The economic future is bleaker Editor’s note for post-Boom generations

As I grow older, I reflect more on the past and on the edge of town. Many of the companies where Dana Heupel worry more about the future, not just for myself but our parents worked were locally owned, and whether for my grandchildren, whose ages range from 2 through good will or simply good business, they months to 10 years. helped support their communities in ways other than And because Illinois Issues is based at a university, wages. I witness an ever-changing stream of young men and That era truly was characterized by hope. Hope women flowing through the campus and our offices. that children would end up better educated and I can’t help but think how different the world is for better off than their parents. Hope that parents could them than it was for me — gulp — 40 years ago. improve their own situations through hard work. Despite the youthful exuberance of Baby Boomers And for the most part, it worked. It’s not that people who wanted to make the world a better place for our didn’t struggle; they did. But in general, the hope and children and now our grandchildren, I don’t believe belief was that the struggle would produce something we have. better. The last thing I want to write is a reminiscence of I was the current college students’ age in the late “the good old days.” For one thing, they weren’t 1960s and early 1970s. There was enormous turmoil always good, especially for minorities or women or over Vietnam and civil rights and the women’s foreign immigrants. Racism, sexism and xenophobia movement. But as the war wound down and those were more prevalent everywhere, not just in the movements began to make real inroads, hope and South. We were embroiled in a war that nobody opportunities still existed in the minds of most of my understood — most of all, the soldiers whose generational compadres and me. We still were able to patriotism bound them to follow our leaders, even find decent jobs and buy houses and raise children. when they were led into a small, seemingly Our situation really wasn’t much different from that insignificant country that had endured decades of of our parents, except many of us were indeed better civil war. Their mission was to stop the spread of educated and eventually likely to be a little better off. Communism in the jungles of Vietnam. They Nearly every decent job had good health insurance, couldn’t. In the end, it didn’t matter much, anyway. and most employees still had pensions. What did matter, though, was how that war, along The erosion began in the 1980s, although it didn’t with a petty burglary at the Watergate Hotel that seem that way at first. Companies began offering resulted in the resignation of a president and the 401(k) plans as a supplement to their defined-benefit imprisonment of many of his top staff, left a pensions. At least that’s the way it was sold. A typical generation disillusioned and distrustful of authority employer’s 401(k) match was one-half of the — especially of the government. Maybe that’s why the employee contribution up to, say, 10 percent of the subsequent years unfolded as they did. Maybe not. employee’s salary. So if you contributed 6 percent of I was my grandchildren’s age in the 1950s and early your salary to a 401(k), the company would put in 3 1960s. America was basking in its post-World War II percent. At retirement, you could expect a pension, glow, and the manufacturing sector spawned by the plus the proceeds of your 401(k) investments plus war industries was booming. There was a broad Social Security. Altogether, it would provide for a middle class: Most fathers — and sometimes mothers comfortable post-work lifestyle. — could find jobs that paid enough to buy a home HMOs emerged at about the same time. Much and raise a family. I didn’t know anybody who was simpler than filling out forms for health insurance considered enormously rich; I also didn’t know companies and then paying 20 percent of whatever anyone who was crushingly poor. The doctors and medical service was provided. As long as your doctor lawyers and bankers in the small Midwestern town joined the health maintenance organization, you just where I grew up lived well enough to have nice plopped down an inexpensive co-pay, and that houses and well-built automobiles and modest covered you all the way through, say, heart surgery. summer lake cottages, and they didn’t worry about At least that was the way it was sold. being able to afford to send their children to college. Pensions and health benefits. Few really thought But they didn’t live in palaces in gated communities much about them then. They were part of most

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 3 employment packages. Employers that didn’t offer insurance costs for employers and employees alike Editor’s note them often found themselves with high turnover and climbed in multiples of the rate of inflation, and out- continued lower quality employees because the good ones of-pocket expenses and maximums on coverage for would soon leave for greener pastures. HMOs and other plans ate into salaries that already That’s no longer the case. had been slowly stagnating for 30 years. Maybe unions became too greedy. I knew workers Now, despite an upturn in the stock market, the at a large, unionized truck plant who planned for a jobs that my generation took for granted will be hard strike before contract negotiations had even begun for many current college students to find. Even for — we always strike, I was told. That truck plant is those who do find work, it’s much less likely that now shuttered. Maybe employers got too greedy. Top company-financed retirement or health insurance management salaries soared into the stratosphere, plans — benefits that were automatic when Baby and stockholders — including our own 401(k) Boomers entered the work force — will be part of the managers — demanded nearly impossible short-term package. If those trends continue, the outlook for returns. Maybe it was the emergence of the global jobs and retirement benefits and health insurance for economy. Middle-class American workers couldn’t my grandchildren is even bleaker. compete with their overseas counterparts who were The current battle between state government earning sweatshop wages and were generally happy workers and their employers — elected officials and to get them. taxpayers — over jobs and wages and pensions and Most likely it was a combination of all of those health insurance is among the last in the fight over factors, along with a trickle-down economic theory the future of the middle class. As I listen to the war of that ultimately didn’t trickle and the worst recession words, and especially when I scan reader comments since the Depression. The result was a gradual, at posted on online news stories about those issues, my first almost-imperceptible, decline of that broad impression is that the middle class life that Baby middle class in which I grew up and expected would Boomers once considered almost automatic has never erode. Salaries and pensions and health morphed in today’s minds into some sort of benefits and, most of all, jobs began to disintegrate or “Cadillac” existence. And that instead of public disappear. Employers at first canceled their outrage over that decline, the prevailing sentiment is employees’ defined-benefit pensions, and when schadenfreude: glee over someone else’s misfortune. times got tougher, stopped matching their workers’ And I can’t understand why many more of us aren’t 401(k) investments, which already were losing mad as hell about that. 1 ground as the stock markets tumbled. Health

Jim Edgar, senior fellow, Institute of Sylvia Puente, executive director, EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS Advisory Government and Public Affairs, Latino Policy Forum, Chicago. Robert Easter, president, University University of Illinois. of Illinois. Staff Board Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of Robert Gallo, senior state director, political studies, University of Susan Koch, chancellor, University of AARP Illinois. Illinois Springfield. Illinois Springfield. Executive Editor CHAIR Sharon Gist Gilliam, chairperson, Philip J. Rock, attorney, Rock, Fusco Dana Heupel Charles W. Scholz, attorney, Quincy. David Racine, interim executive Chicago Housing Authority. & Associates, LLC, Chicago. director, Center for State Policy and EDITORIAL Statehouse Bureau Chief VICE CHAIR Graham Grady, attorney, Shefsky & John R. Rosales, director of Chicago Leadership, University of Illinois Springfield. Jamey Dunn Cynthia Canary, chair, Ethics Reform Froelich, Chicago. City Colleges, south Chicago Managing Editor Task Force, city of Chicago. campus. Doris B. Holleb, professorial J. Fred Giertz, director and professor, Maureen Foertsch McKinney MEMBERS lecturer, University of Chicago. Tom Ryder, attorney, W. Thomas Institute of Government and Public Columnist MarySue Barrett, president, Ryder, LTD, Springfield. Affairs, University of Illinois. Charles N. Wheeler III Metropolitan Planning Council, Bethany Jaeger, management Associate Editor Dana Heupel, executive editor/ Chicago. consultant, Kerber, Eck and Alysia Tate, Chicago. Beverley Scobell Braeckel, Springfield. director, Center Publications. Graduate Research Assistant Kelly Thompson, executive director, Brian Brady, executive director, Eliot Clay David Kohn, executive director of Ronald McDonald House Charities Mikva Challenge, Chicago. MEMBERS EMERITUS Public Affairs Reporting Intern public affairs, Union League Club of Central Illinois, Springfield. John Carpenter, senior vice of Chicago. (years served on board in parentheses) Meredith Colias president of public policy, Jhatayn “Jay” Travis, program officer, Michael J. Bakalis (1983-2001) Editorial Assistant Chicagoland Chamber of Mike Lawrence, retired director, The Woods Fund of Chicago. James M. Banovetz (1986-2005) Debi Edmund Commerce, Chicago. Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, James L. Fletcher (1983-2000) BUSINESS Southern Illinois University George Van Dusen, mayor of Skokie. David Kenney (1978-90) Business Manager Robert J. Christie, vice president, Carbondale. Toni L. Langdon Corinne Wood, attorney, Lake Forest. Louis H. Masotti (1978-92) government relations, Marketing & Circulation Director Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Jeff Mays, president, Illinois James T. Otis (1975-94) Business Roundtable, Chicago. Rachel Lattimore Chicago. David J. Paulus (1988-94) Student Assistant Carl Shier (1978-87) Valerie Denney, president, Valerie Brad McMillan, executive director, Kerry Portillo-Lopez Denney Communications, Institute for Principled Leadership Chicago. in Public Service, Bradley Illinois Issues is published by University, Peoria. Center Publications Kathleen Dunn, partner, Dunn and Center for State Policy and Broadway Communications, Laurence J. Msall, president, The Leadership Springfield. Civic Federation, Chicago. http://cspl.uis.edu

4 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ IllinoisIssuesIllinoisIssues Contents Volume XXXIX, No.4 A publication of the University of Illinois Springfield Departments Features

Editor’s note The future is bleaker for post-Boomers. by Dana Heupel 3

State of the state Jr.’s fall Trouble on the The Report looks at remap From the time he horizon gerrymander results. became a The tax increases set to Partisan-crafted by Jamey Dunn 6 congressman, much expire in 2015 raise the districts discourage was expected from spectre of even greater political compromises. Noteworthy 8 him. In the end, he cuts. was the one who had by Kenneth Lowe 29 expected too much. by Jamey Dunn 23 People 34 The issue and its cover were by Natasha Korecki 16 designed by Patty Sullivan. Letters 36 The cover photograph is from Reuters. Ends and means Pension fix requires smart work. by Charles N. Wheeler III 37 AIDS in Illinois Though HIV infection Is affordable is not the death higher sentence it once was, education a poverty and other moral factors play a role in imperative for how successful the state? treatment can be. by Meredith Colias 26 essay by John April 2013 Carpenter 20

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http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 5 State of the State Report gives insight into role of remap in election results

Jamey Dunn Illinois Democrats controlled both chambers pulled the lever for Republicans only 49 percent of the General Assembly and the governor’s of the time in congressional races, suggesting office when it came time to redraw the state’s that 2012 could have been a repeat of 2008, when congressional districts in 2011. The resulting voters gave control of the White House and both map painted the state’s congressional delegation chambers of Congress to Democrats. But, as we in blue. However, in most other states where see today, that was not the case. Instead, lawmakers played a role in redistricting, the Republicans enjoy a 33-seat margin in the U.S. results were decidedly redder. House . . . in the 113th Congress, having endured Last year, it seemed as if things might be Democratic successes atop the ticket and over looking up for Republicans. Their presidential one million more votes cast for Democratic candidate, Mitt Romney, did well in the first House candidates than Republicans. The only presidential debate, and some thought that the analogous election in recent political history in momentum from that victory, coupled with the which this aberration has taken place was country’s dissatisfaction with President Barack immediately after reapportionment in 1972, Obama and the sluggish economic recovery, when Democrats held a 50-seat majority in the could propel Romney to the White House. U.S. House of Representatives while losing the Conservative pundits felt optimistic enough to presidency and the popular congressional vote by thumb their noses at statistics guru Nate Silver’s 2.6 million votes.” predictions that continued to show Obama with The Institute of Government and Public the upper hand on Election Day. Affairs at the University of Illinois took a recent There was even some feeling that the Senate look at redistricting as part of its 2013 Illinois might be in play because Democrats had more Report. “Explanations for how Republicans seats to defend and more retiring members. All weathered the storm in the U.S. House and why of this gave some Republicans a glimmer of hope Illinois was unusually stormy for them both at controlling Congress and the Oval Office, as involve district lines. One cannot forecast U.S. they had most of the time during the presidency House results, or understand the election of George W. Bush. But we know how that story outcomes after the fact, without paying attention ended. to where and how the districts were drawn. Most The Republicans didn’t win the presidency, and important, in the end, is who drew them,” said Democrats held on to the Senate. But the report. Republicans retained control of the U.S. House, a The congressional seats were reapportioned victory that has roots in the midterm election of after the 2010 census and before states drew new 2010, and some predict that wave could last over legislative maps. According to the IGPA report, the next decade. that completely nonpartisan process helped Reflecting on the 2012 election, even Republicans’ chances for holding the House. Republicans say it could have been worse for “Following a decades-long trend, the 2011 them. “On November 6, 2012, Barack Obama apportionment saw the upper Midwest and was reelected president of the United States by Northeast lose congressional representation to nearly a three-point margin, winning 332 the South and Southwest. The two exceptions to electoral votes to Mitt Romney’s 206 while this pattern were Louisiana’s loss of a seat due to garnering nearly 3.5 million more votes,” said a the exodus caused by Hurricanes Katrina and January 2013 report from a committee assessing Rita, and the state of Washington’s gain of a seat GOP strategy in the House. “Democrats also as its population continued to boom, swollen in celebrated victories in 69 percent of U.S. Senate part by an exodus from California, which failed elections, winning 23 of 33 contests. Farther to gain any U.S. House seats for the first time down-ballot, aggregated numbers show voters since it joined the union in 1850.”

6 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Republican political forces did not miss the opportunity that after the 2012 general election, Silver predicted it would be reapportionment presented. “As the 2010 census approached, unlikely for Democrats to take back the House in 2014. the Republican State Leadership Committee began planning While other states were flipping party control in 2010, for the subsequent election cycle, formulating a strategy to Democrats in Illinois kept majorities in both legislative keep or win Republican control of state legislatures, with the chambers, and Gov. Pat Quinn narrowly held onto his job. largest impact on congressional redistricting as a result of Democrats drew the maps in 2011, and the state’s reapportionment. That effort, the REDistricting MAjority congressional delegation changed party hands. “The Project (REDMAP), focused critical resources on legislative president’s home state was a conspicuous exception to this chambers in states projected to gain or lose congressional seats point that the U.S. House was the best venue for Republicans in 2011, based on census data,” the GOP committee’s report in 2012: In Illinois, Republicans fell from holding 11 of 19 said. congressional seats to having only six of 18. More than half of According to the Illinois Report, of the 6,125 state legislative their net losses nationwide can be assigned to the Land of seats on the ballot in 2010, Republicans saw a net gain of 680 Lincoln,” said the Illinois Report. Illinois lost one seat in the seats. The wins left them with more state legislative seats reapportionment because the state’s growth did not keep pace nationwide than they had held since the 1920s. In 20 with other areas. The state has gone from 24 congressional legislative chambers, the control flipped from Democrats seats in 1970 to 18 today. to Republicans. Republicans held the legislature and The political mapmaking process takes into account many governor’s office in 20 states, compared with only eight factors and tries to predict demographic and political trends before the election. In two states, Maine and Wisconsin, the over the coming decade. The party in power often draws its balance of power switched completely when Republicans own districts with slim majorities, making a district just the stepped into the majorities in those legislatures and governor’s right side of “safe” to avoid wasting loyal party voters who offices. could be used to make another district tilt to the party’s Most states draw their maps through a partisan process, but advantage. This practice also makes such districts susceptible not all. After the 2010 census, Republicans controlled the to population drifts. And, of course, campaign money, mapmaking in 14 states with a total of 146 House seats. personality, incumbency, constituent services and good old- Democrats drew the lines in five states, including Illinois, with fashioned political scandals are always around to play their a total of 42 House seats. roles in elections. The Republican State Leadership Committee says these The IGPA report has this warning for anyone who believes numbers reflect a targeted campaign in states after the 2010 that it is only about the maps: “Control over redistricting is not census. “The rationale was straightforward: Controlling the always a guarantee of electoral success. Sometimes, parties redistricting process in these states would have the greatest forgo the opportunity to try to maximize seat totals. Moreover, impact on determining how both state legislative and finely drawn partisan gerrymanders can backfire when there is congressional district boundaries would be drawn. Drawing a large swing against the mapmaking party because such a map new district lines in states with the most redistricting activity features fairly small advantages for the favored party, by presented the opportunity to solidify conservative definition.” policymaking at the state level and maintain a Republican Still, the authors look at the mapmaking in Illinois and other stronghold in the U.S. House of Representatives for the next states and argue for a different system that lessens the decade,” the committee’s report said. influence of politics on the process. “Our purpose ... is not to For the most part, the authors of the IGPA report agree with denounce Democratic control of the Illinois U.S. House this assessment. “Leaders of both parties fully understood the delegation or Republican control of the U.S. House. But ... in importance of the 2010 state legislative and gubernatorial races the end, it is difficult to defend electoral maps that are for redistricting. Republicans made an extraordinary national expressly designed to exaggerate partisan advantages and effort to win as many of these races as possible and probably insulate elected officials from public sentiment,” the report profited from the ‘good fortune’ of having lost the 2008 says. “Any electoral system involving single-member districts presidential race,” the report says in its conclusion. “Having will have some redistricting effects. But these can be small now withstood a fairly poor year in 2012, the party could be when the lines are not driven almost exclusively by partisan poised for more gains in 2014, when Democrats can expect the considerations. In turn, partisan control of the process of usual ‘midterm loss.’ Long-term forecasts are always risky, but drawing districts should be regarded with suspicion by anyone current members will now have two years to settle into their who is genuinely disinterested in regard to the fates of the new districts to improve their popularity and boost name parties but keen on competitive races and responsive elections. recognition, so barring major national trends, the GOP Smart politicians armed with the power to fix election results majority control of the U.S. House could be safe at least until will find the temptation very hard to resist.” the next redistricting election in 2022.” This redistricting analysis was one chapter in the IGPA’s Republicans and New York Times prognosticator Silver are Illinois Report. The document covers several other areas of on the same page now. On his FiveThirtyEight blog shortly state policy. To read more, go to: http://igpa.uillinois.edu.

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 7 Noteworthy

u Road fund lock box u Cell phone use Legislative HJRCA 0019 Rep. Frank Mautino, a Spring Valley House Bill 1247 The measure moves Illinois one step Checklist Democrat, sponsored a constitutional amendment closer to banning hand-held cell phone usage while requiring money budgeted to the Department of driving. Rep. John D’Amico, a Chicago Democrat, Lawmakers focused on Transportation for road construction and other needs sponsors the bill. Bluetooth devices and hands-free gun control and proposed to be immune from fund sweeps or transfers to the radios would still be allowed. The legislation passed changes to the state’s state’s General Fund. the House on March 1 and now goes to the Senate. pension systems.They u The state has already banned the use of cell phones in took several test votes on State tax to local district school zones and construction zones. Illinois also both issues under a Senate Bill 1880 Sen. Andy Manar, a Bunker Hill prohibits texting while driving. process dubbed a “Weekly Democrat, wants to send to the Springfield school u Order of Business.” district property taxes that he says state government Compulsory school age Pensions and guns aside, should be paying. Senate Bill 1880 would require the SB 1307 Sen. Kimberly Lightford, a Chicago members of the 98th state to pay a grant equal to 0.5 percent of the Democrat, is sponsoring a bill to lower the required General Assembly have equalized assessed valuation of land owned locally by age to start school from 7 to 5. School districts would plenty of proposed the state to the district. have to establish kindergarten for children if they legislation on their plates. currently do not have it. In addition to requiring a u Drone surveillance small number of children to start school earlier, SB 1587 Drones would be restricted in Illinois Lightford has said the plan would also allow the state airspace under a measure sponsored by Sen. Daniel to punish parents who enroll their children in school Biss, an Evanston Democrat. Drone use by police before age 7 and then do not make sure their child would be limited to cases of credible terrorist threats regularly attends school. backed up by the Department of Homeland Security, with use of a search warrant, or in case of an u Homelessness imminent threat to life or property. Police would also SB 1210 Sen. Ira Silverstein, a Chicago Democrat, not be allowed to equip drones with weapons. aims to establish a bill of rights with a measure for the Evidence collected outside of those purposes would homeless that would prevent discrimination in areas not be admissible in court. such as employment and protect personal records.

State, AFSCME reach agreement on contract with raises Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration and the state’s largest public Quinn described the contract negotiations in his budget address: employee union have reached a tentative deal on a new contract for “Unlike prior administrations, we did not give in. We kept working state workers that would award back pay and require employees and working, and it worked. This contract is good for our dedicated and retirees to pay more for their health care. public employees, and it’s good for all the taxpayers of Illinois.” Negotiations over a new contract stretched for more than 15 Under the three-year contract, workers would take a pay freeze months. The state’s contract with the American Federation of State, for the current fiscal year but would see 2 percent increases in the County and Municipal Employees Council 31 expired last June. last two years of the contract. They would also get retroactive back The contract was extended until November, when Quinn refused to pay from raises Quinn refused to dole out in 2011 because extend it further. Employees have been working without a contract lawmakers did not approve the money for the increase. Quinn lost since then. Before the deal was reached, AFSCME leadership had a court battle over the pay increases, and now his administration sent letters to state workers advising them on how to prepare for the says they must be paid. “We’ve had a court tell us on the back wages possibility of a strike. As of press time, the new contract had not yet that they have to be paid,” says Jack Lavin, Quinn’s chief of staff. been ratified by members. “When you have a contract, you’ve got to keep the contract. The “AFSCME is very pleased that we were able to reach an wage increases may not have been appropriated, but we still had a agreement that protects our members’ standard of living and is fair contract. And the judge said, ‘OK, you didn’t have appropriations to them and all Illinois citizens, even in these very challenging but you still have to pay it.’” Lavin says the cost of the back wages economic times,” AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry would be about $140 million. Bayer said in a prepared statement. The union represents 35,000 Workers would initially have to contribute at least 1 percent more state workers. of their salaries to their health care coverage, which would rise to 2

8 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ u Abolish CMS u General Assembly expulsion HB 2412 A measure sponsored by Rep. Brandon Phelps, a HRJCA 0028 Members of the General Assembly may be kicked out Harrisburg Democrat, would dissolve the Department of Central more than once for the same offense if a constitutional amendment Management Services, which oversees such functions as human is approved. Sponsored by Rep. Jim Durkin, a Western Springs resources, information technology, property and fleet vehicle Republican, the amendment would delete language in the state management for the state, and shift its duties to individual state Constitution that only allows lawmakers to be expelled once. Rep. agencies. Derrick Smith, a Chicago Democrat, was expelled from the House last year and won his House race months later. u Veteran hiring SB 1908 Veterans would be given preferential treatment when u Ultrasound municipalities hire police and firefighters, according to a measure HB 2683 Rep. Barbara Wheeler, a Crystal Lake Republican, is sponsored by Rep. Jason Barickman, a Champaign Republican. They sponsoring a measure requiring abortion providers to offer an would be eligible to have an associate’s degree requirement waived if ultrasound to women seven weeks or more into a pregnancy seeking they were honorably discharged after a minimum of two years of an abortion unless a doctor believes an abortion is necessary service, or at least 180 days on combat duty. A bachelor’s degree because of a medical emergency. Each abortion facility would be requirement would be waived if they were honorably discharged required to submit an annual report to the Department of Public after three years or served a minimum of 180 days on combat duty. Health keeping track of the number of women who consented or refused. u Medical marijuana HB 1 Chronically ill Illinoisans would be allowed to use marijuana u Doctor’s fees to treat pain and nausea under this proposal from Skokie SB 622 Gov. Pat Quinn signed a measure that will increase the fees Democratic Rep. Lou Lang. Patients older than 18 afflicted with doctors pay for licenses from $300 every three years to $700 every chronic or terminal ailments specifically listed in the bill, such as three years. The bill was sponsored by Senate President John multiple sclerosis, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and HIV/AIDS, would Cullerton and House Speaker Michael Madigan. The state will qualify to apply for a medical cannabis card issued by the borrow $6.6 million from the Local Government Tax Fund to cover Department of Public Health. Patients issued permits would be immediate costs in the Illinois Department of Financial and limited to possessing 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks. Professional Regulation. The department was running low on funds, Patients would also have to pass background checks, verify they are and a backlog of licenses was building up. Once the money is paid ill and demonstrate that other possible medical solutions had been back to the local tax fund in 2018, the fees would drop to $500. tried. Meredith Colias

Photograph courtesy of AFSCME Council 31 percent in Fiscal Year 2015. Retirees are getting raises in there. Raises? Raises? What is that in Illinois? would contribute 2 percent of their We haven’t seen any of that. We’re laying people off,” says annuity beginning July 1, and that Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka. would rise to 4 percent the following Jamey Dunn year. Currently, many retired state workers do not pay monthly AFSCME CONTRACT DETAILS premiums for coverage. Quinn’s administration estimates that change • Three-year contract is retroactive to will save the state $900 million in health care costs. As of press time, they July 1, 2012. had not estimated the total impact the contract would have on the state Henry Bayer, executive • Salaries increase 2 percent July 1, 2013 and budget. A lawsuit challenging a new director of AFSCME 2 percent July 1, 2014. statute that would require retirees to pay Council 31 health care premiums is currently pending in a Sangamon County • An out-of-state pay differential will be court. eliminated for those hired after the If union members agree to the deal, the legislature still has to approve the money to fund the wages called for in the contract. agreement date. Some worry that will be a tough sell in a tight budget year. “People

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 9 Senate Dems eye online betting A U.S. Department of Justice ruling allowed Illinois Utah already has a law banning online gambling in to pave the way for states selling lottery tickets online. the state. Askew says the federal government should Now, some Senate Democrats want the state to only set a bare minimum of regulation that states branch out to other forms of online betting. must uphold to avoid a “regulatory race to the Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey have legalized bottom” among states seeking to accommodate some form of online gambling. Senate President John gaming operations. While the members of Askew’s Cullerton says Illinois should follow suit and bring in association are likely to find themselves in new revenue. “People are gambling now online. It’s competition with Internet gambling sites, it is also not illegal, but we’re not making any money,” he says. possible that existing casinos may be granted licenses Cullerton is supporting a gambling expansion bill to run online operations. that would allow for online wagering under the Some in Illinois are concerned about legalizing supervision of the Illinois Lottery. more gambling in a state that has 10 casinos and “We’re going to have Internet gambling that allows video poker machines at restaurants, bars and everybody acknowledges is Internet gambling, and truck stops. Lawmakers are also considering whether it’s going to be in less than 10 years,” says I. Nelson to add five more casinos and allow slot machines at Rose, a law professor and gaming consultant. Rose horse racing tracks and Chicago airports. says the Justice Department ruling, which Illinois and John Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy New York requested, allows for many new forms of at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says online gaming — such as poker and even versions of the Justice Department went too far in its popular games such as the Internet phenomenon interpretation of the Wire Act. “[The Justice Angry Birds — with added wagering components. Department’s legal opinion is] an amazing document Some in the gaming industry say the Justice because the net impact is that a bureaucrat has issued Department ruling leaves the issue too open and that a new controversial interpretation of the 1961 Wire Congress should pass a basic regulatory framework Act, which was designed to attack organized crime. that states must adhere to. “Given the inherently It’s a law that has withstood legal challenges for over interstate nature of the Internet, we believe there has 60 years. But this one bureaucrat in the Department to be some level of regulation by the federal of Justice has changed 60 years of precedent, government,” says Whitaker Askew, vice president of reversing it 180 degrees overnight,” he says in a government affairs for the American Gaming prepared statement. “The effect this legal opinion will Association, which represents casinos, racetracks and have is that it is slowly removing almost all regulatory several gambling vendors. He adds that state oversight of gambling. And once gambling is on the legislatures should have to vote to opt in to legalizing Internet, it’s in every living room, office, school and Internet gambling, and those that do not should have mobile phone.” the option of keeping it illegal within their borders. Jamey Dunn

10 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Lawmakers aim for fracking regulation After a bipartisan bill to regulate hydraulic fracturing stalled natural gas industry. The bill would create a permitting and last year, supporters think they have a better chance at success regulatory system for horizontal fracking. It would not apply to with a new plan. vertical fracking wells. The measure would set standards for the Hydraulic fracturing, which is commonly referred to as cement casings that are put into wells to prevent leakage of fracking, is achieved by pumping water mixed with sand and fracking fluid and the process for water disposal. It would also chemicals through a well into rock that holds a carbon fuel, such require water testing before and after hydraulic fracturing wells as oil or natural gas. The water creates pressure, which fractures are constructed and disclosure of chemicals used in the process. the rock or opens up pre-existing cracks. The sand holds the If water pollution were detected near a fracking well, it would cracks open so the gas and/or oil can be extracted. It has been be the owner’s responsibility to prove that it was not caused by the done since the 1930s. But recently, fracking has been coupled with well. “We have crafted a piece of legislation which first and horizontal drilling, which allows gas and oil companies to drill foremost protects our water supply and the communities and down into the earth and then permeate rock along a horizontal families of southern Illinois but allows an industry to develop in a line, which is sometimes miles long. The marrying of the two responsible manner for the creation of thousands of jobs and the technologies has allowed for projects that are much larger in scale. potential for tens of millions of dollars of revenue for the state of The combined practice is not specifically regulated in Illinois, Illinois,” says Marion Democratic Rep. John Bradley, who but many lawmakers, environmentalists and regulators agree it is sponsors the bill. coming to the state (see Illinois Issues, May 2012, page 20). Two Environmental groups that worked on the bill say they do not Illinois rock formations, the New Albany Shale in the southeast support the practice, which has vocal detractors in other states and the Maquoketa Group Shale in the north, could potentially that already have horizontal fracking operations. “In the hold carbon fuels. Energy companies across the nation have spent environmental community, we have a lot of concerns about what more than $1 million to lease mineral rights for land above these fracking is going to bring to Illinois, and when we look at some of formations, mainly in southern Illinois. “We don’t have the controversies that have happened in other parts of the country, regulations in the state of Illinois; we don’t have laws that will deal there’s a real need for us to prepare for that,” says Jack Darin, with horizontal fracking,” says Chicago Democratic Rep. Barbara director of the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club. But they say Flynn Currie. She says that fracking could start in the state at any fracking in Illinois may be inevitable, and they want to make sure time without a bureaucratic system to regulate it or bar certain regulations are in place when that day comes. “We understand practices. that the industry is coming to Illinois ... and I think we all House Bill 2615 has a broad coalition of supporters, including understand that our current set of rules and regulations and laws Republican and Democratic lawmakers, Gov. Pat Quinn, are not up to the task of looking at the potential impacts from this environmental groups, unions and representatives of the coal and industry.” Jamey Dunn

Poll: Voters want pension crisis resolved Voters want something done about Illinois’ pension crisis, but • A majority — 58 percent —favored deferring cost of living they don’t want taxes raised as a part of the resolution, according increases until retirees are 67 or older. to a statewide poll of voters conducted in January and February by • A majority — 63 percent — opposed making the state’s the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois temporary 5 percent income tax increase permanent. University. • A majority — 54 percent — favored spending cuts as opposed The state has an unfunded pension obligation of more than $96 to revenue increases or a combination of both to deal with the crisis. billion and owes a payment of $6 billion to employee pension According to a news release on the poll, voters were evenly systems this year. State lawmakers have been weighing options to divided “over a proposal to make local school districts pay more of solve the problem. the cost of local teachers’ pensions” to ease the cost to the state. That “I think people are generally aware of the problem, and they proposal would shift some of the burden to local school districts and want the problem fixed, and they want to consider a variety of require districts outside Chicago to pay the state’s portion of the alternative plans,’’ says John Jackson, a visiting professor at the retirement plan. That is already done in Chicago. institute who worked on the poll. “I think the public expects employees are going to have to do Live interviews were conducted with 600 registered voters from something and pay more to help solve the problem,” Jackson says. “I across the state between January 27 and February 8. think we’re beyond that marker, and it seems to me that public “I think public opinion would support anything within reason. officials, legislators, the governor, have the bonafides. ... They need … I think there is also a sense of, let’s don’t be vindictive toward to put together a package that can pass the legislature and be signed seniors and retirees; lets have a balanced set of alternatives. That’s by the governor.” the way I read these results.” A question about increasing the retirement age with full benefits Among the poll findings: from 65 to 67 was approved by 58 percent. • A majority — 57 percent — opposed suspending retirees’ A majority — 59.5 percent — opposed the idea of expanding the annual cost of living increases for six years. number of items or services that the state can tax. Maureen Foertsch McKinney

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 11 Photograph courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Deadly bat disease reaches Illinois A lethal bat disease has made its way to Illinois, making the state from hibernation as often as every three to four days, as opposed the 20th to confirm presence of white-nose syndrome. to the normal every 10 to 20 days. “The fungus damages the White-nose syndrome, first found in upstate New York in 2006, connective tissues, muscles and skin of the bats while also has since killed 5.7 million bats in the United States and Canada. disrupting their physiological functions. The bats wake up The disease is named for the white fungal substance found on the dehydrated and hungry during the cold winters when there are no noses of infected bats. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife insects to eat.” Service, the syndrome, deadly to hibernating bats, kills off 90 There is no known cure. percent or more of some species of bats in caves where the fungus Humans do not contract the disease but can unknowingly has lasted for a year or longer. spread spores to a cave that has not been infected, Kath says. All “We knew it was inevitable that white-nose would reach Illinois. caves owned or managed by Natural Resources have been closed It’s just a reality of when, not if, it would arrive here,” says Joe Kath, since 2010 because of the syndrome, and the federal Fish and endangered species manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Wildlife Service closed caves in Shawnee National Forest in 2009. Resources. “Although we expected it at maybe one location ... we “Ultimately, what people need to realize is bats provide a great detected it at four. That was a little surprising; a little discouraging. insect control, pest control service, especially here within the As of right now, the sites that we know are infected pretty much Midwest. Many species of bat are the No. 1 predators of insects cover a great degree of the state. Unfortunately, we have a larger that eat both corn and soybean crops. So, you can imagine having coverage than I anticipated for the first year of discovery.” a greatly reduced population of bats is going to result in many Tests turned up signs of bats with white-nose syndrome turned more insect predators, especially those insects that prey upon the up in February in LaSalle County in north-central Illinois, Monroe crops that we depend on. That will cause the agriculture industry County in southwestern Illinois and Hardin and Pope counties in to more than likely turn to more application of pesticides and extreme southern Illinois. herbicides into the environment,” Kath says. “Not only is there a Seven hibernating bat species are affected by white-nose concern with that, [there is an] increased cost to the farmer and an syndrome: little brown bat, big brown bat, northern long-eared increased cost that will ultimately be passed to the consumer. bat, tri-colored bat, eastern small-footed bat, the Indiana bat and What I think we’re eventually going to see are increased food the gray bat. All are found in Illinois, and the Indiana and gray bat prices at the store for many items we take for granted, simply are endangered. because we’ve lost the pest control benefits bats provide across the According to a Natural Resources Department release, research landscape.” has shown that bats infected with white-nose syndrome awake Maureen Foertsch McKinney

12 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Corrections starts giving inmates time off for good behavior The Illinois Department of Corrections has begun awarding blueprint that is outlined in the law, and I think we will do very well inmates time off their sentences under a good-time-credit law if we go forward right with that.” approved last year. The department is referring to the time off as “supplemental The department started awarding provisional credits to a limited sentence credit (SSC).” The credit can shave up to 180 days off a number of inmates in February. “These provisional awards will sentence. Inmates must serve 60 days before becoming eligible for become final awards of sentence credit near an inmate’s parole date. the program. According to a news release from Corrections: “The The department continues to review inmate files and will award file review includes a comprehensive examination of an offender’s credit to eligible low-level inmates as appropriate after careful and current holding offense(s) as well as any criminal history and thoughtful review,” said a written statement from the corrections disciplinary record. Programming, educational courses, assignments department. As of press time, no inmates have been released early and any other supporting evidence that could show an offender’s under the program. progression towards rehabilitation will also be reviewed.” After credit In 2009, the Department of Corrections instituted a policy is awarded, the department can revoke it if an inmate has dubbed MGT Push, which waived a longstanding waiting period and disciplinary problems. allowed inmates to apply for their credit immediately. This decision The law sets out requirements for eligibility. However, awarding of was made behind closed doors and was not publicized. After the the credit is at the discretion of Corrections. “It is important to note Associated Press reported on the program, the fallout plagued Gov. that even if an offender is potentially eligible for an award of SSC, the Pat Quinn as he was running for the governor’s office in 2010. Quinn offender should not and does not have an outright expectation to pulled together a group of staff members and experts who released a receive an award,” the department’s website states. The department report in 2010 suggesting reforms that should take place before early says it will not be able to project who will receive credit under the release was reinstated. However, Quinn dropped the issue, and the program, and it will not respond to inquires about potential program remained suspended for years while the state’s prisons faced eligibility. However, Corrections says it will notify inmates who get overcrowding. credit, and the credit will be reflected on their profiles on the But after the General Assembly approved legislation creating a Corrections website. The department is also required to notify local new program for awarding nonviolent prisoners time off their law enforcement at least two weeks before the parole date of any sentences for good behavior, Quinn signed the bill last summer. “We inmate who receives time off his or her sentence under the program. worked it out with the legislature. It was long in coming. A judge did For more information about the program, see the Corrections a study of the whole system and recommended a number of reforms. department’s website: http://www2.illinois.gov/idoc/news/2013/ The legislature took that study, put it into law. I signed it into law, Pages/NewAdministrativeRuleonSentenceCredit.aspx. and we’re carrying it out,” Quinn says. “We’ve got to follow the Jamey Dunn

Report says state gains in treatment of children are slipping In some aspects of caring for its children, Illinois has been a The Child Care Assistance Program provides low-income national leader, but even in those situations, budget cuts have put working families with access to affordable child care services. programs at risk, according to a child welfare advocacy group, Joseph says the program serves about 170,000 each month, but Voices for Illinois Children, which released its annual report in eligibility over the past two years has become more restrictive, and February. copayments have increased. The Illinois Kids Count 2013 report is a program of Voices and a Illinois leads the country in insuring children. Joseph says only part of the KIDS COUNT network of projects supported by the four states have lower insurance rates for children. According to Annie E. Casey Foundation to track the status of American the release on the report: “In 2011, the uninsured rate for children children state by state. in Illinois was only 3.7 percent — the lowest in the Midwest and Three issues in particular — early childhood education, child fifth lowest among the 50 states. The Medicaid stabilization plan care assistance and insurance — were cited in the report as reason enacted last year includes some provisions that could jeopardize for concern: access to services and quality of care for Illinois children, “In each of those three in particular have been important policy particularly those with special health care needs.” changes over the last several decades that have improved lives for In terms of education in general, Joseph notes Illinois’ state kids to varying degrees, and either progress is stalled or it’s in support for schools is among the lowest in the nation. jeopardy,’’ says Larry Joseph, director of the Fiscal Policy Center The most recent comparison of the state’s share of funding for for Voices for Illinois Children. education, in 2009, put Illinois last, he says. “Particularly in the last “For instance, in early childhood education, Illinois had become two years, there have been cutbacks to education. State aid is now a nationwide leader in expanding access to preschool. But over the at its lowest level since 2007, and the districts that have been hit last few years, as a result of budget cuts, 20,000 fewer kids are hardest are those that are the most reliant on state aid. That is to attending state-funded preschool programs,” Joseph says. say, those with the least amount of property wealth and the largest President Barack Obama called for nationwide universal concentrations of low-income students.” preschool in his State of the Union address, which was presented Maureen Foertsch McKinney just days before the Kids Count report.

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 13 New information emerges about ancient clay pipes Photograph by Kenneth Farnsworth Researchers at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have added new information about ceremonial stone pipes left behind by the Hopewell people, who lived in the Midwest from about 200 B.C. to roughly 450 A.D. Using modern imaging technology, the team was able to prove that a long-held assumption about artifacts tied to Illinois was false. A century ago in a Native American site called Tremper Mound in southeast Ohio, an archaeologist, William Mills, dug up a cache of pipes carved from pipestone presumed to have been from local quarries. “It was more of a gut impression,” says Kenneth Farnsworth of the Illinois Transportation Archaeological Research Program at the U of I, “because there were so many of these pipes found there.” The assumption was that they were formed from Ohio pipestone, which was available locally, and those artifacts found in Indiana, Illinois and other places had been transported from there. However, the evidence suggests the opposite: that Illinois stone was carved into pipes here before they were transported to Ohio and other places. Using scientific techniques available to today’s archaeologists, Farnsworth and his colleagues discovered that many of those pipestone pipes buried roughly 2,100 years ago came from Calhoun County owl pipe stone gathered in north central Illinois. Over a decade, the team used various methods to analyze the However, that technique requires that the stone be pulverized, so it pipestone carvings and pinpoint the stone’s origins. They first was used only on quarry specimens and broken pipes. collected the mineralogical signatures of stone found in traditional After comparing pipes collected in museums around the country, pipestone quarries in Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Farnsworth found that almost all could be traced back to Illinois. Missouri and Ohio. Then they compared the material found in those “Our initial indication was that some were being made in Illinois,” quarries to the mineralogical makeup of the artifacts left behind by he says. “The shocker was that, as a result of all our trips, it looks like the people of Tremper Mound. Less than 20 percent of the 111 pretty much nearly all of them were being made in Illinois. It’s just Tremper Mound pipes they tested were made from local Ohio stone. that in Illinois, people would be buried with just one pipe. It was a About 65 percent were carved from flint clay found only in northern more personal use. Whereas in Ohio, they were buried in huge Illinois, and 18 percent were made of a stone called catlinite from caches, enormous conspicuous consumption displays, where people Minnesota. would pile and burn them on a funeral pyre.” To analyze intact pipes, researchers used a nondestructive With the added technology able to trace minerals in artifacts, technology, called PIMA (portable infrared mineral analyzer), which Farnsworth says the evidence points to the Hopewellian culture illuminates a specimen with short-wavelength infrared radiation and being in Illinois about two centuries before it moved into Ohio. records the refracted (unabsorbed) wavelengths, allowing “I can say with pretty good certainty that for whatever reason this investigators to identify the minerals present. They verified the system developed, this ritual and mortuary and elaborate artifact accuracy of the PIMA by comparing its results with those obtained development, it developed in and around Fulton County in about with X-ray diffraction, a technique that produces a distinct signal 200 B.C.” that reflects the proportion of minerals in different types of stone. Beverley Scobell

Photographs courtesy of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey

Illinois pipestone comes in different colors.

14 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ U of I report weighs conditions in the state Economic, political and social scholars have Another chapter of the report goes deeper into the contributed to a new publication focusing on the economic numbers, pointing to critical fiscal policies state’s public policy issues. Released by the University that have hurt the state’s financial balance and others of Illinois Institute of Government and Public that could help it. Giertz concludes that it is unlikely Affairs, The Illinois Report 2013 provides nonpartisan that 2013 will mark the end of the economic malaise research and analysis. and the return to prerecession levels of “The Illinois Report is IGPA’s signature publication. unemployment for either the nation or the state. The 2013 edition is an excellent example of what the However, he predicts that continued progress is institute strives to achieve: connect policymakers and likely, with the hope of some acceleration. practitioners to the best analyses of the state’s public Social scientist Cedric Herring looks at the policy challenges,” IGPA director J. Fred Giertz said psychological effects of the recession. “Many in a prepared statement. Americans are in the midst of an historical moment Those challenges seem to come with daily reports where they feel that they are living on the edge. Many of mounting debt at the national level and in Illinois, of those who were once solidly in the middle class or along with legislators’ and elected leaders’ apparent working class have either fallen into poverty or fear inability to fix fiscal policy. One of the economic that they are about to do so. Millions of people have chapters of The Illinois Report, which looks at experienced a collapse of their living standards. recovery from the recession and written by Giertz, Millions more feel they may soon slip into poverty or does have some good news, though offered with a substantial worsening of their lifestyles. This is the reservation. Though the state’s recovery remains unfortunate fate of those living in these uncertain sluggish, the U of I Flash Index, a measure of state times of ‘precarity’ ... defined as a condition that economic performance, broke through the 100 level exists when there is little predictability or security (the dividing line between growth and decline) in with respect to a person’s material well-being or March 2012 and continued to increase, reaching psychological welfare. It is, in its classic definition, 104.6 in December. However, unemployment is still the labor conditions that arose after the transition very high at slightly below 9 percent, well above the from lifelong, stable jobs common in the industrial national level. There are prospects for continued era to temporary, insecure, low-paying jobs that have growth, writes Giertz, but they are unlikely to result emerged with the rise of the service and financial in a dramatic decline in the unemployment rate. economy.” Yet, not everything is negative for the state. The Precarity increases during times of economic report notes that Illinois remains a high per-capita- uncertainty, but he reports that Illinoisans fared income state, ranking 16th nationally, with income better than people living in neighboring states. more than 105 percent of the national average. This “The problem of economic insecurity provides compares with neighboring states that are faring less some formidable challenges to policymakers well: Indiana, 86 percent; Kentucky, 82 percent; concerned with reducing the waste of human Missouri, 91 percent; Iowa, 99 percent; and capabilities. Many policies to expand the social safety Wisconsin, 95 percent. However, Illinois’ margin of net or to stimulate growth in the economy or to superiority is eroding. Twenty years ago, Illinois reduce unemployment — such as public jobs ranked 10th nationally, at 107 percent of the national programs or the direct intervention of government in average. Among its advantages, Illinois has the the economy and the private labor market — are economic engine of the Chicago region and the politically unpopular, especially as governments seek O’Hare Airport transportation hub. The agricultural to cut their budgets.” sector remains strong, having been minimally The Illinois Report also looks at a new strategy for affected by the recession. keeping taxpayers informed about their property tax Giertz notes that Illinois may take some comfort in bills, an evaluation of a new approach to intervention the fact that state budget discipline is not the only in some lower-risk child-welfare situations, some determinant of economic success. Even though suggestions for changes in the hospital industry that Indiana has received considerable publicity for its could help lower health care costs and a look at how fiscal prudence, that has not made the state an the 2011 political redistricting affected the 2012 economic dynamo. Twenty years ago, Indiana’s per election. capita income was 90 percent of the national average. The report can be found at http://igpa.uillinois.edu/ It is now 86 percent. IR13/pdfs/IllinoisReport2013_web_small.pdf. Beverley Scobell For updated news, see the Illinois Issues website at http://illinoisissues.uis.edu

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 15 Feature by Natasha Korecki

Jr.’s fall From the time he became a congressman, much was expected from him. In the end, he was the one who had expected too much Jesse Jackson Jr.’s star was still rising when he spoke at the 2008 Democratic Convention.

When Jesse Jackson Jr. walked into a Washington, He — with the help of his wife, Sandi — indulged in D.C., federal courthouse in February to plead guilty mink capes, pricey vacations, mounted elk heads, to federal charges of looting his campaign fund of Bruce Lee and Michael Jackson memorabilia; all $750,000, Capitol Hill insiders held a similar illegal purchases with campaign money. reaction. “Jr.,” as he is often referred to, was the first in the What could have been? Jackson political dynasty to be elected to office. His From the time the Chicago ex-congressman took image nationally was one of a great and powerful office, bets were wagered on how high his star would orator, someone who could break barriers, make rise: Mayor of Chicago? U.S. Senate? history — maybe outshine his father’s sometimes “I have no other office in mind besides where I’m at controversial legacy. now,” Jackson insisted in 1996. “This is my For people in Chicago and closer to the boiling pot magnificent obsession.” of corruption bubbling up from Springfield since the Seventeen years after he was first elected, Jackson’s days of Rod Blagojevich, Jesse Jackson Jr. seemed to “magnificent obsession” has taken on a new meaning. unravel in slow motion.

16 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Photograph by Rick Klau

It began in 2008, when Blagojevich was spectacularly arrested and interaction the former governor had with someone else — not federal prosecutors revealed the FBI had been recording him for the Jackson. prior eight weeks. Charging papers described that person as an “emissary” to Jackson. The criminal complaint made public that day quoted then-Gov. Jackson was adamant from the beginning that he never authorized Blagojevich, who believed he would receive a $1.5 million campaign anyone to offer a quid pro quo on his behalf. donation if he appointed “Senate Candidate 5” to the U.S. Senate “I thought, mistakenly, that the process was fair, above-board and position left vacant by Barack Obama’s election as president. on the merits,” Jackson said during a news conference at the time. “I In recordings, Blagojevich is overheard talking about how he thought, mistakenly, that the governor was evaluating me and other might be able to cut a deal with Candidate 5 and wanted “something Senate hopefuls based upon our credentials and qualifications.” tangible up front.” Enter Raghuveer Nayak. It didn’t take long for the public to figure out that Jackson was the Nayak was a wealthy businessman who owned surgical centers in unnamed Senate Candidate 5 in federal documents. Illinois and Indiana and was active in Chicago’s Indian-American Jackson immediately shot down any shady connection to the community. Nayak traveled to India with Rev. Jackson once and was Blagojevich case, making clear that Blagojevich was citing an a longtime friend of the Jackson family.

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 17 Photograph courtesy of WBEZ Chicago fighting for the unemployed, the repressed, the poor — the Jacksons themselves lived well. They vacationed at Hilton Head and Disney World and even jetted off on spur-of-the-moment trips. “Once while attending law school, Jesse Jr. received a midweek call from his father inviting him to jet to Las Vegas to watch Mike Tyson fight. The trip took less than 24 hours, putting him back in class the next morning with the same students he’d left the afternoon before,” the magazine article states. It quotes Jackson Jr. saying: “When I told them, ‘I was at the fight last night,’” he recalls with obvious relish, “they said, ‘No way.’” In 1995, Jackson ran for Congress after the officeholder — Mel Reynolds — was convicted of having sex with a 16-year-old campaign worker, as well as of bank fraud. Jackson won his election and at the time, articles lauded his use of technology and broad campaign army that knocked on doors throughout the district.

Jackson’s trajectory, however, grew static at the same time that another African-American pol, who didn’t have half the pedigree of the Jackson dynasty, rose to stardom. He was Barack Obama. Obama went from state senator to the U.S. Senate, and his popularity was skyrocketing as other state politicians with lofty Sandi and Jesse Jackson Jr. at the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver. aspirations — Blagojevich and Jackson Jr. included — A regular political donor, he had insider access to grew frustrated. politicians, including Jackson Jr. When Rod Blagojevich was granted the sole power Nayak was the so-called emissary whose to appoint Barack Obama’s successor to the U.S. involvement in the case would end up acting as a Senate, Jackson Jr. saw his big break coming. backdrop to more than one Jackson story line. He launched a campaign. He paid for polling. He lobbied for newspaper endorsements. He directed Jesse Jackson Jr. is the oldest of the Rev. Jesse supporters to barrage Blagojevich’s office to lobby for Jackson’s three sons. He co-wrote books with his Jackson’s appointment, saying he was the most father, had a strong knowledge of history, and his qualified to serve because of his years in Washington. speeches were so stirring that he once commanded Jackson met with Blagojevich the day before the high speaking fees. governor’s arrest to laud his accomplishments. He A May 1996 Chicago Magazine piece went inside also apologized to his former fellow congressman for the Jackson patriarch’s home, noting that so much not endorsing him when he ran for governor. history had happened in that house, with his family Blagojevich had harbored a grudge against Jackson surrounding it. Jackson Sr. ran for president in 1984 for years because he said Jackson had promised to and 1988 and launched the Rainbow Push Coalition, endorse the former governor, boosting his ability to which continues today in Chicago. get the black vote in Chicago. Jackson, though, “The persistent presence of political discussion changed his tune and endorsed former Illinois right in their own home meant the Jackson children Attorney General Roland Burris because he said he were trained to think about world issues and business felt he had to support an African-American. concerns early on and exposed to the kind of people All this activity — legal activity — was as far as their parents hoped they would someday become,” Jackson went, by his own account. the article noted. However, a man close to Jackson, the same man In his politically formative years, Jackson Jr. whom Jackson trusted with at least one personal obtained a law degree and honed a career as an secret, told a different story. activist by working for labor causes and against In 2010, the Sun-Times reported that Raghu Nayak apartheid in South Africa. told the FBI that Jackson had directed him to What the Chicago Magazine piece also described, approach the Blagojevich camp with a $6 million however, was a family life that grew progressively offer for the Senate seat. Nayak said he told Robert privileged. While the Rev. Jackson had a reputation of Blagojevich, the governor’s brother, that the Indian-

18 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ American community in Chicago would raise $1 million right Jackson did not campaign, and two long-shot opponents called away, and then Jackson, once he was in the Senate, would raise an for him to show up to campaign or resign. additional $5 million for the governor. Robert Blagojevich, who Jackson never responded and never showed up. But he easily testified at trial to the same set of facts, rejected the offer. sailed to victory, with a core of loyal voters from the 2nd Rod Blagojevich, though, resurrected the possibility weeks later Congressional District who for so long had counted on the Jackson —when FBI tapes were rolling. name to help boost their communities. Nayak said Jackson asked him to make the approach while Nayak Fifteen days later, Jackson resigned. visited Washington from Chicago. Nayak told the FBI that he, It was only then that Jackson admitted to something that had Jackson and a female “social acquaintance” of Jackson dined been reported a month earlier — he was under federal together and enjoyed cocktails that night. investigation. Jackson would later ask Nayak to secretly pay to fly the woman, a In his resignation letter, Jackson ran through his accomplishments. Washington hostess and aspiring model, to Chicago and back to the “We have built new train stations, water towers and emergency East Coast. rooms. We have brought affordable housing, community centers When the Sun-Times reported Nayak’s testimony to the FBI, and health care clinics to those that need it most,” he wrote. “In all, Jackson issued an apology for the social acquaintance. However, he nearly a billion dollars of infrastructure and community steadfastly denied the pay-to-play allegations that would continue improvement has been made on the South Side of Chicago, and to haunt Jackson under the looming Blagojevich cloud. thousands of new jobs have been created.” Still, there was something else he admitted for the first time. On June 10, 2012, Jackson disappeared from Congress. But he “During this journey I have made my fair share of mistakes. I am didn’t notify anyone for two weeks. The notification came at 5 p.m. aware of the ongoing federal investigation into my activities and am on the same day as the deadline for those filing to oppose him for doing my best to address the situation responsibly, cooperate with the upcoming election. the investigators and accept responsibility for my mistakes, for they The news release reported Jackson was leaving the Hill for are my mistakes and mine alone,” he said. “None of us is immune medical reasons. from our share of shortcomings or human frailties, and I pray that I “On Sunday, June 10th, Congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. went on will be remembered for what I did right.” a medical leave of absence and is being treated for exhaustion,” the statement read. “He asks that you respect his family’s privacy. His Last month, President Obama was on hand during a historic offices remain open to serve residents of the Second District.” dedication of Rosa Parks’ statue in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. His wife, Sandi, then 7th Ward alderwoman, later told the Sun- At one point, he made his way into the crowd of onlookers and Times that he had collapsed at home. strode directly to two young kids. USA Today snapped a photo of His strange disappearance continued for months. The Obama hugging one of the kids and put it on its front page without congressman did not appear publicly; he did not put out personal names in the caption. statements. The public did not hear from Jackson from June until The girl he was hugging was Jessica, Jesse Jackson Jr.’s 13-year-old the end of November — with the exception of a robocall released to daughter. constituents of his district right before the Nov. 6 general election. A boy’s profile also clearly captured in that photo was Jackson’s By contrast, Republican U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk — who suffered a son, Jesse Jackson III, who’s also called Trey. stroke a year earlier, had a highly sensitive surgery to relieve The Jackson children attended the dedication, along with their swelling in his brain, endured a rigid routine to learn how to walk grandparents — the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his wife, Jacqueline — again and underwent speech therapy — regularly put out videos but the then-resigned congressman’s absence was notable. Jackson showing his physical progress. Kirk, too, released statements and Jr. had initiated the legislation that would move the Rosa Parks videos endorsing other candidates. He spoke via prerecorded statue into that hall. video to the Illinois delegation at the Republican National The dedication had been postponed until Jackson returned from Convention. a leave he took the prior June. When it became clear he wasn’t Jackson, on the other hand, was completely silent. As the months returning to Congress, it moved forward. wore on, the chorus demanding answers grew louder. What was the Before his leave, however, Jackson had penned a speech that nature of his illness? Was he going to resign? touched on the historical significance of the hall having been the Eventually, it became public that Jackson was receiving treatment place for many of the nation’s great debates, including over slavery. at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. A statement was released describing Jackson’s remarks talked about a reverence for the law and Parks’ his illness as bipolar depression. impact on civil rights. It was before Jackson took that leave that something else was “To put it another way, paraphrasing a past popular song, Rosa happening completely unknown to the public: The FBI was Parks fought the law (state and local law) — and the law (federal poking around his finances. Agents didn’t like what they were law) won — by affirming everyone’s citizenship and providing seeing. equal protection under the law for all Americans.” Jackson was clearly living well beyond his means. There was “Rosa Parks — rest in peace,” Jackson’s speech was to close: suspicious movement in his campaign account. There were high- “Stand here among the mighty, with dignity.” 1 volume credit card charges with suspect expenditures. Natasha Korecki is a political reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and The Sun-Times previously reported that federal authorities author of Only in Chicago: How the Rod Blagojevich Scandal Engulfed believed Jackson knew of the investigation before his June 10 Illinois; Embroiled Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and Jesse Jackson, Jr.; departure from Congress. and Enthralled the Nation.

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 19 Essay by John Carpenter

The question of the state’s obligation to provide affordable public It would appear that the affordability ship sailed long ago. higher education is easy to shove aside these days, as our disgraced And those who would point to private-school price tags hovering and dysfunctional state government grapples with more around $60,000 — Northwestern is $57,108; University of Chicago is fundamental issues of fiscal survival. Truth be told, it may be a moot $61,390 — and suggest state schools remain a bargain are missing point. the point entirely. Let’s go back one generation. The price of higher education, long a crucial rung on the ladder of Tuition, room and board at the University of Illinois in 1981 was opportunity, has risen so dramatically in our generation that it can $3,440. It is now more than $29,000, including books, supplies and hardly be considered an affordable option. This new, crippling cost miscellaneous costs such as transportation. That is a staggering of economic advancement, if not checked, will thin our pool of increase by any definition, albeit one not out of line with higher future leaders, weaken our economy and further widen the chasm education costs across the country. But for the purposes of this between rich and poor, with no middle in between. discussion, it is essential to look at another number. At a time when political discussion is often laced with vitriolic The median household income in Illinois in 1981 was $29,463. It anger, those who might suggest that state-supported higher is now $53,234. If the median household income in Illinois had risen education is expendable, a government entitlement doled out to help as fast and as much as the U of I’s in-state tuition, it would be almost people who should help themselves, fail to grasp that the real $250,000. (Our pension-funding worries would be over, as Illinois beneficiaries are all of us, unless slipping into global mediocrity would be wealthier than the wealthiest nation on Earth!) seems like a viable option. Or, to look at it another way, tuition, room and board one Thomas J. Lee has spent his career grappling with big issues. generation ago represented slightly more than 10 percent of the Whether as a political journalist, a speechwriter for Fortune 100 state’s median household income. Today, it represents more than 50 executives or a sought-after executive leadership consultant, he’s percent. seen the power of empowerment.

20 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Photograph by Robert Pahre Photograph by Robert Pahre

The graduate library at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Michael Dunbar’s Night Train stands outside the south end of Wohlers Hall on the UIUC campus.

“The real question isn’t whether we have a moral obligation to higher education was essential to raising the standard of living for make a high-quality liberal-arts education available to as many residents and, therefore, for strengthening the state’s economy. people who can obtain it,” he says. “The real question is whether we “Each year of college attainment enables an individual to increase should seize the tremendous benefits of educating the next annual earnings by an average of 10 percent,” the study found, citing generation, or instead suffer the consequences of not educating the data from the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. “Furthermore, the next generation.” gap in earnings between persons with a high school diploma or less Madeleine Doubek, chief executive officer of Reboot Illinois, a compared with those with an associate’s, bachelor’s or advanced reform website, email and social media effort dedicated to engaging degree has been widening since 1975. This gap in earnings has Illinoisans in the state’s challenges, agrees with Lee. grown, even as the supply of college-educated workers has risen.” “The state could price its citizens out of the higher education The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators market by raising prices and providing less financial aid. And that is took it one step further, using U.S. Census Bureau data to exactly where we’ve been heading for the past several years,” says extrapolate the direct benefit, in terms of taxable income, of a Doubek, a graduate of Eastern Illinois University. “That results in college-educated worker. The resulting article, The Financial Value of more young adult college graduates starting careers with back- a Higher Education, found that the added value of a college degree breaking debt. More and more of them must move back in with their versus a high school degree, over the course of the average lifespan, parents to barely survive. And fewer likely will seek a higher was $1.2 million. education. Is that really the future we want for our children and “Compared with the average out-of-pocket costs of a college grandchildren? Is that really the community we want?” education, this represents a return on investment in excess of 27 Officials in Michigan came to the same conclusion several years percent,” according to a summary of the report. “The added revenue ago after commissioning a study on the relationship between higher also corresponds to an additional $133,000 in cumulative federal education and economic growth. They concluded that investing in income tax revenue. Accordingly, it would be financially worthwhile

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 21 for the federal government to replace loans with grants in the hard in college, all the resources to make something of myself in my financial aid packages of low-income students if this yielded at least chosen field — at a very affordable price.” a 32 percent increase in the number of low-income students Alex Rodriguez had a similar experience at Western Illinois graduating with bachelor’s degrees.” University. The Pulitzer Prize winner and former Tribune reporter, Viewed in that light, Illinois’ declining investment in public now based in Pakistan for the Trib-owned Los Angeles Times, grew universities — over the past 15 years, state aid for public up in Chicago and suburban Streamwood. He remembers scanning universities has declined 27.6 percent when adjusted for inflation, college catalogues, looking with trepidation at their prices. according to a recent report in the northwest suburban Daily “I don’t remember a whole lot of schools that were on par with Herald — is actually costing the state money. Even as tuition is Western in terms of price. … I kind of zeroed in on WIU because of rising, according to the Herald, the state’s most basic need-based its affordability,” he says. scholarship program, the Monetary Award Program (MAP), has Like Gregory, Rodriguez found his calling not so much in the been cut to the point that approximately three-fourths of eligible college classroom but in the office of the college newspaper. students’ needs go unmet. “Attending college gave me the opportunity to work at the school Illinois’ Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, quoted in the Daily Herald, said newspaper and accumulate a batch of clips, which was and is still this aid shortfall is wasteful. always key in any journalism job search,” he says. “Some students start school and are academically able to Both Gregory and Rodriguez agree that funding state universities continue but are financially not able to continue,” Simon says. is an essential part of the state’s mission. “That’s a real waste of resources for both the students and the state.” “I think one of the values of government in a democracy is the Doubek says the state, by falling short in this area, is short- ideal of striving to level the playing field,” Rodriguez says. “Of changing our future. course, in the U.S. and other democracies, that effort often falls very “Moving toward an unaffordable higher education creates other short. Nevertheless, it’s important to give families an affordable negative ripple effects,” she says. “It will mean we have fewer alternative to private colleges that are often more expensive. citizens holding down good, high-paying Illinois jobs. This, in turn, “If a state fails to provide public higher education to its sons and means a weaker, less diverse Illinois economy. It also means less daughters, I really believe it fails at one of its most fundamental income tax revenue for Illinois. Before we know it, we’ve created a missions,” Gregory says. “Affordable public higher education instills terribly vicious cycle that is difficult to escape.” hope in, empowers and illuminates people from nearly all economic The future does not look particularly bright. According to a backgrounds. What more important responsibility can a state have report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher than giving residents a shot at those opportunities? And, what are Education, state-funded higher education is often targeted first, the consequences — to the state and to individuals — of failing to since it can raise its own revenue by raising tuition. provide that opportunity to residents who otherwise might not get “Given the past state budget patterns of coping with fiscal deficits the shot?” and avoiding tax increases … the projected shortfalls will lead to Still, I believe the most important benefit to public higher increased scrutiny of higher education in almost all states, and to education is also the hardest to quantify. The deliberately sheltered, curtailed spending for higher education in many states,” according ivory-tower environment that is the typical major-university campus to a summary of the report. gives students the opportunity to construct their dreams and conjure Still, as informative as numbers and reports can be, I’ve always ways to achieve them. Some, like pre-med students and engineers, found that the best examples are all around us. Illinois is filled with follow specific curricula geared toward specific professions. Others public university graduates who make contributions to our follow less-defined liberal arts paths. It is easy, in tough times, to communities every day. Many of these people would likely have dismiss the latter group and their wandering intellectual curiosity as walked down different paths had it not been for the state a luxury we can no longer afford. universities they and their families could afford. But not everyone figures out their life plan by the time they finish Chicago Tribune reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Gregory high school. Higher education is certainly not for everyone. And a is one of those people. Born in Chicago and raised in Morton strong case can be made for beefing up our trade-school Grove, he described his background as “working class/middle preparation, as well as supporting associate’s degrees for certain class,” and says he graduated high school with very little savings for careers. Likewise, it is easy to find examples of people who squander college. He financed half his education at Eastern Illinois University the opportunities four-year colleges provide. with student loans, and private schools would have been out of the But we cannot lose sight of the fact that a good university is a question. A self-described academic late bloomer, Gregory found place that lays the world of ideas at one’s feet. It is, at its best, a place Eastern was a place that opened his mind to any number of avenues that walks in step with the boundless energy of youth and says: Let of success. When he wandered into the school newspaper, he found me give you some ways to think critically about the world, and you the one he would walk down. just might figure out how to make something of yourself. “Editors at the Eastern News threw me in the action immediately, “The fact is,” Lee says, “that a good education isn’t so much a set of and I loved the experience. I soon discovered that the News was one skills for practicing a trade or a profession but a set of principles and of only two student-run, daily newspapers at similarly sized public the discipline to apply them to understand and learn about the universities in the U.S. (The other is the Daily Mississippian at Ole world around us, and to contribute to improving our society. With Miss.) The Daily Eastern News was very lean and needy, which was those principles and that discipline, we can remain the greatest why editors welcomed someone as raw as I was. The wonderful civilization in history. Without those principles and that discipline, thing about Eastern was that it gave a kid like me, who had a very we will not. It’s pretty much that simple.” 1 undistinguished history but sort of woke up and wanted to work John Carpenter is a free-lance writer based in suburban Chicago.

22 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ As lawmakers spend countless hours debating Income tax revenues are expected to hit their gun control measures and changes to the public peak under the increased rates in the next fiscal Feature employee pension systems, the next potential year. In Fiscal Year 2014, which begins July 1, the budget disaster in the state is on its way. state will bring in $18.6 billion from the personal In 2011, Democratic lawmakers approved an and corporate income tax. But as the tax rates start by Jamey income tax increase that moved the personal tax to roll back in 2015, that number will drop Dunn rates from 3 percent to 5 percent and the corporate substantially. Between FY ’14 and FY ’16, the state tax from 4.8 percent to 7 percent. The increase was will see a $4.7 billion decrease in income tax temporary and is set to begin phasing out in 2015, revenues, according to projections from Gov. Pat when the rates will drop to 3.75 percent for Quinn’s budget office. Projected increases in sales individuals and 5.25 percent for corporations. tax revenues are expected to soften the blow a bit, When that happens, the revenue the state brings in but the overall loss of revenue is projected to be will drop dramatically. The lack of planning for the $3.8 billion. tax rollback in budgets approved since the increase Those who want the tax increase to go away and could result in a hastily approved extension of the those who think the state cannot get by without current tax rates or painfully deep cuts to all areas of the revenue agree on one thing: The governor and state spending. “It’s almost like Illinois is envious of the General Assembly are doing little to prepare really poor fiscal policy everywhere else. So why for the phase-out. should the feds be the only ones with a fiscal cliff? Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from Palatine, Let’s create our own. And so we did, and it’s really says Democrats “promised” that the increase brutal,” says Ralph Martire, executive director of the would be temporary. “There’s no sign that they’ve Center for Budget and Tax Accountability. taken any steps for that to occur,” he says. “On all

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 23 “We have an impossible situation. If we solved pensions, then we would be looking at only $6 billion worth of debt with a dramatic drop of revenue taking place in 2015. That’s the best-case scenario.” – Kent Redfield, emeritus political science professor at UIS

fronts, despite Illinois families struggling with less money at the says Kent Redfield, emeritus professor of political science at the end of the month because of the tax increase, the [budget] University of Illinois Springfield. “If there’s no pensions problems have only gotten worse.” agreement, then nobody can make the numbers add up.” One legislator is already calling to make the tax increase Redfield says that even if pension changes pass and are upheld permanent. Skokie Democratic Rep. Lou Lang proposed a plan by the courts, the state could find itself in a fiscal position to address the state’s $96 billion unfunded pension liability. similar to the one it was in when the tax increase was approved Lang’s plan, House Bill 2375, would use the revenue from the in 2011. “We have an impossible situation. If we solved tax increase to pay down the liability. Any additional money pensions, then we would be looking at only $6 billion worth of would be rebated to taxpayers. Lang’s plan would also ask debt with a dramatic drop of revenue taking place in 2015. employees to contribute more to their retirement and increase That’s the best-case scenario.” the retirement age to 67. Redfield says as the phase-out draws nearer, he expects a push “I have not committed to that lightly,” Lang says of his to at least extend the current rates, if not make them permanent. proposal to make the current tax rates permanent. He says that “We could get back to the original deal, which was that we’re while he is the only lawmaker speaking out in a very public way going to have the temporary tax increase to pay off the bills,” he about the tax increase, he thinks more of his colleagues agree says. “The additional revenue was supposed to pay off the bills that the revenue will continue to be needed. “I think many ... but all that revenue is now going to pensions.” believe that it would be impossible for us to balance our books Redfield predicts that the timing of the decision and the and create the kind of budget we want to create and take care of length of any potential extension would likely be dictated by the needs of the people of the state of Illinois without the funds politics. “That may be politically the most palatable way to go that the tax increase has provided to us. If we can resolve the about it, is to extend it for three years, five years, four years pension problem without it, perhaps we can do it. ... But I whatever. You extend it another four years, and that gets you haven’t seen the path to making that happen yet.” through the next gubernatorial election, which has nothing to He adds, “I think in the end, most legislators, even those who do with public policy but everything to do with the politics of won’t vote for it, think that sometime in the next two years, the situation.” we’re going to have to do something about extending that But Martire says that extending the current rates would not income tax increase.” stabilize the state’s budget. “If we were starting from scratch and Northbrook Democratic Rep. Elaine Nekritz is spearheading our spending and our revenues were equal to each other, over pension reform efforts in the House. Her proposal does not call time we would still have a deficit, even if we never added a for directing more revenue to the systems. It would instead program or expanded a service area, because our revenues don’t reduce benefits for current employees and guarantee that the grow with the modern economy in Illinois and our costs will,” state makes its required annual contribution into the systems. he says. “The problem is, tax policy in Illinois has been flawed Nekritz is hesitant to assume that the tax increase could be like this, creating this kind of structural deficit for a long time, phased out, even if lawmakers can make changes to the pension and unless we fix tax policy to correspond to where economic systems that would reduce the state’s annual contribution. “If we growth is really occurring in a modern economy, we will never passed this bill tomorrow, and we could wave a magic wand and be able to balance our budget.” enjoy the $2 billion in savings that this would provide us, we still Martire says the state should extend sales taxes to some have enormous fiscal pressures. We still have $9 billion in consumer services because services now make up more than unpaid bills. We still have a group health insurance that’s placing half of the state’s economy. Before passing the tax increase in significant pressure on us. Medicaid is facing significant 2011, the Senate approved another plan that would have pressures. We’re going to have to take a look at all that in 2014 extended the sales tax to some services, but the idea was not and see how that all works,” she says. included in the tax increase that ultimately passed. “If we still don’t have a resolution on pensions that reduces Martire says that lawmakers should also approve a the annual payment that we need to make, you’d essentially have constitutional amendment that would allow the state to have a to shut down state government if the tax increase went away,” graduated income tax. The state’s Constitution calls for a flat tax.

24 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Such an amendment has been introduced in the House and has We have an undefined liability for pensions that’s continuing to more than 15 sponsors signed on. If it were passed, it would also grow. We have a continually growing state government that is have to be approved by voters. Martire says that a graduated crowding out the private sector,” says Ted Dabrowski, vice income tax would target wage growth, which has taken place president of policy for the Illinois Policy Institute. “We’re going mostly among higher earners. “If the goal is to raise adequate to have to flip all of our policies upside down. What we need to and sustainable revenue for funding public services while do is have very large economic growth.” maintaining low overall effective tax rates, then tax burden The institute has created an alternative budget plan that should be assessed primarily where income levels are high and Dabrowski says would allow the tax increase to sunset. The plan expanding most generously over time,” said a report from the calls for an expansion of the use of managed care, administered Center for Budget and Tax Accountability. “Since 1979, the by private sector providers in the Medicaid program, and an end bottom 60 percent of Illinois tax filers have seen their overall to revenue sharing with local governments. The state sends incomes decline, with the vast majority of income gains going to more than $1 billion of income tax revenue back to local the top 10 percent of Illinois tax filers. A graduated individual municipalities. It also includes a $750 million cut to general income tax rate structure would shift tax burden from families state aid to schools. Under the current budget, general state aid struggling to get by to those who are gaining significant growth was cut by $161 million, and Quinn has proposed a $150 in real income over time — generate revenue needed to help million cut for next fiscal year. “This is, of course, one of the reduce the structural deficit.” tougher ones,” Dabrowski says of the education cut. “But we Bond rating agencies are also less than thrilled with the state’s have to decide as a state collectively that there has to be shared taxing structure when compared with the projected growth in sacrifice.” costs. A December report from Moody’s Investor Services said: Oak Park Democratic Sen. Dan Kotowski says that before “Despite a diverse economy with above-average wealth, they consider extending the tax increase, lawmakers have to lackluster demographic and economic characteristics indicate scrutinize all areas of the budget, including special funds and that, even with continued U.S. economic improvement, the money that is automatically transferred out of the General state’s existing tax structure will not provide enough revenue to Revenue Fund before the budgeting process begins. “We can’t go address the rising cost of pension benefits and other state back to taxpayers and ask them to continue to foot the bill until expenses. In addition, the state’s payment backlog remains high.” we have moved forward on these fundamental reforms.” Republicans say the key to restoring revenues is encouraging Quinn’s staff refuses to comment on the tax rollback. They say economic growth by cutting taxes, fees and regulations. House the governor is focusing exclusively on pension reform for now. Republicans have introduced a package of more than 30 bills Redfield says that Quinn’s reaction is not surprising because geared at kick-starting business growth in the state. The the tax sunset is such a touchy subject politically. If he weighs in, proposals include making the research and development tax “all the headlines will read ‘governor wants to extend tax credit permanent, making changes to the workers’ increase.’” According to a recent poll from the Paul Simon compensation system geared at bringing down the cost to Public Policy Institute, more than 60 percent of Illinois voters businesses, reducing the fees required for incorporating a oppose an extension of the current tax rates. business and an immediate rollback of the income tax rates for “He cannot be thinking about that when the elected officials individuals and corporations. “I think there is little question that of Illinois have not even reformed their own pension system, we are in deep financial trouble in the state of Illinois. And much less all of the pension systems that are in deep need of there’s only one way in my view to legitimately work in the being addressed,” Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson said direction of trying to get us out of trouble. And that is ... during a briefing on the governor’s proposed budget. She says creating jobs, letting people go to work so that they can spend the governor’s budget proposal was based on current revenues money, and ... we can begin to realize revenues,” says Rep. and current laws. Dwight Kay, a Glen Carbon Republican. “The goal is to solve today’s crisis today,” Anderson says. But “We’ve got a state that’s going backward in many respects. We while Quinn and lawmakers deal with today’s crisis, Illinois’ have a growing number of unpaid bills, nearly $10 billion now. next fiasco is lurking around the corner. 1

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 25 Feature

by Meredith Colias

Since drug cocktails came onto the scene in the reservoirs, in places such as the lymph nodes, mid-1990s, many of those infected with HIV have stomach lining and spleen that are beyond the been able to avoid the death sentence the virus once medicine’s reach in the blood stream. If a patient goes meant. off medication, HIV can re-emerge in the body in Even so, more than 30 years into the epidemic, force. That is a main reason why a cure has eluded the scientists are still looking for a vaccine and a full cure grasp of science. for a disease once considered a fairly efficient killer. AIDS medications provided by the United States But recent developments abroad and at home are are demonstratively extending average life- providing slivers of hope in the battle. expectancies in parts of Africa. And recently, doctors The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a in Mississippi may have unknowingly achieved a blood-borne and/or sexually transmitted virus that is “functional cure” of an infected premature baby by also spread by unsanitary intravenous drug use. It administering a strong and continuous-enough dose destroys the immune system by essentially using the of anti-AIDS drugs starting in the early hours of the body’s automatic defense system against it. As the infant’s life. When doctors evaluated her later, she was virus enters the system, the body sends specialized no longer on the medicine but there was no evidence immune white blood cells called CD4+ cells to expel of the virus. Advocates caution that more needs to be the infection. HIV uses this opportunity to infect known about her case. those same cells, using them to replicate within and Will Wilson, an HIV-positive activist working with destroying them as new copies of the virus break out AIDS Foundation of Chicago, was pleasantly and seek other CD4+ cells to infect. Without surprised with some renewed attention paid when he treatment, as a person’s white blood cell count drops heard President Barack Obama’s call for an AIDS-free precipitously, his or her immune system becomes generation in Africa during his State of the Union crippled, and the patient loses the ability to fight life- address. threatening agents such as bacteria, viruses and Would it be possible to do the same in the United cancers. States? With treatment, an HIV infection is considered a “Let’s see how serious we are about obtaining it. We manageable condition, but it requires medication to really have our work cut out for us,” he says. “[People] be taken daily, on time, and without fail for a lifetime ignore that it takes place within the borders of this to stop the virus from multiplying and keep it in country.” check. If treatment is skipped, the virus can become Public health reports and advocates echo this resistant to the drugs’ control. A challenge for finding concern: A declining sense of risk and a lagging gap a cure is reaching where the virus hides out in the between diagnosis and treatment complicate the goal body. HIV hides in dormant havens, or viral for an “AIDS-free generation.”

26 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ As of the end of 2010, the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) estimated that 34,396 are living with the disease in this state. Although there have been small milestones in the battle against the disease — risk groups such as African-American women and intravenous drug users are declining — not all groups are seeing the same trend as smaller subsections of society are becoming more disproportionately affected with the disease. The young and poor are particularly vulnerable, and once diagnosed are often left with fewer resources to fall back on because they may struggle with pressing issues such as employment, housing and transportation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Research from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows those who are younger, poorer or with lower education levels across all racial lines and sexual orientations are less likely or willing to stick to a lifetime’s worth of treatment that is extremely expensive, estimated at $600,000 per person, according to a 2006 study cited by the Associated Press. For those who cannot afford treatment or do not have insurance, the federal government will pick up the tab for lifesaving medication, provided that the patient meets a low-income requirement for Medicaid or the Ryan White Care Act. It is difficult for those infected to get insurance because providers can reject those with pre-existing conditions until federal health care reform is fully implemented in 2014. Because Ryan White Act funding is only available for single adults and for HIV- related care, many who have to fall back on the program often have other basic medical needs that are not met. HIV can often multiply in the body exponentially for years without producing noticeable symptoms. “It’s always been true it’s a silent infection,” says Dr. Jim Curran, dean of the public health school at Emory University. This is problematic because many will not know they are sick until they are tested and may not regularly stay on medication if they think they are feeling better. Mirroring the national trend, nearly 1 in 5 people in Illinois who are HIV-infected are undiagnosed, and more than half of those who are do not properly stay on medication to achieve viral suppression. According to a 2010 Illinois Department of Public Health analysis, of 30,752 people diagnosed in the state, only 16,299 were retained in long-term care, and 11,914 were achieving the goal of HIV suppression. That is important not only for an individual’s health, but to prevent the spread of the disease to others. Scientific research has concluded that someone under proper treatment with a low viral load cuts his or her risk of transmitting the virus to other people by up to 96 percent. A CDC analysis projects if this pattern continues statewide and nationally, it “directly impacts the future course of the epidemic by fueling ongoing disparities in Sources: IDPH HIV/AIDS Strategy and 2010 new infections.” Heartland Alliance report on Illinois poverty.

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 27 Some who have seen the epidemic’s path from the beginning are Advocates say HIV impacted African-Americans from the witnessing that trend. In the early years, gay and bisexual men were the beginning of the epidemic and suspect the true extent of its infiltration most visible face of HIV/AIDS. For most of the first 20 years, when may have been underreported in the early years of detection. diagnosis was a death sentence, the CDC estimates that approximately With indisputable statistical evidence of HIV’s reach, many 448,060 died, many of them young gay men in the prime of their lives advocates are looking to churches as partners for education and in their 20s and 30s. prevention efforts. “It’s my generation that was directly impacted,” the 59-year-old “The churches have gotten a bad rap ... for not addressing [the Wilson says. “There are not a lot of 60-year-olds around in the gay disease] at the beginning of the epidemic,” says Leisha McKinley- community.” Beach, director of technical assistance and stakeholder engagement Today, young men who have sex with men are the only subgroup with the Black AIDS Institute, based in Los Angeles. population with a growing percentage of new HIV infections. To bridge barriers, Beach says, “there’s a certain language you have “That breaks my heart, personally,” Wilson says. “Somebody to speak.” dropped the ball. As the younger generation comes up, you would like Rev. Doris Green, director of correctional health and community to see a decrease. Exactly the opposite is happening.” affairs for AIDS Foundation Chicago, works to connect HIV-positive Wilson says prevention efforts are essential. “Are we really educating released prisoners to medical care. An estimated 1 percent of prisoners our youth? Those of us who are living with the virus [have to] talk to in Illinois are HIV-positive, and those are overwhelmingly African- these kids. I have to wonder how … they hit the age of 21 and not American. They also have higher recidivism rates and are released realize HIV still exists,” he says. with fewer resources to seek care after prison. Although HIV/AIDS has been a disease long associated with risky Green hopes for an evolution in thinking toward greater personal behavior, such as intravenous drug use or unprotected sex, compassion. structural disparities in the United States often play just as important a “They still think this is a white gay man’s disease,” Green says. “I see role in its spread. Explaining the numbers requires more than just things changing. I actually am encouraged to see churches [begin to] looking at at-risk behavior. embrace the issue.” Because the disease is incurable, the next generation who contract There is recognition among church leaders that HIV could exist HIV are left to deal with many of the same issues as the last, within their own congregations now, and higher rates of infection particularly among groups such as gay men and minorities, who have mean higher risk, Green says. Education and prevention efforts were disproportionately higher rates of infection among a smaller section of just as essential as for any other higher-risk group. society. Young gay men start out at a disadvantage because a higher “When we hear people ... that have very little knowledge of the virus, percentage are already HIV-positive than the general population, CDC we need to address it then and there,” she says. “It can be any of us. We spokeswoman Salina Cranor said in an email. By definition, young gay know by being tested.” men have a “greater risk of HIV exposure with each sexual encounter,” Beach says it is essential for churches to play an important role to Cranor says. open a dialogue and begin to treat the virus with the compassion Dr. Curran says a generational gap from older men who experienced associated with any other medical condition. the early days of the epidemic may also explain a sense of reduced risk, She says it is important for young gay and straight African- since they may not remember a time when the disease was not Americans to identify with others who are HIV-positive and feel considered treatable. included in their community. Those who do not feel they have a “Young gay people [then] were going to funerals every week, and proper support system may be more susceptible to stigma from peers now they aren’t. For very young people, they don’t [generally] know … or less likely to stick to medication. people who are sick,” he says. She also emphasized that unlike former NBA player Earvin “Magic” Unique to other medical conditions, Wilson says, those who are Johnson, most who contract HIV are of modest means. Although the infected fight battles on other fronts and still may be stigmatized as federal government is ready and willing to fund AIDS drug assistance carriers of the disease. Those living with the disease often are programs, many often have other distractions in their lives that get in dismissed via homophobia as adhering to a “lifestyle” or “deserving” the way of taking medication — women with dependent children, infection. transient youth more concerned about finding housing for the night “It impacts your social life, [ability to maintain] gainful employment, than taking medicine or others dealing long-term with the emotional maintain housing. These are things you don’t think about until you are effects of carrying the virus. in the midst of that situation,” Wilson says. In the Mississippi case, for unknown reasons, according to news John Peller, vice president of policy for AIDS Foundation Chicago, reports, the mother had stopped taking her child to the doctor to agrees. “People don’t get kicked out of the house for having cancer or check on her HIV infection for a five-month period. Standard having diabetes. People don’t stop talking to you.” procedure is usually three months between HIV-related visits. Dr. This is problematic as well for HIV-positive African-Americans, Deborah Persaud of John Hopkins University, a researcher in the case, who are disproportionately hard-hit by the disease. acknowledged publicly that the circumstances in the lives of many The Illinois Department of Public Health estimates African- patients with HIV can be “chaotic.” Americans are half of the total number of HIV cases in the state, even Both the CDC and IDPH are aware of those issues and include though they represent only 14 percent of the general population. Fifty- addressing them as main goals of both the national and state eight percent of cases diagnosed among gay men are African- HIV/AIDS strategies. American. And 70 percent of new infections in Illinois among These deep-seated societal factors that keep some people neglecting heterosexuals are women, and a disporportionate number of those their care will remain a problem, even as the search for a cure cases are African-Americans. continues. 1

28 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Feature

by Kenneth Lowe

When Jesse Jackson Jr. won election in November to nature of many states’ redistricting laws and the his fifth term in Congress, representing Chicago’s number of GOP-held state legislatures has translated southeast side, he had already been on a leave of into a congressional advantage for Republicans. In absence for about five months, citing unspecified 2012, for the first time since the Second World War, health concerns. Despite a lack of his presence on the the party whose candidates won the most votes in campaign trail and a federal investigation surrounding Congress failed to take the U.S. House. his campaign and personal finances (Jackson would Voters, irrespective of district or state, broke slightly later plead guilty to spending $750,000 of his for Democrats in the 2012 elections, yet Republican supporters’ money on expensive trinkets for himself leadership in large states such as Florida, Virginia, and his wife), Jackson won re-election to his seat with Texas and Ohio translated into a firm grip on the 63 percent of the vote in a race against two other redistricting process in 2010. More than 50 percent of opponents. He learned of his victory in his room at the voters in Michigan cast their ballots for Democrats, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. yet two-thirds of the state’s seats in Congress went to Jackson’s personal circumstances were remarkable, Republicans. but his essentially assured victory was like many In Illinois, the state Constitution sets a 10-year others in the state. One of the most important factors period on each new redrawing, deriving data on the in that ironclad safety is the very districts officeholders population from the U.S. Census. It also decrees each run in, drawn along partisan lines and with the intent district must meet three criteria: It must be “compact, of preserving the power of the ruling party. Long an contiguous and substantially equal in population.” acknowledged problem in Illinois, the effects of While the latter two are upheld, the first criterion is “gerrymandering” — the practice of drawing the very debatable, critics say. boundaries of the districts to favor one political party Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, chairman by isolating voters based on their likely behavior — are of the Democratic Party of Illinois, holds a heavy hand being felt nationwide in the wake of the 2012 elections. over the redistricting process, with Democrats’ Each of the 50 states sets its own congressional holding majorities in the House, Senate and the district boundaries, each according to its own governor’s office. rulemaking. In Illinois, the party in power redraws Steve Brown, spokesman for Madigan, says any districts behind closed doors. In Iowa, a computer change to Illinois redistricting rules would need to be produces a map a nonpartisan commission approves, in compliance with federal regulations. He points out a with little fanfare and almost entirely outside the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution in control of either major political party. 2010 met with Republican resistance. That The two states represent two extremes, but Illinois is amendment, supported by Democrats, ultimately more the rule than it is the exception. The partisan failed, but it would not have removed authority from

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 29 the legislature to draw its own districts, as the competing Republican “People talk about competition, but most politicians love the plan would have. phrase ‘running unopposed,’” he says. “Really, the utmost requirement in Illinois is to comply with the Former state Sen. Duane Noland, a Blue Mound Republican who Voting Rights Act,” Brown says. served in the legislature from 1998-2003, says he sees the same “Before people wring their hands about partisanship, they need to hyperpartisan effect on national politics. consider there are higher rules to follow.” “You’re seeing fewer and fewer competitive districts,” Noland says. Brown also deflects the criticism that the process is not open “When those legislators in Congress go to do their job, they’re set by enough. 2011 saw Democrats debuting their map less than a day a very narrow constituency, and that’s why I think we’re seeing so before lawmakers voted on it. It passed without a single Republican little compromise.” vote. In Illinois, the situation, while reversed along partisan lines, is “If you look at the record, there were more public hearings in this emblematic of the challenges the nation as a whole faces in cycle than in any cycle,” Brown says. “There was more public reforming the redistricting process to be more reflective of its involvement than in any [redistricting effort] in the past.” population, and less a sign of partisan whims. There are side effects to the situation the practice creates, says Paul “Redistricting is the most political act the legislature does,” Green Green, professor of political science at Roosevelt University. In some says. That act, in Illinois, perpetuates itself at the state level by ways, the very same system that shields elected officials from a securing easily defendable districts for the party in power and general election challenge traps them ideologically. marginalizing the opposition. “These elected officials are far less likely to compromise because Noland found himself at the mercy of a redistricting process their greatest threat comes from a primary challenge,” Green says. controlled by Democrats. Touring parts of the state in 2010 in Despite the chorus of lawmakers who decry the problem, reform support of a constitutional amendment for redistricting reform, from within their ranks seems a remote possibility, Green says. Noland says after the 2000 census the redrawn district he found

30 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ himself in, which pitted him against future Senate reversed in 2012. A new map wiped out the Minority Leader Frank Watson, was one of the questionable boundaries of the 17th, putting primary factors in his decision not to run for office Schilling’s residence in the new 17th, where he faced again. Democrat Cheri Bustos in a territory that completely “Essentially, what [the redistricting commission] did cut him off from much of the downstate support he was collapse four districts into three,” Noland says, spent the 2010 cycle rallying. Schilling lost, 53 percent recalling the process that led up to his not seeking re- to 47 percent. election. “I drew the short straw. It splintered my base, “Redistricting put us at a disadvantage in 2012,” and I was friends with all [the other potential Terry Schilling says. “The district went from being a candidates] and had similar philosophies, and it made 57 percent/43 percent Obama/McCain district [in me feel the handwriting was on the wall, and it was 2008] to a 60.5 percent/39.5 percent Obama district. time for me to move back into the private sector.” They took away strongholds like Quincy, Decatur and Noland spoke about the problem in 2010, adding his Carlinville and replaced them with urban parts of support to an effort by the League of Women Voters of Rockford and Peoria. By changing the district … they Illinois and the Illinois Farm Bureau to gather enough took away some of the advantages of incumbency — signatures on a petition to amend the Illinois built-in support, volunteers and name ID.” Constitution by referendum. That effort ultimately It was galling for supporters cut off from the man failed, says Mary Schaafsma, the League’s executive they helped elect, says Jeff Luecal of Decatur, a board director, because it didn’t have enough time or money member of the activist group Citizens For to gather the signatures and protect against the Responsible Government who has been active in inevitable legal challenges from politicians. campaigns in the area. Luecal says the problem is “People who would’ve given to us hedged their bets fostering a feeling of isolation between constituents and gave to a candidate,” Schaafsma says. “I think we and a government they believe they have less and less could’ve been successful if we were able to raise control over. “We all know both parties engage in enough money and had had eight more months than this,” Luecal says of gerrymandering. “In Texas, it’s we did.” radical the other way, [to favor Republicans]. We have Simple despair on the part of Illinois voters may people in this country losing faith and losing touch have played a part in it as well, she says. with the political system.” “Part of what we’re up against is cynicism, mistrust In state politics, Luecal says the situation has all but and pessimism,” Schaafsma says. “That’s what changes insulated state lawmakers from public opinion, citing things: When citizens and voters and residents of the widely unpopular income tax hike of 2011, which communities say, ‘Enough is enough.’ Springfield lawmakers passed just hours before one “When 50 percent of the Illinois House is returned General Assembly left and a new one was sworn in. unopposed, that is saying something. It’s a major State Rep. Adam Brown, a Champaign Republican incumbent protection plan.” transplanted from Decatur in the aftermath of the On the federal and state level, the redistricting recently redrawn maps, could be held up as an process in Illinois also seems to have completely example of the will of voters falling prey to the cold countermanded some high-profile Republican calculus of partisan cartography at the state level. victories. The youngest member of the Decatur City Council One of the larger upsets for Democrats in the 2010 ever to serve, Brown ran for the Statehouse in the race for Congress may have been in the former 17th former 101st House District in 2010 at age 25, facing Congressional District, a constituency with nigh- four-term incumbent Rep. Bob Flider, a Democrat. indescribable boundaries. Some Decatur voters found Both men’s campaigns collectively unloaded common cause with voters in Springfield, Galesburg hundreds of thousands of dollars, with Brown taking and the Quad Cities area in their ultimate rejection of the victory by a margin of about 600 votes. Speaking at incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Phil Hare in favor of the time, House Minority Leader Tom Cross openly Republican Bobby Schilling of Colona. While emphasized the importance of Brown’s victory in the campaigning, Schilling readily acknowledged that Republicans’ unsuccessful quest to secure enough district’s outrageous boundaries. seats for the Illinois GOP to take the House and stake His son and campaign manager, Terry Schilling, its own claim on the redistricting process. Observers says the geographical dimensions of the district alone have noted that Madigan held sway over the process in were daunting, before even factoring in the seeming 2000 and 2010, resulting in maps that for the most advantage to Hare. part, built in seemingly insurmountable Democratic “The furthest point away was about five hours,” advantages. Schilling says. Despite that, the Schilling campaign Brown, who accepted considerable financial support managed to rally support through aggressive from Cross and committees under Republican control, campaigning, meet-and-greets and word of mouth, says the partisanship of the redistricting process takes Terry Schilling said, garnering Bobby Schilling a place agency away from voters, even as it empowers political among the “Tea Party wave” of 2010. Those fortunes leadership.

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 31 “Gerrymandering is frustrating because it really diminishes your “We knew redistricting was coming, though how it was going to be voting power,” Brown says. “When the lines are drawn for political drawn, we weren’t sure,” says Stephanie Brown. “I worked with the gain, just based on the political affiliation of residents, it diminishes city for a number of years and loved that job and hated to leave, your voting opportunity there. You’ve got politicians dictating where especially in the middle of projects I had going on.” their voters are going to be.” Adam Brown says reform likely must take the route that the Though Brown’s campaign won the battle, House Republicans lost League of Women Voters and the Farm Bureau tried: an amendment their grand campaign, and a fully Democrat-controlled General to the Illinois Constitution. He says he also holds out hope that a Assembly convened less than a year later to redraw boundaries that viable pathway to do so will surface when Madigan eventually makes put Brown’s residence — a Decatur apartment — in the new 96th the decision to step down. District, with lines lumping in the downtown areas of Decatur and “I think the framework is already out there, if you take a look at Springfield. Brown, who had campaigned as a hardworking family Iowa’s model,” Brown says. “I would push for a third-party board that farmer with support for conservative policies, says he knew running determines these political lines. Anything would be better than what in the 96th would mean losing. we have now in Illinois.” He and his wife, Stephanie, weighed how his options in the General Taking the Iowa approach, Green says, probably wouldn’t work for Assembly would affect their home life. Illinois for at least one reason, though Green suggests one unlikely “The things that weighed on our minds, on the home front, was way Illinois might adopt the Iowa model. what was going to work best for my constituency, as well,” Brown says. “Just make sure we have [racial] diversity like Iowa!” Green says of “We had a lot of things to discuss, not only on the government side the overwhelmingly Caucasian state. “We’ll never be Iowa, and you’ll but also in our personal lives.” never have nine innocent people from the phone book doing it.” Brown made the same decision many other lawmakers made: Schaafsma says for the foreseeable political future, the push for a Simply run in a more winnable district. In Brown’s case, that was the constitutional amendment, independent of the General Assembly, new 102nd, which doesn’t include any parts of Decatur but does may be the only recourse Illinoisans have to change the redistricting retain a swath of the rural voters who originally elected Brown in process and slay the gerrymander, though it won’t be easy. 2010. The decision came with an additional caveat, however. “It is the one reform available to us,” Schaafsma says. “The status Stephanie Brown, formerly a development planner with the City of quo has so much more money, and they will mount a challenge to Decatur, couldn’t live with her husband and continue to work with the that at every turn. Even the smallest thing could derail that effort city. The residency requirements of her position with the city and her when they are that strong.” 1 new husband’s move meant the couple, married less than a year, were Kenneth Lowe is the enterprise reporter for the Decatur Herald & Review making real estate decisions and, in her case, trying to get another job. and the Bloomington Pantagraph.

32 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/

OBITUARIES People Dawn Clark Netsch fullest and relished it. She loved the city and the state and just loved every minute of her life. That’s a good remembrance for all of us.” Netsch was praised for being outspoken. “Long before it was the politically safe thing to do, there was Dawn Clark Netsch fighting for LGBT rights and giving voice to those who would be silenced. She was never quiet when she felt her voice could make a difference,” Bernard Cherkasov, CEO of Equality Illinois, said in a prepared statement. Several prominent Illinois political figures issued statements about the loss Dawn Clark Netsch of Netsch. The first woman to hold constitutional office in “More than any other person in our state’s Illinois and the Democrats’ 1994 straight-shooting history, Dawn Clark Netsch created the modern gubernatorial candidate died March 5. She was 86. era of women in Illinois political leadership. As The former state comptroller was also a long-time always, those who open the doors of opportunity state senator and champion of such diverse causes as must be extraordinarily gifted, determined and tax reform, good government, gay and lesbian rights patient. Dawn was all of these and more,” said U.S. and the Chicago White Sox. In January, the Sen. Richard Durbin. professor of law emerita at Northwestern University Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan: “Dawn in Evanston announced that she had amyotrophic Clark Netsch set the standard for integrity in lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou public service. She led by example with relentless Gehrig’s disease. She spoke out about the having honesty, fierce independence and a passionate ALS, hoping her disclosure might spread belief in civil liberty for all. Her unwavering information about the disease. dedication to the people of Illinois will be missed. Her biographer, Cynthia Grant Bowman, a She blazed a trail for women and worked hard to Cornell University professor of law who worked make sure so many of us could follow her.” with the former comptroller in the law school at Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka: “Illinois lost a Northwestern, described Netsch as a “warm and true legend and trailblazer today with the passing charming woman of many contradictions — a of Dawn Clark Netsch. Dawn faithfully served schoolmarm who drinks and smokes, a powerful Illinois and its residents for more than four woman who has never learned to drive, a feminist decades, fighting for good, honest government who thought of herself as one of the boys, a well-to- that rises above politics. In fact, one of the do woman who is frugal to a fault. As a woman in highlights of my legislative career was partnering the legal profession, legal academy and politics, she with her to co-sponsor the state’s Open Meetings has also been a pioneer.” Act. She continued her work as state comptroller, Cindi Canary is former executive director of the establishing the office as an honest broker and Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, which credible source of information when it comes to Netsch helped establish. Canary says of Netsch, with state finances. And she continued her crusade into whom she served on the Illinois Issues Advisory retirement, regularly speaking out on the need for Board: “She worked to build a generation that would government reform and accountability. pay it forward. I never met someone who was so “Dawn always remembered that government generous with their wisdom and their time and their exists to serve taxpayers, not the other way support. I think she helped so many — middle-aged around. She was a leader who was ahead of her now — young men and women, and she continued time, and our state is better for her service. More to help and guide and advise anyone who asked her. than that, she was a consummate professional and “So many people know she had a brilliant policy a class act. It was my honor to call her a colleague mind, but she also loved her life. She loved her and friend.” White Sox and she loved her opera and she loved Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon called Netsch a “hero of her friends. She was a person who lived life to the mine since the early 1980s and a friend and

34 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ mentor ever since. We served on the board of the Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn stated: “As an elected delegate to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform together and collaborated on constitutional convention in 1970, she spearheaded the movement reform issues for many years. She was straight forward, a to modernize our Constitution. I witnessed firsthand her straight-shooter and great at explaining state issues. She was not dedication to honest government when we served together as state just a public servant, but a teacher.” treasurer and comptroller. Durbin said: “Her ill-fated run for governor lacked the political “Most importantly, Dawn was a straight-shooter, and not just at polish of many winning campaigns, but her thoughtfulness, playing pool. [Campaign ads for Netsch in her losing race against candor and blunt honesty about the challenges we faced will be former Gov. Jim Edgar showed Netsch shooting pool.] She always remembered. The Illinois political scene will not be the same told the people of Illinois what they needed to know. Throughout without that pool-shooting Sox fan with a cigarette holder, but her life, Dawn Clark Netsch taught us all about the right way to generations of Illinois women can thank the indomitable force of move forward in our democracy. We are all better off because of her Dawn Clark Netsch for blazing their path.” purposeful life.”

Mary Ann McMorrow But through her courage, perseverance, wisdom and character, she The first woman on was a role model for all lawyers, regardless of gender. Her legacy the Illinois Supreme looms large over the Illinois legal system, evidenced by the fact we Court, and the first are the first court to include three women. Justice McMorrow was one to serve as its chief top-tier. She was devoted to the law and justice but was always justice, died February collegial and good-humored. We will all miss her grace, elegance 23. She was 83. and style. Most of all, we shall miss her.” McMorrow had a Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon called McMorrow a friend, a mentor and a life of firsts. In 1953, hero. Simon’s late mother, Jeanne Hurley Simon, was also an she graduated from the assistant state’s attorney in Cook County. School of Law at “As a woman and a lawyer, I am inspired by Justice McMorrow’s Loyola University as fearlessness in tearing down gender barriers to become the first the only woman in the woman to be an Illinois Supreme Court justice and later, the first group, which selected woman to serve as the court’s chief justice. It was truly an honor her as class president. when Justice McMorrow swore me in as our state’s lieutenant As an assistant Cook governor,’’ Simon says. “Illinois has lost a trailblazer and a great Mary Ann McMorrow County state’s attorney, leader, but her legacy will live on for years to come.” she was the first to take felony cases to trial. Gov. Pat Quinn, in a statement, said McMorrow “shattered glass She was first elected as a circuit court judge in 1976. She was ceilings with quiet determination. Her compassion and assigned to the Appellate Court in 1985 and was elected to that commitment to public service will be missed.” court in 1986, where she was the first woman to serve as chair of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said in prepared statement: “As the executive committee of the Appellate Court. She was elected to the city of Chicago mourns the loss of Justice Mary Ann the Supreme Court as a Democrat in 1992, served as chief justice McMorrow, we join the state of Illinois and the entire country in from September 2002 to September 2005, and retired in 2006. celebrating her lifetime of service and accomplishment. As the first A press release from the Supreme Court noted: “As she put it at female justice and chief justice of our state’s Supreme Court, Justice her swearing in as chief, ‘I am the 115th chief justice of the McMorrow was a pioneer. She broke through barriers, and her Supreme Court of Illinois. You will notice after I take off my robe record of achievement reminds us of why the fight for gender that I am the only one of the 114 chief justices who preceded me equality must continue. With her commitment to justice in the that wears a skirt.”’ courtroom and in her community, Justice McMorrow was a model About being a trailblazer for women in Illinois, McMorrow told for men and women, politicians and private citizens, of how to live Illinois Issues in 2002: “It’s an opportunity to be heard and listened a life of service, accomplishment and courage.” to. We don’t want anything extra; we just don’t want anything less.” Among her accolades, the American Bar Association honored Among important cases she wrote was the 1997 opinion that McMorrow in 2005 with its Margaret Brent Award, named for the voided the state’s so-called tort reform law. It has limited damages first woman lawyer in America, who arrived in the colonies in that plaintiffs could win in civil suits. “Though she’s not 1638. She was the recipient of the Myra Bradwell Woman of considered a plaintiff-friendly jurist,” wrote Illinois Issues’ Aaron Achievement Award, the highest award given by the Women’s Bar Chambers in that 2002 profile, “her general approach to the Association of Illinois, named after the woman who won her law liability cases, where one person or entity sues another over license in the U.S. Supreme Court after being rejected by the negligence, is statistically more conservative than that of her Illinois Supreme Court. fellow judges.” The Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Foundation In a prepared statement, current Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride awarded her the Justice John Paul Stevens Award, given to said: “Being the first woman on the court and to serve as chief Chicago area attorneys whose careers exemplify the highest justice, she was an inspiration to all women in the law in Illinois. standards of the legal profession.

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36 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Ends and Legislature should work smart, Means not just hard, on the pension fix

For someone with a penchant for stream-of- impairment because they would be voluntarily Charles N. Wheeler III consciousness speechmaking, Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget accepting reduced benefits. Others are not so sure, address last month was notable for its laser-like focus likening the “voluntary” choice to that offered by the on the need to address the state’s mounting pension armed robber: “Your money or your life.” debt, now approaching $100 billion. Any enacted benefit-cutting plan is sure to be The oft-repeated theme: Ever-mounting pension challenged in court, sponsors acknowledge. But they obligations are crowding out funding for education seem to be pinning their hopes on the Illinois and other core services. Supreme Court agreeing that the state’s fiscal “There are too many priorities that have been cut to problems are so severe that the legislature had no the bone due to inaction on pension reform,” the other viable alternative but to override the governor said at one point. “And it is only a preview of Constitution, exercising the state’s police powers to the pain that is to come if this General Assembly does deal with an emergency. After all, the argument might not act decisively on comprehensive pension reform.” go, bond rating agencies and national accounting Quinn’s proposed solution, which would rely standards say we should have pensions fully funded in heavily on suspending cost-of-living adjustments for 30 years, and the only way to do that is to cut benefits. retirees, “requires hard votes,” he told lawmakers. “But Even assuming for the moment the justices buy that every day you wait to vote on this matter the problem line, the benefit reductions won’t take effect for many gets worse.” months, if not years, while the unfunded liability No one would argue with the governor’s assessment grows. that tackling the pension problem is hard work. But More likely, however, would be a decision that what sometimes it’s just as important to work smart, an the rating agencies might want, and what the option that Quinn and legislative leaders seem to have nonbinding accounting standards might say, don’t overlooked. trump the clear constitutional language. Indeed, as a Case in point: The governor’s proposal and virtually sovereign entity, the state has alternatives — raise all the pension reform measures introduced to date taxes, cut other spending, reamortize the debt — that include reducing benefits now provided to public belie the notion that lawmakers have no choice but to workers under the five state retirement systems, in disregard the Constitution. Moreover, the current clear violation of the constitutional guarantee that problem is the result of past governors and legislators pension benefits cannot be diminished or impaired. of both parties failing to adequately fund the systems House Minority Leader Tom Cross, a Republican for decades, so to plead “emergency” now is somewhat from Oswego, and Rep. Elaine Nekritz of Northbrook, akin to the guy who kills his parents, then asks the the Democrats’ lead pension negotiator, for example, judge for mercy because he’s an orphan. are sponsoring legislation that would raise retirement But why run the risk of a prolonged — and likely ages, eliminate cost-of-living increases after the first losing — court fight when other, clearly constitutional $25,000 of a pension, and require workers to pay options are available? Granted, anything that doesn’t more, among other provisions. The proposal would involve benefit cuts probably won’t satisfy the save some $167 billion over 30 years, sponsors corporate moguls and their editorial page shills who calculate. seem motivated by a visceral loathing of public sector Meanwhile, Senate President John Cullerton, a workers. But sound public policy shouldn’t be held Chicago Democrat, is pushing a plan that would offer captive to special interests. public employees a choice between keeping their Instead, Quinn and legislative leaders would be current COLAs but forgoing state-subsidized health well-advised to consider seriously a refinancing care, or keeping health care in return for accepting proposal developed by the Center for Tax and smaller cost-of-living adjustments, for an estimated Budget Accountability, a bipartisan Chicago-based savings of $66 billion to $88 billion. research and advocacy think tank. Cullerton believes offering covered workers an The current crisis, the center argues, is the direct option gets around the constitutional ban on benefit result of a 1995 law intended to bring the retirement

http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ 1 Illinois Issues 1 April 2013 37 systems to 90 percent funding by 2045. That legislation more than $700 million in 2045, largely because the so back-loaded the payment schedule that the state won’t have to pay anything for teachers after FY unfunded liability will continue to grow until FY 2030, 2038, when payroll deductions are forecast to more topping out at $133.4 billion, while the required annual than cover the value of benefits earned each year. state contribution will keep on rising to reach $17.6 The immediate drawback is that the center’s plan billion in 2045. would cost some $1.8 billion more next fiscal year than “To be clear, this repayment structure is not a the $6.8 billion retirement contribution Quinn creature of actuarial assumptions nor actuarial requested, money the state doesn’t have now but could requirements but is purely a legal fiction the state find. One possible solution: Borrow the money, and use imposed upon itself to kick the funding can down the a new revenue source — the state’s take from new road,” said Ralph Martire, the center’s executive gambling casinos or from closing some of the director. “So, to solve the real problem creating pressure governor’s targeted loopholes, for example — to repay on the state’s fiscal system, the state has to re-amortize the bonds. And by FY 2021, the state contribution the debt repayment schedule or the fiscal pressure will under the center’s plan actually would be slightly less not be alleviated.” than under current law; over time the plan would save What the center proposes is to retire about $85 the state some $35 billion. billion of the pension debt through flat, annual Would the rating agencies balk at a plan that achieves payments of $6.9 billion through 2057, with iron-clad just 90 percent, rather than full, funding of pension guarantees that future lawmakers can’t take any more obligations and that takes 45 instead of 30 years to get pension holidays. Added to the debt service each year there? Perhaps, but then again, they might prefer a would be the employer’s share of normal cost — the practical solution that’s stable, predictable and clearly value of benefits public workers earn in a given year — constitutional over a benefit-cutting scheme that’s likely estimated at $1.7 billion in FY 2014, $44 million less to be tossed out by the court after several more years of than this year, according to the Commission on uncertainty and mounting fiscal pressure. Government Forecasting and Accountability, the Charles N. Wheeler III is director of the Public Affairs legislature’s fiscal gurus. Reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield. He is In fact, the state’s normal costs are projected to also a vested member of the State Universities Retirement decrease substantially over the next 33 years, to slightly System.

38 April 2013 1 Illinois Issues 1 http://illinoisissues.uis.edu/ Governing Revised & Updated Illinois CONTENTS Chapter 1 Governing Illinois Government: People, Places, and Politics Available Chapter 2 Illinois for Fall 2012 The Powers and Duties of Fourth Edition Government: How People Fit In Chapter 3 Constitutionalism: A Contract with the People Chapter 4 The Legislative Game: How to Pass Your Law Chapter 5 The Governor and the Executive Branch Chapter 6 The Courts and the Conceptof Law Chapter 7 Illinois Local Government: Counties, Cities, Villages, Townships, Schools, and More Chapter 8 The Way it Works: State Finances Chapter 9 Politics in Illinois: A Case Study of Corruption Chapter 10 Getting Involved: Your Influence on Governing Illinois

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