Will redistricting be the compromise?

I have written on several occasions that I am skeptical of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s rhetoric concerning political reapportionment.

He has pushed for creating an independent body that would take over preparation of the maps that detail boundaries of political districts. Of course, the definition of “independent” can be open to interpretation.

It's not just a Texas issue. Provided by Texas Politics Project.

AS IN I wonder if it means anyone “independent” of the current political leadership who would deliberately favor the current political minority. It makes me suspect it to be an effort to undermine the current process – by which the boundaries are drawn by the legislators who (theoretically) are the representatives of the people who elected them.

In short, the people who couldn’t win the elections are now trying to find a new way to win – rather than going out and winning the election themselves.

So it is with some interest that I try to figure out what the significance is of the Supreme Court of the United States’ latest ruling on Monday – one that rejects the Arizona Legislature’s efforts to strike down the state Independent Redistricting Commission. It was created following a voter referendum, and was meant to take away the ability of legislators to draw political boundaries to favor themselves.

Although the real harm from the current process of redistricting is when politicos draw boundaries meant to screw over their opposition.

THE HIGH COURT on Monday ruled that there is nothing preventing a state from implementing a redistricting procedure that relies on someone other than the legislature to do the dirty work of political map-making.

RAUNER: Did high court give him a boost?

The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that officials in California are viewing the ruling as supportive of their own state’s efforts. Which makes me suspect Rauner was very happy as well.

The governor now has a very high authority (the same one that pleased progressives by backing healthcare reform AND gay marriage just a few days earlier) in his favor.

Could this become the measure that makes Democrats now hostile to Rauner for his anti-organized labor rhetoric a little bit willing to compromise? Heck, could support for this Rauner desire become THE compromise issue that allows for the state to get something resembling a budget compromise in coming weeks?

OF COURSE, I’M not thinking that Democrats in the Legislature would back something meant to deliberately undermine themselves. I suspect we’d have to get a commission that wasn’t so blatantly biased in favor of any political party.

MADIGAN: He'll figure out way to protect self

Because the honest truth is that there is no such thing as absolute non-biased. Everybody is going to have their preferences they will want to favor. And for those who suggest a computer to take the human element out, I’d question the biases of those people who program the device.

But is the fact that this issue appears to have some sticking power means Democrats in this state ought to try to get a grasp on it so that it doesn’t wind up being implemented in a completely hostile form.

Otherwise we’re going to continue with the current format in Illinois, which is one that always amazes political people elsewhere – the idea that the balance of power can (and often does) fall to the draw out of a hat (or, one time, from a crystal bowl once owned by Abraham Lincoln).

IT WAS PUT into the state Constitution that way because it was believed that the fear of an all-or-nothing draw, with someone getting nothing, would be so fearsome it would force people to cooperate.

Instead, the greed of political people and the chance that they can get everything at the expense of their opposition has turned out to be stronger.

I don’t doubt that some Republicans are viewing the 2018 gubernatorial election as being all-important because it would give the GOP a veto come the 2021 reapportionment that could result in them having a chance at the “all-or-nothing” prize.

Which could also influence the Dems with their current veto-proof majority that prevents Rauner from being able to push his ideological will down their throats to consider this issue further – because nothing lasts forever.

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Back to Square One, which wasn’t a pleasant place for us to be to begin with

I was kind of hoping that the Supreme Court of Illinois would somehow figure out a way to uphold the measure approved by the General Assembly and then-Gov. Pat Quinn back in 2013 to resolve the problems the state faced in funding its pension programs.

As it was, it took the Legislature several years past what was supposed to be the breaking point for the political people to come up with the solution they enacted two years ago.

BUT THE SUPREME Court on Friday went along with the hints it had been giving out – it overturned the previous legislative action on the grounds that it violated provisions of the state constitution that protect the retirement benefits that state workers receive.

No retroactive changes of any kind; not even if you want to try to claim you don’t have the money to afford the retirement rates that had previously been arranged.

So now we can resurrect the $105 billion shortfall in funding needed to balance out the retirement funds for state workers and educators at both public schools and state colleges. As if Illinois didn’t have enough financial problems to deal with, this issue is back!

Let’s be honest; there’s no way our Legislature is about to concoct a solution to this problem by the end of this legislative session – which is barely more than three weeks off.

AND THE LONGER the issue lingers, the greater the size of the problem grows.

If anything, it is made worse by the fact that the little bit of guidance the political people received from the Supreme Court’s ruling was to swipe at the Legislature for not going along with Quinn’s desires to extend the state income tax hike that withered away at the end of 2014.

Of course, current Gov. Bruce Rauner always made it clear he wanted that allegedly temporary tax hike to go away and the General Assembly’s membership never had the political backbone to address the issue.

Which is why there is going to be a serious shortfall, particularly since so much of Rauner’s own political agenda is to cut at programs and services whose existence serves to benefit the agendas of people not sympathetic to his views.

I CAN’T SEE Rauner coming to his senses on this issue and accepting the reality that he’s going to have to put some attention on the idea of raising new revenue sources in order for the state to meet its financial and moral obligations.

Because the longer the pension system remains a mess, the more and more its demands will sap up the entirety of what revenues the state of Illinois has.

But there are also many legislators of both major political persuasions who also don’t want to have to address this issue; it’s really not fair to say that Rauner is all to blame for the way this mess will linger.

I do find it humorous the way some political people are suggesting now that perhaps the solution to this issue is to amend the Illinois Constitution – so as to take out the provisions that require retirement benefits to remain the same.

CHANGING THE STATE Constitution is something that takes many years to do – time the state simply no longer has. This is a problem that was created by the inaction of many governors throughout the decades (you can’t blame it on just one political party).

We need serious, painful solutions to this problem that are going to wind up hurting the political interests of many people.

And we definitely need to quit thinking of this issue as one of a problem caused by those ‘damned retirees’ and the benefits they earned with their labor throughout the years.

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Who’s going to out-politick whom on fate of Illinois comptroller post?

Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner let it be known this week whom he plans to pick to replace the late Judy Baar Topinka to serve as Illinois comptroller. But that doesn’t make the future’s post any more secure.

For now that we know Leslie Munger is the new person in charge of making sure government bills get paid in a manner sort of resembling being timely, it seems Rauner is pushing for the post’s abolishment.

ACTUALLY, HE WANTS a merger of sorts between the comptroller and the Illinois treasurer – the office that oversees the state’s financial investments and other income.

It has been a long-running political debate over whether state government finances ought to be overseen by two officials who hold state constitutional officer titles. It seems that Rauner wants to use the Topinka death as momentum to push this issue now, when in the past it has always limped along and withered away.

Now I know there are those who think this appropriate – they say Topinka herself favored merging the two offices, and that this could be her legacy. But I can’t help but be skeptical.

Perhaps it’s because I know my local history and remember the name Orville Hodge (the one-time state financial official who wound up doing prison time for his government antics).

IT WAS WITH that in mind that when the state Constitution was last re-written in 1970, delegates decided to split the duties related to state government’s financial tasks.

In essence, one person is in charge of bringing in as much money as possible for the state to spend, with another person being in charge of signing off on the checks that are issued to pay the state’s bills.

It provides a sense of ‘check and balance’ that I actually find appropriate. I’m not sure what is really gained by wanting to have one person serve as an all-powerful treasurer.

Except that some people see the concept of having that all-powerful person and get greedy at the concept of having that official on their side in partisan political maneuvers. Just like the idea of having a lottery to break the tie on a political redistricting panel was supposed to scare people into being afraid their side would get nothing, but instead their greedy nature makes them enjoy the chance to get all – and totally screw over the opposition!

RAUNER MADE IT clear this week that his appointment of Munger was part of a larger effort to have voters decide in the 2016 elections whether the two posts would be merged into one.

Whether such a plan can gain traction will depend on how it is worded, and which position is perceived as being the one done away with.

Which is why I found it laughable that Illinois Treasurer-elect Michael Frerichs issued his own statement this week saying he favors doing away with the comptroller post in 2016 – as though that is a big conciliatory gesture!

For one thing, his proposal merely protects himself. I don’t think Republican political interests (including Rauner) will meekly go along with that.

PLUS, I THINK it shows Frerichs’ political cluelessness if he really believes that can happen.

For the voters back in November chose Topinka to serve a four-year term running from Monday through mid-January of 2019. Whether there has to be a special election in 2016 to pick someone to finish the last two years, or whether Munger gets to have a whole four-year term without being elected has to be decided.

But we’re going to have the two positions in place at least through then – there’s no getting around that! Whether some time in the 2020s the two posts can be combined is a different issue. But it’s not going to happen anytime before then.

There’s still time between now and then. Let’s hope sense prevails and we don’t get a restructuring of our government just because current officials have dreams of more power for their partisan side!

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Are “public” pensions the bane of all evil? Or are we being asked to back partisan rhetoric to amend constitution?

Not the current document

I find it amusing to learn that groups opposed to a proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution are waiting until the final days before Election Day to try to stir up voter opposition.

Because it comes at a time when the campaigns, particularly those that would look favorably on a Barack Obama re-election, are all so eager to get high turnout at early voter centers.

BUILD UP SUCH a big lead that Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney is too far behind to possibly catch up with those votes actually cast at polling places!

Could a lot of people wind up finding out about what this state Constitution amendment actually means, AFTER they already have cast their ballots?

I know in my case, that is the case. I hadn’t heard much about the amendment that was the very first item on the ballot I cast when I went to an early voting center. In fact, it was the one item that I had to think about and be sure I read it correctly before I “made my mark” on the touch-screen.

And for the record, I voted “no.” The amendment would have said that any government trying to approve a measure related to employee retirement plans would have to get at least a 60 percent vote in order to pass.

RATHER THAN THE standard simple majority of officials that causes most measures to be passed into law.

This particular measure struck me as some sort of partisan measure by the ideologues to try to force their ways of thinking on the rest of us. The ones of us who want the rest of us to believe that the “problem” with regards to pension funding isn’t the irresponsible way in which our governments have funded them.

They want us to think the problem is the fact that anyone would get a pension at all.

Take the congressional campaign of Jason Plummer (Bill Brady’s youthful running mate in the 2010 election cycle; who's running down near St. Louis and in Southern Illinois), who is going after Democratic challenger Bill Enyart for pensions his wife (a retired judge) is receiving. “We’re calling the ethics of these things into question,” said Plummer, to reporter-types.

WHICH IS NONSENSE! I’d like to think a majority of people who cast ballots for the Nov. 6 election cycle (whether on that date or in the couple of weeks in advance at early voting centers) will be able to see through this.

Yet let’s be honest. The ballot question is written in legalese. And if one is so preoccupied with putting their little green check mark next to the names of Obama or Romney, they may not want to be bothered with reading (and thinking) about this issue.

Besides, when the issue of pension funding reform has come up before the General Assembly in recent years, we always hear the rhetoric about how this is a drastic problem that must be dealt with NOW in order to prevent permanent financial catastrophe from occurring.

Yet the legislators always manage to find ways of pushing the issue off into the future (just as they have always managed to ignore providing proper funding levels in the past) because it is a complex issue that many in the public don’t really get.

HOW MANY PEOPLE are going to cast their vote on this issue with less thought than they put in working their way through the lists of all those judges (most of whom on my ballot at least were running unopposed)?

How many people will see the spots put together by the We Are One coalition (which has raised about $500,000 in recent weeks to pay for broadcast spots and other ads asking for a “no” vote) and remember that they voted “yes” on the issue.

Then, they will smack their foreheads about their vote, wishing they could “take it back?”

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Has a perennial idea’s time come?

It has been a decade since I was one of the reporter-type regulars at the Illinois Statehouse, yet I can remember one of the perennial ideas people would latch onto if they wanted to gain some public attention for themselves was the concept of merging the state comptroller and Illinois treasurer into one single office.

To show how most political people didn’t take the idea too seriously, my lasting memory was of then-state Rep. Cal Skinner, a Republican from the Crystal Lake area, wisecracking that having a chief financial officer would mean Illinois would have a “chief f.o.,” a dull remark for which he actually got laughs from his colleagues.

BUT NOW, IT seems that Republicans are hoping to make this issue something a little more real. Their nominees for treasurer – state Sen. Dan Rutherford of Pontiac – and comptroller – former state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka – both said recently they would work together to ensure that one of their political positions no longer exists.

In an attempt to undermine the ability of Topinka and Rutherford to turn this perennial political issue into something of significance, Topinka’s Democratic opponent, state Rep. David Miller of Lynwood, said he is willing to back the idea.

Even Democratic treasurer nominee Robin Kelly says she could back the idea, saying, “leaders must pursue every avenue to save money,” and also claiming she had the idea first.

How can Topinka use this issue to bash Miller (or Rutherford to attack Kelly) if, theoretically, they support the same stance? In political-speak, Miller’s action “takes the issue off the table” as a campaign matter.

NOT THAT I expect this will cause Topinka to shut up about it. She wants to be able to use this issue, which on the surface sounds like something so incredibly obvious that we wonder why the drafters of the Illinois Constitution didn’t just do it that way when they put the current document together back in 1970.

Oddly enough, it was Illinois’ long-standing history of potential for political corruption (people like Rod Blagojevich are petty compared to Paul Powell or Orville Hodge) that made the good-government types who were part of the Constitutional Convention insist that there be two separate people of equal authority as state constitutional officers who have a say in state finances.

In theory, either one of them could “rat out” the other if something fishy were taking place. And neither one has complete financial authority, meaning that one’s ability to enrich themselves with some sort of scheme would be limited.

For the record, the state treasurer’s office is the one that oversees Illinois government’s financial investments. That person does whatever possible to try to make the state more money.

THE STATE COMPTROLLER’S office has no say over those investments, but has control of the state’s checkbook – so to speak. That person’s staff handles the actual payment of bills, and they are the ones who have to decide when there is a financial shortfall such as we are experiencing these days who gets paid late, and who gets paid ridiculously late.

So is it irresponsible to put all this financial responsibility into the hands of one official. The Topinka/Rutherford financial monster says that modern technology would make it easier for other people to track finances and serve as a watchdog, should a chief financial officer decide to try something funky.

Oddly enough, Miller and the Topinka/Rutherford two-headed beast are trying to spin the issue differently.

Miller wants to talk about government ethics, saying a streamlined government would be easier to monitor for ethical flaws.

FOR TOPINKA/RUTHERFORD, THEY want to cite cost-savings Twelve million dollars is the cost they estimate would be saved by turning two constitutional offices into one.

There’s just one problem. This isn’t something that a governor can just enact through executive order, or even the General Assembly pass into law by a mere majority.

This is a part of the Illinois Constitution, just like those provisions related to redistricting that wind up resolving the issue of control of the process by a purely-random lottery (which was another good-government idea that was supposed to encourage compromise because political people would supposedly fear a random draw and the possibility of getting nothing).

Which makes it easy for anyone to say they favor this idea now, because it doesn’t mean their job would suddenly disappear after Election Day.

WE’RE TALKING CONSTITUTIONAL amendment, which is deliberately a difficult (if almost impossible) process to navigate.

Sixty percent of the Legislature has to agree on the issue, then it would have to go on the ballot for voter approval. And there are restrictions for how many amendments can be on any given ballot, which means the powers that be could always decide to crowd up the ballot with other issues so as to squeeze this one off altogether.

Even if citizens concerned enough about the issue were to try to go the other route to pass petitions to force the issue on the ballot, there are restrictions on what kinds of issues can be addressed by that route. Illinois’ courts have historically shown a willingness to knock down just about anything that anyone tries to push for an amendment through that route.

My point being, this isn’t going to happen anytime soon – if ever – no matter who wins those particular campaigns come Nov. 2.

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