Mike Madigan

 I am a big fan of the WSIU program State Week In Review. Last week, I emailed the panelists the question, "In your opinion, has Mike Madigan overall been good, bad or neutral for Illinois?" here is part of the response:

Based on that experience, I’d consider Madigan’s overall tenure as speaker as good, with positive benefits for the state.  He’s worked with governors of both parties, from Jim Thompson through J.B. Pritzker, in an attempt to address some of the state’s most pressing issues, including tax and spending pressures, pension reform, more equitable school funding, support for health care and human services, capital improvements, and a long list of once controversial, now generally accepted, positions, such as abolition of the death penalty and recognition of same-sex marriage.

At the same time, he’s opposed gubernatorial initiatives that he considered harmful to the state and its citizens, such as Bruce Rauner’s war on organized labor and Rod Blagojevich’s ill-advised attempt to impose a gross receipts tax.  Indeed, he led the House in impeaching Blagojevich, whom the Senate then removed from office; subsequently, Madigan’s House with the Senate enacted a series of ethics reforms directed at executive branch abuses.

Throughout his career, I believe he’s been motivated by a couple of main objectives: first, to protect the city of Chicago and its institutions, e.g. the mayor’s office, Chicago public schools, the White Sox, from any and all external threats, and secondly, to protect the legislative branch from encroachment by the executive.  To be in a position to do this, he’s been able to change the House from one in which Republicans held a majority for all but seven sessions during the first three-quarters of the 20th century, to one in which Democrats have held majorities since 1997.  Demographic changes have been a big help, along with luck-of-the-draw in redistricting, but without Madigan’s political skills, Illinois would be much more purple and a lot less blue, in my opinion.

Michael Madigan

This 2013 Chicago Magazine piece on Michael Madigan is a fascinating look at what makes the Speaker of the Illinois House tick:  he is obsessed with detail and consolidating power and hates to lose.

State Leaders Meeting

Using the term "leaders" a bit sarcastically, as the governor and the heads of the state legislature have not met in about 6 months, Governor Rauner and the 4 legislative heads are scheduled to meet tomorrow. Given the seriousness of the situation, one would think they could have managed to meet monthly or even weekly, instead of debating the issues under consideration thorugh the media rather than in person.

Bost and Luechtefeld

Sat in on the lunch talk by State Rep. Mike Bost and State Senator Dave Luechtefeld put on by the Chamber of Commerce yesterday. It was billed as a look back at the past legislative session but the two spent very little time talking about that, instead spending the hour discussion Illinois' financial problems and what's going to have to happen done to fix them. The stat's about $130 billion in debt, second, I believe, only to California. Bost and Luechtefeld put a lot of the blaime at the feet of ex Gov. Blagoyovich and House Speaker Mike Madigan, Gov. Blago because he enacted a number of programs that, while they were certainly beneficial to Illinois residents, were not paid for and with no plan for how to pay for them and Madigan because nothing in the past 30 years has been passed by the state legislature without his approval. Madigan is directly responsible for about 3000 state employees having their jobs.

Two things Bost suggested would help start digging Illinois out of its hole are moving Medicaid to a manage care program like that in Iowa, whihc he says would save the state about $3 billion a year. The second thing is enacting PAYGO, meaning a legislator proposing a new program must also include the source of the funding in the bill.

Luechtefeld followed up on the theme, telling of an encounter with Jim Edgar's budget chief, Steve Schorr(sp?), and Schorr's response when Luechtefeld asked him about the budget. Schorr responded that there was no short term fix and five things needed to happen to get the budget back into balance:

1. cannot start or enlarge any programs for the next several years.
2. hope the economy comes back.
3. cut some programs, especially from the Blago years.
4. make the state more business friendly
5. after the others are done, look for new revenue streams

Neither man sees much stomach in the state legislature for the painful cuts needed to fix things because any program cut has supporters who will come out and lobby to defend it. For example, witness the number of college students that came out when the legislature considered cutting MAP grants. The legislature quickly backpedaled on the proposed cuts and I'd expect a similar response and result with any other proposed cuts, especially given the likelihood the same people will return to office in the legislature after the November elections.

Madigan Staying as A.G.

Lisa Madigan has apparently decided she prefers state to federal government as she has announced she's seeking re-election to the attorney general position rather than going after the governor's chair or Roland Burris' Senate seat. Despite the fact that her dad has managed to not get a budget passed on time for how many years in a row now, she'll probably win re-election easily.