Quinn off to rough start in 1st legislative session
SPRINGFIELD – Gov. Pat Quinn emerged from his first legislative session without the tax increase he wanted. Instead, he wound up with a rickety patchwork budget, the chore of deciding where to cut spending and a budding reputation as an indecisive flip-flopper.
It was a rough start for a politician likely to face voters in the Democratic primary in just six months.
At least Quinn gets a chance to improve his reputation over the rest of the year.
He’ll have the pleasant job of handing out construction money from his one unqualified success of the session, passing a $31 billion public works program, and the far trickier task of proving his leadership skills by cutting the budget and building support for a tax increase in January.
“The governor has a tremendous task in front of him,” said Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville. “I don’t think anybody wants to be him today.”
Quinn hardly was the only leader to come out of the session with bruises.
Democratic leaders Michael Madigan, the House speaker, and John Cullerton, the Senate president, said they wanted a sound budget built around a tax increase. Ultimately, they couldn’t deliver either one.
Republicans scored a victory of sorts by delaying the tax increase they opposed and getting an agreement to study Medicaid and pension costs. But they ended up supporting the same kind of budget, one filled with gimmicks and holes, that they’ve complained about for years.
In many ways, officials have produced a budget so flawed that they hope it provokes the public into demanding decisive action in January.
“It’s going to be a long, hot summer – and I’m not talking about the weather,” said Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville.
When Quinn replaced ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich, he inherited a financial disaster. Plunging revenues, rising costs and government expansion had combined to produce a deficit estimated at $11.6 billion for the upcoming fiscal year.
But Quinn also had some things going for him.
Officials recognized that the budget was a mess and something big needed to be done. The next election was a year away. And the much-hated Blagojevich made a convenient scapegoat for any unpleasant decisions that had to be made.
Quinn, along with Madigan and Cullerton, couldn’t capitalize on the opportunity.
The governor weakened his position by frequently changing his mind or sending fuzzy messages, causing lawmakers to question his resolve.
He wanted government employees to contribute more toward their pensions, then he dropped the idea. He warned that a budget approved by legislators would force him to make drastic cuts in human services, then he refused to go through with the cuts. He wouldn’t link the budget to the public works program, but then he did – and then he didn’t.
Again and again, he avoided threatening to veto the Legislature’s version of the budget, then suddenly issued the threat when it was too late to matter.
Some of Quinn’s changes in course were attempts to try new tactics as the legislative session dragged on. Others appeared to be changes for no particular reason. Either way, it affected his influence among lawmakers.
“When you don’t have a set goal that makes it difficult to negotiate,” said Sullivan, one of the Senate Democrats’ leaders on the budget. “We saw some pretty dramatic turns and changes from where he started.”
The pattern extended to another of Quinn’s top priorities, strengthening ethics laws. Quinn took a hard-line position early on, but wound up supporting an ethics package that was opposed by the very commission he appointed to recommend tougher laws. He compromised partly to get legislation that would allow the public to recall corrupt governors, but that measure never reached his desk.
Quinn met frequently with Cullerton and Madigan. They largely excluded Republicans, a decision that annoyed the GOP and may have ruined any small chance of the two parties working together.
But the three Democrats rarely seemed to be on the same page.
Cullerton at least succeeded in getting his Democratic caucus to vote for a package of tax increases and property tax relief. Then Quinn and the House ignored the package instead of building on that momentum. The tax plan’s Senate supporters were left hanging, having cast a politically risky vote and gotten nothing accomplished.
Meanwhile, Madigan never managed to unite his caucus behind any tax plan. He spent most of the session insisting there was little he could do to change the fact that there weren’t enough Democratic votes in the House to pass a tax increase.
Many in Springfield assume that Madigan’s inaction was tied to politics and a reluctance to commit vulnerable House members to a tax vote.
“I think everyone is entitled — and I mean everyone — to be frustrated that the House put these political concerns ahead of the practical reality of the state’s really ginormous budget deficit,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.
After lawmakers sent him a budget built on borrowing, unpaid debt and wishful thinking, Quinn chose, as always, to take an optimistic view. He called the budget “a bridge to the future” that provides stability for state employees and all the people who depend on government services.
Quinn played down the difficulty of cutting spending by another $1 billion or more, and of building support for the tax increase he says is still needed. “We are going to keep working and working and working and improving the fiscal situation of our state,” he said.
As for his first session, Quinn said he was thrilled to work with heroic lawmakers and excellent legislative leaders and great union officials on behalf of the wonderful people of Illinois.
“I hope I learned a few things along the way,” he added.
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Wills has covered Illinois government and politics for The Associated Press since 1990.
