How Illinois' New House Speaker Can Restore Faith in Government

Chicago IL

27 February, 2021

7:02 AM

Description

The raven is no longer perched on his shoulder. The albatross wrapped around his neck. The sword of Damocles dangling over his head. Whatever your metaphor of choice, the meaning is clear: Illinois' new House Speaker, Chris Welch, is coming out from under the towering shadow cast by his all-powerful predecessor and mentor, Michael Madigan, who exited Springfield stage left recently after the longest-running speakership in U.S. history. Welch already has a plate full of new challenges to confront and thorny questions to answer on tax and pension policy, and the Madigan succession fiasco. But that said, if he wants to make history of his own, in the sunlight and in many fewer decades, he can embrace a series of good government reforms Illinois desperately needs and Madigan stubbornly resisted year after year. I could suggest a couple dozen measures—financial, ethical, structural and legislative— that would make state government, the people who run it and the elections they oversee more honest, efficient, accountable and transparent. But that would take up more space than I'm allocated and put all but the most serious policy wonks and political junkies to sleep, so let me simply offer our new House Speaker a manageable handful of reforms that are high on my list and might make Illinois more attractive to taxpayers and businesses: —End gerrymandering, the back room redistricting scheme that creates legislative enclaves favorable to incumbents and daunting to challengers. Replace it with public hearings, input from regular citizens and good government groups, and maybe even competition among various map proposals. A fair map would go a long way toward creating a healthier and more competitive election climate that produces lawmakers more committed to pubic service than self aggrandizement. —Adopt term limits for legislative leaders, an imperative in the post-Madigan era, and consider extending it to all elected officials, which will end lifetime membership in the "Insiders Club" and bring fresh new faces and perspectives into government. —Eliminate conflicts of interest that (a) allow elected officials to "retire" one day and become lobbyists a day later, using their connections to help whoever is paying their fees; and (b) allow elected officials to hold outside jobs that intersect with government, like property tax lawyers who win tax breaks for wealthy clients that increase the tax burden on the rest of us. Former lawmakers should have to wait a year or two before becoming lobbyists, and no elected official should have a private sector job that intersects with government. —Consider replacing closed, party-centric primaries with open primaries and some version of "ranked choice voting," which forces candidates to appeal to more than a narrow base of voters at the extreme end of one party or the other if they hope to win. That would make it easier for moderate candidates to compete, perhaps win elections and then work across the aisle on solutions to major problems. —-Increase accountability and transparency by (a) giving state inspectors general the tools and authority to conduct serious corruption investigations, and (b) requiring elected officials to disclose much more information on their annual statements of economic interest. —-Tackle the twin problems of a pension crisis that could lead to a meltdown, and the unaffordable reality of too many units of Illinois government, the poster child for bureaucratic bloat. I've just scratched the surface of reforms our state needs to become, once again, an attractive destination for taxpayers and businesses, instead of the toxic environment that companies and individuals are abandoning in record numbers. Welch will need buy-in from fellow Democrats Don Harmon, the Senate President, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker, to adopt these and other measures. And it would be nice to have the support of minority GOP leaders Jim Durkin and Dan McConchie. But this is the new Speaker's moment. He has, post-Madigan, an enviable opportunity and the power of his position to make history not for longevity or service to fellow Democrats, but by enacting reforms that help restore our faith in Illinois government and in our fragile democracy. Andy Shaw covered politics and government at ABC 7, led the Better Government Association and now chairs a nonprofit reform board. Email him at [email protected].