I was surprised to see my column on the editorial page of Wednesday’s Journal-Courier.
OK, it wasn’t exactly my column, but it expressed just about everything I was about to write for today’s column.
I’m glad I read Wednesday’s paper before I began composing this piece. Wednesday’s editorial heaped praise on state Sen. Sam McCann, R-Plainview, and state Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, for introducing a resolution to keep the Legislature in session until a balanced budget is enacted. I second the motion.
Too many legislators in both Springfield and Washington seem untroubled about failure to accomplish their most basic duties, while at the same time receiving pay and benefits from taxpayers. Apparently the only deadlines many of our Washington representatives consider most important are those that mark the beginning of congressional recesses.
Why are the Independence Day and August recesses held to be sacrosanct while deadlines for appropriations bills are allowed to slip away?
Congressmen and U.S. senators do not lose a day of pay for doing nothing. In fact, the real threat to their careers comes from actually doing something, like actually voting on important legislation. If no bill comes up for a vote, legislators don’t have to make decisions that will go on the record, yet they will still get paid and retain all the benefits of office.
If I contract a roofer and he clears all the shingles off my house then says, “Look at the time! I’m off to vacation,” that guy is not going to get paid. He may even get sued. But our legislators in Springfield and Washington can skip town leaving everything in shambles and still count on a paycheck.
That’s why senators McCann and Manar’s Senate Joint Resolution 44 is such a good idea. It demands that the houses of the General Assembly remain in session all day long, Monday through Saturday, until a budget is passed and it stipulates that “under no circumstances shall the fulfillment of this resolution cost the taxpayers more money in legislative pay, per diems, or travel expenses.”
A minor quibble might be that the governor is mentioned 10 times in the resolution and the General Assembly gets 15 mentions, but the Speaker of the House never comes up. I suppose that’s because the governor is a state office and the speaker is an officer of the House, but still, the governor is a single individual, and the General Assembly is currently composed of 176 members.
I have argued that the office of the governor is relatively weak and politically vulnerable, so it really doesn’t matter that much which party controls the governor’s chair. One person effectively controls all legislation that successfully makes it to the governor’s desk and that person is House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Whoever wins next year’s race for governor will either go along with the speaker’s demands or will be in opposition to the speaker. One way or another, our taxes will either spike with no reciprocal reduction in spending or budget crises are likely to continue.
The spirit of the joint Senate resolution is a good one, but having lived in Illinois for decades, aware of the recent history of legislative failure, I’m not holding my breath in anticipation of a breakthrough.
All the same, thanks for trying.
