Today’s politics in our nation’s capital can best be characterized as divisive and vengeful. Yet, away from D.C., there still exists a role for the states as laboratories of democracy, modeling how integrity and devotion to public service still can work in America. Illinois has lost a public servant who did just that, a man who rose from humble beginnings in downstate Illinois to join state government as an intern and eventually was elected governor of Illinois: Jim Edgar.
As his lieutenant governor for eight years, I saw him up close and personal when he reached the pinnacle of his service to the people of Illinois after his election to the state legislature and as secretary of state, when he led a successful fight to crack down on drunken driving. He struck me as a mediator in the office of governor, always willing to listen to both sides of an issue and then make a call based on his own keen judgment of what worked best for the people of Illinois.
Jim knew how to balance a budget, a lost art in our nation’s capital where deficits prevail. Upon his election in 1990, he inherited what was then the largest deficit in the state’s history requiring him to make hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts. But he never wavered in approving the Illinois Board of Higher Education budget year after year. It would be one of his proudest accomplishments.
As governor, Jim would meet with legislative leaders at the end of a session to decide on the final pieces of the state budget. It’s where that famous line of 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck might apply. Bismarck warned that laws are like sausages, that “it is better not to see them being made.” I was in the room with legislative leaders when Jim saw to it that lawmaking in his style bore no resemblance to sausage-making. It was a moment that required bipartisan leadership to arrive at an annual budget that could withstand the threat of partisan dismantling. He managed the task with aplomb.
In the 1990s, with extraordinary pressure on lawmakers to submit to pressure to write laws that overrode a woman’s right to choose and the privacy of the family, Jim stuck to his principle of choice, no matter how out of sync his position was with the growing right-wing movement within his party.
Politics in Illinois have never been squeaky clean and without some divisiveness, but Jim’s career is a reminder there was a better day in our politics when Democrats and Republicans often worked together to overcome their differences. There was a higher power than greed and division in those days when parties fought it out until the last hours of the legislative session and governors like Jim and legislative leaders crafted bipartisan solutions in service to the people of Illinois.
I’m reminded of an old country and western song in which George Jones sings, “Who’s going to fill their shoes?” He wonders who will take the place of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and other stars of yesteryear. It’s a question to ask of the Republican Party of today, and, to date, there is only a somber and dispiriting answer. There are few public-spirited citizens willing to take the plunge into a party in the grips of right-wing mania.
Jim stepped down in 1999 after his second term when he could easily have been elected a third time, choosing instead to spend more time with his family. Here was a guy who respected the tradition of incumbents turning over their office to those who would follow him.
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The retiring governor then created the Edgar Fellows program, capping three decades of public service with the simple objective of giving back what he sowed as a governor of integrity and principle. The Edgar Fellows program gathers emerging leaders from all parts of Illinois to foster the statesmanship necessary to address major challenges across regional, partisan and ethnic lines. How fitting it is that even with his passing, he leaves behind a legacy that will replicate his leadership and hope for a brighter day when the politics of division and scorn will be replaced by the politics Jim practiced.
If there was ever a moment for Illinoisans to reflect on a Republican Party now gone astray and to wish for party leaders with integrity, now would be that moment.
Rest in peace, Jim. You served your state with distinction. Those of us you leave behind will not forget your legacy and will continue the good fight for a return to civility and bipartisanship.
Bob Kustra served two terms as Republican lieutenant governor of Illinois and 10 years as a state legislator. He is now host of “Readers Corner” on Boise State Public Radio and a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman.
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