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What is wrong with the Illinois legislature? By now
many are asking how democracy got broken here and how it can be repaired.
A General Assembly session that began with
progressive ideas on health care and education — along with rare
willingness by the governor and legislative leaders to raise taxes to pay
for them — has devolved into the typical Illinois answer: Programs to
help the disadvantaged are being scaled back, and politicians want to fund
what remains with a tax on the poor, better known as gambling.
Legislative priorities in Illinois are usually
decided at the last minute by a few leaders meeting with the governor in a
back room. This has become so much the accepted way of doing business that
few legislators bother to protest, but more rank-and-file legislators need
to insist on being heard. One who won’t be ignored is Sen. James
Meeks, D-Chicago, who objected to relying on gambling for increased
revenues. “We may as well legalize brothels” as expand casinos,
he protested. More often, elected representatives consider themselves
victims of the legislative process. “People should understand that down here we often get bogged down with myopic,
one-dimensional 8-by-10 fact sheets that don’t usually illustrate the
whole picture,” said Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, after being
treated to a thoughtful forum on education. “Unbiased opinions that
are clean from agendas are truly what we hunger for.”
The press plays into the broken system by accepting
its rules. One day last week most statehouse reporters announced with a
sigh of relief that legislative leaders were “finally” getting
together to hammer out a deal. They become cheerleaders for adjournment.
They complain when Gov. Rod Blagojevich or House Speaker Michael Madigan
hides and won’t take their questions, overlooking the fact that these
powerbrokers rarely shed much light on the truth when they do speak in
public. The real story is behind the scenes, where staffers work with
lobbyists to craft budget deals but few reporters have the sources to smoke
them out. Too many journalists behave as though a government official has
to make a statement before a fact becomes reportable. Bill Moyers reported
this phenomenon in his speech to the National Conference for Media Reform:
“These ‘rules of the game’ permit officials to set the
agenda for journalism, leaving the press all too often simply to recount
what officials say instead of subjecting their words and deeds to critical
scrutiny,” Moyers said. “Instead of acting as filters for
readers and viewers, sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and
anchors attentively transcribe both sides of the spin, invariably failing
to provide context, background, or any sense of which claims hold up and
which are misleading.”
Public apathy is another big reason little gets done
in Illinois. There was so much noise in opposition to the governor’s
plan to increase revenue, few people paid attention to what he was raising
revenue for. Blagojevich’s plan for universal health care,
“Illinois Covered,” got little discussion, even though it would
provide coverage for 500,000 adults who now lack health insurance [see R.L.
Nave, “A pound of cure,” March 15]. It could be that few take
the governor seriously anymore, because without new revenue he can’t
deliver on his grandiose ideas — yet other states, including
Massachusetts, California, and Pennsylvania, are busily enacting programs
similar to what was proposed here. The program is sound, and it makes sense
for states to become laboratories for health-care reform — but
nothing will happen without more clamor. Legislators, the press, the public — all stand
to blame for the failures of Illinois politics and government. In his new
book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore worries about similar trends on the national stage.
“Why has America’s public discourse become less focused and
clear, less reasoned?” he asks. “Faith in the power of reason
— the belief that free citizens can govern themselves wisely and
fairly by resorting to logical debate on the basis of the best evidence
available, instead of raw power — remains the central premise of
American democracy. This premise is now under assault.”
Gore proposes some ways to revive the marketplace of
ideas, including less TV, more reading, and creative use of the Internet.
The problem, he says, is that although people receive information, few have
any way to interact with or respond to what is going on: “We have
created a wealthy society with tens of millions of talented, resourceful
individuals who play virtually no role whatsoever as citizens.” The
remedy, he says, is “the re-establishment of a genuine democratic
discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way —
a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from
individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.”
It is hard to tell whether the breakdown in
Springfield is merely a failure of politics or a full-scale “assault
on reason,” as in Gore’s formulation. In either case, it is
clear that the system isn’t working, and it’s time for
thoughtful change in Illinois.
Contact Fletcher Farrar at ffarrar@illinoistimes.com
This article appears in May 24-30, 2007.
