Women and children are literally being thrown into
the street while the three-headed monster that runs Illinois government
continues to do battle with itself.
More than 1,000 protesters gathered at
Chicago’s Thompson Center last week to demand an end to the ugly
political war that has engulfed Springfield. The protesters sought the
restoration of millions of dollars vetoed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich from
alcohol and substance-abuse recovery services. The programs keep drug and
alcohol users out of jail by giving them an opportunity to clean up and get
their lives back in order.
The governor vetoed the money — and a whole lot
more — after the House and Senate failed to pass a balanced budget
[see Dusty Rhodes, “First domino to fall,” July 17]. Actually
the House did pass a balanced budget, but it’s still sitting in the
Senate. The proposal that made it to the governor’s desk was favored
by the Senate Democrats but required additional revenues, which the House
didn’t approve during the spring session.
The House came back to Springfield to override some
of the governor’s vetoes, including the alcohol and substance-abuse
program cuts. But the House Democrats, who run the chamber, never took up
any funding proposals, claiming that the House Republicans had refused to
negotiate with them at the request of the Democratic governor. The Senate
refused to come back to town as long as the House failed to pass revenue
bills, and then the never-ending finger-pointing ritual, which passes for
leadership here, was in full swing.
The governor blamed the House, the Senate blamed the
House, the House blamed everybody but itself, the Republicans blamed the
Democrats, and the Democrats blamed the Republicans.
Meanwhile, a facility for homeless families that
houses 80 women and 40 children in the south suburbs, relying solely on
state funding through the alcohol and drug program, was preparing last week
to close its doors and evict its residents.
“It’s like our lives [aren’t]
important,” says Demetria Woods, who works for the suburban facility
that was preparing to close last week.
Back to the blame game.
The governor’s people had predicted that the
House would bear the brunt of the blame in this budget fight, but that
hasn’t happened so far. He made the vetoes, the House overrode some
of them, and the Senate won’t return. Politically, the governor and
the Senate are taking most of the heat at the moment. And the more the
governor cuts (he has said that much more is on the way as he manages his
way through hundreds of millions in additional red ink), the more blame he
will get.
But this is no longer a merely political story.
We’re talking about real people with real problems, blithely tossed
to the four winds while the “leaders” seek to use the crisis to
their own advantage. Blagojevich and Jones want to destroy Madigan, and
Madigan is trying to do the same to them.
Illinois was always known as a rough-and-tumble state
that still got the job done, but no longer. The rough-and-tumble has
increased exponentially to the point where “the job” is now a
distant second to “the fight.”
Blagojevich, Jones, and Madigan are fighting with one
another without taking even the slightest notice of the devastation they
are causing to the people and infrastructure below. It may be thrilling to
watch, unless, of course, you are those Thompson Center protesters or
Demetria Woods, and then your cries of anguish go unheard.
Apparently the rest of us are doomed to let this
three-headed monster fight itself until a “win” is declared.
There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot we can do about it until the war
is over, whenever that may be.
I’ve never been so disheartened by this
state’s government as I am right now.
Rich Miller
publishes Capitol Fax, a daily
political newsletter, and
thecapitolfaxblog.com.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
