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Although I still think things will eventually calm
down and Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s insistence that senior citizens be
given free rides on all mass transit systems will one day be viewed as a
welcome entitlement, it’s obvious that many Illinoisans don’t
feel that way right now. Blagojevich stunned the state this month when he
announced that he’d flip-flop on his election pledge and finally
agree to a regional sales-tax hike to bail out Chicagoland’s
mass-transit systems as long as seniors rode free. The response was almost
uniform anger at the governor’s latest political stunt. The ploy may
have been the last straw in an ongoing public disillusionment with the same
man Illinois reelected barely more than a year ago.
For almost a year, the entire state has been treated
to an in-depth and disheartening lesson in legislative and gubernatorial
politics. Starting with the uproar over skyrocketing electric
rates and the foot-dragging by Blagojevich and Senate President Emil Jones
in finding a solution, to the governor’s disastrous proposal for a
gross-receipts tax in the spring and his failure to pass a health-insurance
bill, through the long, hot, frustrating summer of budget negotiations and
the governor’s resulting veto of much-needed local projects, to the
fight over Cook County property-tax “relief” last autumn, the
school-funding brawls and stalls in early winter, the seemingly complete
acceptance of (and the governor’s flip-flop on) a Chicago-owned
casino and the never-ending battle over transit funding, the public has had
a bellyful of information — all of it bad.
Through it all, the governor’s polling has
dropped lower than his law-school grade-point average. The latest statewide
poll, taken by Fako & Associates earlier this month, had
Blagojevich’s favorable rating at an absolutely miserable 20 percent.
More than 63 percent of registered voters had a negative view of the
governor.
Those numbers likely dropped again when Blagojevich
made what would normally be a politically beneficial move by grafting a
proposal onto the mass transit bailout bill to give senior citizens free
rides. Blagojevich’s amendatory veto of the transit
bill to insert the senior freebie resonated loudly throughout every region
of the state. Legislators reported receiving dozens, even hundreds, of
calls and e-mails from furious constituents urging that the freebie be
rejected. Even many senior citizens were angry. It was if the entire state
had morphed into the Illinois House, which always has a negative reaction
to anything the governor does and whose members draw together as one
whenever Blagojevich makes one of his goofy plays.
The fall from grace isn’t over yet.
Blagojevich, Jones, and the House and Senate Republicans risk irking voters
again with their push to expand gaming in Illinois and Chicago in order to
pay for a capital construction plan. The public is not happy with this expansion plan.
According to that Fako & Associates poll, just 38 percent say they back
a plan for a Chicago-owned casino along with two more boats, slots at
tracks, and expansion at current riverboats, whereas 57 percent oppose the
idea. The poll of 801 registered voters was taken Jan. 3-6 and has a margin
of error of plus or minus 3.46 percent.
Moreover, the public is incredibly cynical about how
the cash will be spent and how the new casinos will be operated. For
instance, 60 percent of registered voters agreed with the statement:
“Politicians in Springfield and Chicago can’t be trusted to
keep their promise to actually use profits from casinos for mass
transit and infrastructure projects.” Sixty-seven percent said they
thought organized crime and gambling addiction would increase with expanded
gaming; 72 percent said Chicago can’t be trusted to run a casino
without scandals and corruption; 71 percent acknowledged that casino
revenues aren’t a stable funding source.
The numbers likely show one reason House Speaker
Michael Madigan has dragged his feet on gaming expansion during the run-up
to the Feb. 5 primary: This is not a popular idea, and it’s just one
more public-opinion bomb waiting to go off in the governor’s face.
Rich Miller also
publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2008.
