In a jaw-dropping admission of their ineptitude, Gov. Bruce Rauner and legislative leaders have apparently agreed to discuss the state budget impasse at the urging of a coalition of good-government groups.
In a letter dated Oct. 20, these do-gooder organizations basically begged: Please act like leaders and do your jobs so the state doesn’t collapse. Just sit down and talk to each other, pretty please.
The Capra-esque appeal, which seems laughable given the historic arrogance of government leaders in Illinois, produced almost immediate results.
House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, who’s also the state Democratic Party chairman, was not only the first to accept the invitation but suggested that the meeting be open to the public.
This is the guy famous for putting together backroom, midnight-hour deals in Springfield — hammering legislative language together in such secrecy that even his colleagues on the House floor didn’t know exactly what they were voting on.
And after months of refusing to gather in the same room, state Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago; Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno, Lemont; and House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, Western Springs, were soon on board along with Rauner. Several news outlets noted that a public negotiating session would be “unprecedented,” an understatement if ever there were one.
This state has been operating for nearly four months without a budget, yet (due to court decrees and government spending to forestall a crisis) is still on a pace to spend $5 billion to $6 billion more than it will generate in revenue by the end of the 2015-16 fiscal year June 30. What that means is that around February or March, the state will run out of money.
“It’s death by 1,000 cuts, and we’ve had about 100 cuts so far, and the next 900 are really going to hurt,” said Andy Shaw, president and chief executive of the Better Government Association, one of the organizations that sent the letter asking that Rauner and legislative leaders meet.
“We have had a failure of leadership in this state for more than a decade, and what we’re asking for is a little bit of leadership here,” Shaw said. “It’s time for the people elected to lead to figure this out.
“We’re not taking sides, we’re nonpartisan. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. We’re not trying to dictate a solution. We just want the people in charge to start acting like adults, get together in the same room and talk to each other.”
It wasn’t long after the mutual agreement to meet that Rauner insisted that, as governor, he should host the meeting and set the agenda, which didn’t sound like an unreasonable request. He set a Nov. 18 date for the session. Everybody said that was fine except for Madigan, who indicated through a spokesman that he wanted to see the governor’s agenda before agreeing to the meeting.
Rauner is implying that his “turnaround agenda” has to be on the table, and that means changes to collective bargaining for government unions and giving local governments the right to hire construction crews who are willing to work for less than the prevailing wage.
The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which originated the idea of publicly asking the elected leaders to meet, responded Wednesday with a news release, including another letter to the participants.
“We are reaching out again to recommend that the agenda for this meeting include input from all participants, thus ensuring that all perspectives are considered,” the group’s letter states. “Your collective leadership in this meeting will demonstrate a bipartisan effort to find a solution for this prolonged budget stalemate. A meeting agenda that reflects this bipartisan effort and encompasses all issues is necessary to produce a positive outcome for our state.”
That sure seems to be a rebuke of Rauner’s effort to control the meeting, but Susan Garrett, chairman of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and a former Democratic state senator, contends that the goal remains the same — to get everyone in the same room and talking.
Garrett said she understands that the governor does not want the meeting open to the general public but said he seems open to the idea of live streaming the session on the Internet and having the news media present. When I asked if TV cameras would be allowed, she said she didn’t know.
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Representatives of the organizations that asked for the meeting would likely not be in the meeting room and don’t want to be. Besides the BGA and Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, those groups are the League of Women Voters of Illinois, the Union League Club of Chicago, the Business and Profession People for the Public Interest, the Citizen Advocacy Center, Illinois PIRG and CHANGE Illinois.
“It was never our intention to set the agenda for the meeting or be part of the negotiations,” Garrett said. “We just want to get the government leaders to sit down and start acting like responsible adults in an effort to do what’s best for all the people of Illinois.”
Garrett told me she launched the initiative after talking to many people across the state who are frustrated with the inability of Illinois leaders to resolve the budget impasse.
I told Garrett that my conversations with ordinary people have been much different. I think many Illinois residents are enjoying the power struggle between the Republican governor and longtime Democratic power broker Madigan.
Radogno reinforced my experience during a telephone conversation Wednesday, telling me that she’s been knocking on doors during her re-election campaign, and people keep telling her “not to give in” and “hang in there.”
Yet, she said that contrary to public perception, legislators on both sides of the aisle are in general agreement that the state is in crisis and “things need to change.” She also said the legislative leaders and the governor have been continuously talking about areas of possible compromise.
I suggested that one of those areas, as a starting point, might be a property tax freeze, which has widespread popular support.
Radogno shot back that a tax freeze would be unfair to local governments (school districts, especially, depend heavily on property tax revenue) without changes to collective bargaining that would allow them to see a cost savings, reducing the impact of the property tax freeze on their budgets.
So we’re back to collective bargaining, which appears, on the surface at least, to be a nonstarter with Democrats.
“You can’t enter into budget negotiations by putting a nonstarter on the agenda,” Garrett told me. “You’ve got to start with points of agreement or at least items that all the parties are willing to discuss and negotiate. That’s the whole point of sitting down to talk: to find areas of agreement.”
Radogno notes that Rauner has said he’s open to raising taxes to plug the current budget hole, a huge concession, but that Madigan has refused to negotiate on Rauner’s “turnaround agenda.” The Democrats insist that this is a point on which they cannot bend.
But Radogno quoted the governor in a recent speech as saying that other states where Democrats are in control have altered collective bargaining rules and that the city of Chicago has asked Springfield for such changes that impact the city but not the rest of the state.
Illinois has a $100 billion-plus, long-term pension funding deficit. It has billions of dollars in unpaid bills. And at its current spending pace, it is going to run out of money in the next few months.
Until agreeing to this meeting, Rauner and Madigan had shown no signs of compromise. Some people have said they are playing a game of chicken, but I’ve noted that in such a contest both parties are at risk. But that’s not the case with these two men, who are impervious to public criticism or public opinion.
It would be interesting to see them gathered around a table (it would have to be round, wouldn’t it?) and at least hear what the others have to say. But I have a sinking feeling that someone will find an excuse to bail out. If these people felt an obligation to lead, they would have already done so.
It’s an insult to the people of Illinois that civic groups had to essentially beg our elected leaders to do their jobs. This financial crisis was created by the government officials for a reason. Each side hopes that in the end, they will win.
If the state ends up losing, well, you know who will pay for that.