Word on the Street: Weighing gridlock or incompetence

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• Posted Jan. 24, 2016 at 6:50 PM
  Updated Jan 24, 2016 at 6:52 PM

• Nick Vlahos and Chris Kaergard

• Posted Jan. 24, 2016 at 6:50 PM
  Updated Jan 24, 2016 at 6:52 PM

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• Which is better, gridlock or incompetence? It’s a discussion I had several times with colleagues and sources over recent days, even before a Chicago Sun-Times columnist tried to compare the tenure of disgraced hairdo Rod Blagojevich with the first year of Gov. Bruce Rauner.

• Opinions varied, though there were some pretty good arguments that under Blagojevich — and his differently corrupt predecessor, George Ryan — government still functioned. Right now that’s not always a guarantee, and real people are being hurt by it, with the latest evidence coming from countless area seniors who won’t get in-home care after Lutheran Social Services Illinois shed 43 percent of its statewide staff because of the budget stalemate.

  Blago’s six-year reign brought its own instances of gridlock — remember that two-month budget stalemate in 2004? It feels so quaint now — but amid all the tales of trying to sell an “(expletive) golden” U.S. Senate seat and shaking down a children’s hospital for campaign donations, there were also leadership choices that were setting the stage for the myriad crises Illinois sees now.

  There was the pension “holiday” in 2005. That was less a restful holiday vacation than it was letting future generations of taxpayers clean up that rotting food you left in the fridge after going away for 10 days. An already unfunded liability got measurably worse.

  Incompetence can be just as dangerous as gridlock, as just that one example shows — just sometimes more slow for the effects to manifest. The disinterest Blagojevich showed in basic governance is still something we’re paying for.

  But though they deserve a healthy heaping of it, you can’t entirely blame the current status on Blagojevich or on those like perennial House Speaker Mike Madigan who empowered him (if also regularly dealt with him with daggers drawn).

  To highlight, on the eve of the state of the state address, just a few other problems that made things measurably worse:

  Rauner’s dogged insistence for months on the less-saleable items of his Turnaround agenda. Spending months of the spring session parroting bumper-sticker slogans on anti-union efforts was guaranteed to win no friends — especially when the notion was broadened beyond state employee unions into right-to-work zones throughout Illinois. More people to galvanize in opposition translates into more people opposed.

  The governor also hasn’t acted as though he’s a guy with four years to make the problems better, let alone one who has an option for a four-year renewal on his contract if things improve. Some more practical efforts — a few steps forward on worker’s compensation reform, lawsuit reform, spending cuts, even a long-shot like redistricting reform or term limits — would have resonated better with more people and even partial achievements could have shown measurable progress to build upon in year two.

  Page 2 of 3 - Though he’s pulled off a number of his demands, sticking with them so long, and insisting on those easier to caricature has helped poison the well of public opinion.

  Democratic leaders’ seeming intransigence on many core issues may have been fed in part by Rauner’s tactics. But they may have also been fed by years of being in control.

  When’s the last time anyone tried to tell Mike Madigan he wasn’t the boss, actually followed through on it, and managed to hold his own? Madigan is zealous — and justifiably so — about preserving the prerogatives of the legislative branch. He’s also been in the driver’s seat, to a large extent, for the state’s agenda during his lengthy speakership — whether from a position of dominance, as in during Gov. Pat Quinn’s term, or with a go-along, get-along governor like Ryan.

  Then, for both sides, there’s also the difficulty of shared governance — and the realization that they are in what are, constitutionally, co-equal branches of government. That’s not an experience that Rauner has dealt with in the private-sector world. And in many ways, co-equal is not a concept that Madigan has had for many years between governor’s mansion and speaker’s chair. Adversarial and co-equal is even more difficult of an adaptation for both sides, and that’s what we’ve got.

  It doesn’t bode well for the coming year, or the coming budget.

• ABOVE IS FROM: http://www.pjstar.com/article/20160124/NEWS/160129675