Madigan and Jones need to get results

May 25, 2007

RICH MILLER capitolfax@aol.com
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was first elected to the House in 1970. I'm 45 now, so I was 8 years old at the time. Senate President Emil Jones was first elected to the House two years later, in 1972. I was in fifth grade. Both men have held legislative leadership positions for pretty much my adult life.

Madigan and Jones' combined 70-plus years of experience can be a good thing. They've seen almost everything, so it's tough for a lobbyist or a governor or anyone else to sneak something past them.

Lately, though, I've been getting the urge to change the channel and watch a new program. Over the years they have become little more than self-perpetuating power machines. Plus, the two men have so much history between them, much of it antagonistic, that they too often can't seem to put aside their differences for the good of the state.

In 1975 (the same year I had my first "girlfriend"), Madigan was Mayor Richard J. Daley's floor leader in the House. Madigan's top priority that year was passing a Daley-backed bill to reform education funding. The bill was vetoed by Gov. Dan Walker. Jones has been pushing a funding reform package almost since the moment he arrived in the General Assembly.

Since then? Not much. Property taxes continue their inexorable rise and far too many schools continue to disappoint and decay. The whole system is a hodgepodge, held together by spit and bailing wire.

School funding advocates have been convinced that this year would be their best opportunity in decades to get something done. Business, labor, management, parents and legislators were starting to come together on a bipartisan solution to the problem.

Then Gov. Blagojevich screwed things up royally by demanding a gigantic, potentially destructive and absolutely unpopular gross receipts tax on business for education and health insurance. I've never seen a proposal die a more grotesque death in the General Assembly.

Blagojevich's colossal failure scared legislators away from any tax hikes, or any action at all for that matter. Madigan announced at a press conference this week that there wasn't sufficient support among House Democrats for an income or sales tax increase. He didn't follow up with "But I am committed to changing minds and getting things done." Instead, he strongly indicated afterwards that everyone ought to start thinking about a do-nothing budget this year.

Madigan is not a "legacy" guy. When he leaves, we'll be hard-pressed to write about the imprints he has left behind, except for his lengthy hold on power. Many times in the past, however, he has pledged to push for lots more money for schools and property tax relief.

Jones insists he wants a legacy of a strong school funding system but has proceeded in a way this year that makes his dream far less likely. Instead of working together with everyone, Jones and Blagojevich initially shut their fellow Democrat Madigan out of the process, believing they could strong-arm him into submission. That hasn't happened, and it doesn't appear all that likely, either.

If Jones truly wants to succeed, he has to somehow persuade Madigan to push his members hard to vote for more revenues. Jones will also have to persuade the governor to finally come off his $8 billion tax increase plan and step into the world of the politically possible.

Madigan and Jones need to use all that combined experience of theirs to get something done for a change. If they can't, they should either explain that all their rhetoric over the years about school funding reform has been empty posturing or let somebody new step in and do it for them.

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