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Dan Hynes, the state comptroller, had it right when
he said recently, “There is a growing sentiment out there among
everyday people who normally don’t follow state government that this
is ridiculous.” The legislative session, with its childish bickering
and frustrating delays, drew a similar conclusion from those who do follow
state government. On Oct. 14 the State
Journal-Register let loose with an editorial
decrying the “dysfunctional Democratic team” with its
“ego-driven idiocy” that has caused “stupid, unnecessary
gridlock foisted on us by people who have lost sight of what public service
really means.” The Chicago Tribune popped its cork, urging that the governor be recalled:
“As awareness builds that the governor’s obstructionism has
kept Illinois from meaningful action on education reform, school funding,
government ethics, public pension indebtedness, and other challenges, more
voters may warm to the notion of firing their inept governor.”
The rhetoric will calm once a few more bills pass and
a few more compromises are reached. The dust will settle on this
year’s tumultuous session. Once people realize that education has
been well-funded, health care has been expanded, and capital spending needs
have been met, they’ll forget that it took till November to
accomplish what should have happened in May or June. Before we all go back
to saying, “Illinois politics is messy but it works,” it would
be better to linger over what’s deeply wrong. Comptroller Hynes, one of the few thoughtful
politicians in town, offered some perspective in an August speech to the
Democratic County Chairmen’s Association meeting in Springfield.
“There is a great debate going on in Illinois government about
whether to expand health care, put more money in education, about whether
to raise taxes to fund those programs, whether to have a capital bill to
build roads and infrastructure and schools and mass transit throughout
Illinois. That is why we’re elected to office, to have that debate.
To stand up for what we believe in. But . . . in the heat of this debate,
many people in elected office in Springfield have forgotten what our basic
commitment is to the people of Illinois: that under no circumstances will
we allow their lives to be at all impaired or harmed by a debate. Many
people rely on the smooth operation of state government. Please remember
why we’re involved in politics in the first place: because people
count on us.”
That politics needs to be in touch with people is an
old refrain but relevant to today’s ego-driven pols. The theme is
recalled in Thomas Littlewood’s biography of Henry Horner,
Illinois’ Depression-era governor (Henry
Horner and His Burden of Tragedy, Authorhouse, 2007). A politician of the
day described one of the Chicago ward bosses as a reformer: “He is
not the kind that hollers reform with his right hand uplifted and his left
hand reaching out for the coin. He goes into the home of the poor man who
has no bread on the table and whose children have no clothes and shoes. He
goes into the home where the shadow of death has fallen and he calls the
undertaker and says, ‘Paddy Flaherty’s mother is dead. Paddy is
broke. I’ll pay the funeral expenses.’”
Those who aren’t well acquainted with Illinois
politics marvel that the three who have fought to a near-stalemate are all
Democrats, until it is explained that political parties in Illinois
don’t stand for much. This bothered a previous Democratic governor of
Illinois, who complained: “Once political parties stood for definite
principles and their platforms proclaimed them boldly to the world. The
tendency now is for political parties to skirt principle and follow
expediency, and their platforms are often drawn to evade or straddle every
live issue. The idea now is to cajole rather than convince; to court the
support of conflicting interests though it involves the deception of one or
both. We are substituting office-seeking and office-holding in place of
real achievement and instead of great careers in public life. We are facing
a harvest of slippery, bleary-eyed and empty mediocrity.”
Gov. John Peter Altgeld said that in 1895. With its
language updated slightly, his conclusion also carries across the centuries:
“Never before did this Republic call so loudly as it does today for
strong, sturdy leaders who will stand up defiantly, and dare to do
right.”
Contact Fletcher Farrar at ffarrar@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2007.
