schools or a third airport for Lake Calumet, Edgar would come up empty, shrug his shoulders and claim he tried. The public didn’t seem to mind his ineffectiveness (Edgar’s approval ratings were consistently high) but even as flush economic times rolled on the legislature refused to tackle fundamental problems.
Now along comes George Ryan, baggage and all, and things are starting to look up.
Already the new governor has secured passage of an open-space bonding program, stiffer sentences for armed felons, mandatory trigger locks for home-stored guns and clean-up rules for polluting pig farms. Not a bad start.
But I’m getting worried about the main event.
Ryan has proposed an ambitious $12 billion, five-year public works program for highways, public transit, schools and such. The work is long overdue. The state hasn’t floated a major public works bond issue since Jim Thompson was governor. For lack of repair, Downstate highways drive like washboards, Chicago’s Wacker Drive is shored up like a coal mine and the CTA is about to shut one of its rapid transit lines.
Meanwhile, bubbling up in Springfield is a gambling bill that would, at one stroke, subsidize the reopening of Arlington International Racecourse and bring a riverboat casino to northwest suburban Rosemont. I know many people oppose legalized gambling and I understand it’s really a tax on stupidity. But if Illinois is ever to become a net importer of gaming dollars, instead of exporting our hard-earned money to Gary, Las Vegas and points South, the way to do it is by reopening the track at Arlington and putting a casino near the main gate of O’Hare International Airport.
Suffice it to say that passage of these two programs–public works and gambling–would do more for the state’s economy than anything that has come out of Springfield in a decade. (Unless you consider subsidizing the move of Sears Roebuck from Chicago to Hoffman Estates an act of economic development.)
But last week something happened that makes me wonder whether George Ryan really does know how to play this game.
The Illinois House, with Ryan personally working the floor, passed a tuition tax credit for families who send their kids to private or parochial schools. Personally I think it’s a bad bill and maybe even unconstitutional. How can a legislature that refuses to fund public schools at the level specified by state law (at least 50 percent) hand out $500 tax credits to private-school parents? (Not to poor parents, mind you, because the credit isn’t collectible unless you have a tax liability. There is, however, no upside limit on eligibility.) The reason of course, is that this $70-million-a-year handout is–surprise, surprise–hugely popular among suburban Republicans.
But bad as this legislation is on the merits, the private-school tax credit could have served a highly useful purpose in the larger scheme of things. That is, the bill could have been held up by Gov. Ryan and added to the end-of-session legislative mix along with the public works and gambling bills. This is straight out of Lawmaking 101: The more logs on the pile, the better they roll. Or to use a circus metaphor more befitting our legislature: Don’t feed the lions before asking them to jump through hoops.
As it is, suburban legislators like Sens. Steven Rauschenberger (R-Elgin) and Chris Lauzen (R-Aurora), having secured their precious tuition tax credit, aren’t likely to support the full Ryan package when the crucial votes are taken later this week or next. Why should they? Their districts already have riverboat casinos and don’t need competition from a new one closer to the region’s population center. Nor are they apt to find enough purely local projects on Ryan’s public works list to justify a vote for substantially higher license plate fees and liquor taxes.
If the tuition tax credit were still part of the deal, well, that might have been another matter.
I hope I’m wrong about this. But my hunch is that George Ryan, after a promising start, let this legislative session get away. And next year being an election year (a “remap” election year at that) his next opportunity may be a long time coming.
That would leave us with a salty professional pol in the governor’s mansion who may cut ethical corners from time to time but . . . well, never mind.