SPRINGFIELD – A year ago, new Gov. Pat Quinn’s reform commission was traveling the state with former federal prosecutor Pat Collins at the helm, building a head of steam behind its push to overhaul the state’s political engine by limiting campaign donations and a series of other good government ideals.
But ethics reform quickly ran aground at the Capitol. Political observers say the commission’s idealism collided with political reality, and reality won.
The high-profile rejection of many of the commission’s provisions was stunning to followers who hoped Collins, best known for putting former Gov. George Ryan behind bars for corruption, would be able to bulldog the reforms through the General Assembly.
Collins’ new book – “Challenging the Culture of Corruption: Game-Changing Reform for Illinois” – about the efforts, along with the reaction to it, gives a revealing look at just how far both sides were apart, in terms of experiences, approach and their view of each other.
Some Springfield veterans say Collins and his commission were politically inexperienced, naive to the ways of the Capitol and refused to take advice about how to actually turn good ideas into real reform.
And in a squabble over Collins’ book, the state House Speaker’s spokesman is sharply dismissive of Collins as lacking credibility and suggests the commission members had no real standing to push for reforms because they had no experience as politicians.
And yet, personality squabbles aside, some say Collins had to come in like a bull in a china shop in order to raise attention in a state where one governor sits in prison and another faces federal corruption charges. Still others say the commission was doomed no matter the strategy, a victim of bad timing and questionable backing from the governor who assembled it.
In the book, Collins said he received a rude introduction to Springfield’s ways when a top political aide contacted a commission member early on wondering if there was interest in cutting a deal to avoid “confrontation.” The aide denies that characterization, and says the allegation is a personal smear that undermines Collin’s credibility on ethics.
But the book has thrust Collins and the reform commission back into the spotlight nearly nine months after officially disbanding.
Collins does not name the aide or the commission member in the book, nor would he in a subsequent interview. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s spokesman Steve Brown says he’s the unnamed aide that Collins mentioned in the book and that the commission member was Brian McMillan, the former chief of staff to former Republican Congressman Ray LaHood of Peoria. McMillan now heads Bradley University’s Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service. McMillan confirmed being contacted by Brown.
Brown, who lives in the Peoria area, said he was merely feeling McMillan out to see if he could help, given that many on the commission had little experience in the campaigns they wanted to reform.
Collins concedes his approach rubbed many the wrong way.
“Admittedly, we did not adopt a particularly sophisticated legislative strategy, nor did we adeptly compete in the Springfield ‘behind closed doors’ way of doing business,” he says in the book.
“They didn’t know how to navigate the waters of Springfield,” said Patty Schuh, spokeswoman for Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno, who backed Collins’ recommendations. “Our observation is they knew they were on their own.”
In the end, Quinn abandoned the commission and sided with legislative leaders’ alternative in exchange for getting a constitutional amendment allowing recall of the governor added to the November ballot. The reform commission had not supported that amendment.
Quinn spokesman Bob Reed on Friday praised the commission and touted what did get done, including revamping laws regarding the public’s access to government information and campaign finance limits in primary elections.
But Collins and commissioners submitted an all-or-nothing agenda, telling lawmakers in their report containing the recommendations “… we cannot endorse efforts to selectively implement some reforms while ignoring other key proposals. Half-measures will not suffice to repair our state’s troubled infrastructure or our citizens’ broken confidence.”
Collins, however, wasn’t a federal prosecutor armed with the full resources of the federal government to make his case. He had little experience in retail-level lawmaking and though the commission was stacked with well-known and respected figures, only one commissioner had served in the General Assembly and knew the process. The bulldog mentality that made Collins an acclaimed prosecutor served largely to turn off the many lawmakers whose votes he needed.
“It’s two different worlds walking into a federal courthouse as opposed to walking into the state Capitol,” state Rep. Jim Durkin, a Westchester Republican, said of Collins’ difficult transition.
Given the topic, Durkin doubts Collins would have fared much better with a tamer approach.
“Pat Collins came down guns blazing. I think it was necessary. A reality check. I think it was the right thing to do,” Durkin said. “Sometimes we don’t learn from the past. That’s so obvious in Springfield.”
Duane Noland is a former downstate Republican lawmaker who served on the commission. As a lawmaker he’d been in contested races, gone through the legislative remapping and, while no power broker, generally understood the way things work. He said many of his commission colleagues had no idea what awaited at the Capitol and when advised what was coming chose not to engage the system even if it meant their proposals might falter.
“I tried to talk about ways we could be more effective,” Noland said in a recent interview. “But they wanted to be independent and above the fray.”
Noland said his advice was “hit singles and advance runners,” but the feeling of the commission was they’d been assembled “to hit a home run.”
The problem, he said, is those who swing for the fences often strike out.
“I sensed real quickly – it’s getting ugly and our people don’t know how to engage the process,” Noland said. “I could just see it, we were grinding to a halt.”
Collins is by no means the first to have an agenda snuffed by the legislative process. Far greater political figures and some of the state’s greatest dealmakers have tasted defeat among the 177 members of the Illinois House and Senate.
Former Gov. Ryan similarly assembled a death penalty reform commission filled with working prosecutors, defense attorneys and skilled politicians such as former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon. That team spent two years coming up with a series of recommended reforms, and Ryan put the full weight of his office and political career behind them.
But in the end, several of the recommended reforms, such as reducing the number of crimes that qualify for the death penalty, were left out. In the late 1990s, Republican Gov. Jim Edgar’s tax swap to reduce schools’ reliance on property taxes was backed by House Speaker Madigan and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Rallies on the Capitol lawn brought thousands of schoolchildren, parents and education activists, all advocating for Edgar’s plan. A handful of Republicans bucked their suburban leadership in the House, giving the deal the votes to get to the state Senate.
There it was blocked, thanks largely to one man – Republican Senate President James Pate Philip of Wood Dale, who didn’t think it was a good deal for his suburbs. Unable to pressure Philip to relent, Edgar scrapped the tax swap and took a different route to boost school funding.
“As governor, I used to wonder sometimes why we need to have the legislature,” Edgar half-jokingly told the Daily Herald last week. “I always knew I was right and they were wrong. But the reality is you have to deal with them. You’re going to make your job much more difficult if you don’t realize that.”
Edgar said negotiations are part of the process, the earlier they begin the better the outcome, and, while some things shouldn’t be sacrificed, wiggle room is needed. He said Collins should have reached out to legislative leaders.
“I can’t believe … that everything there was chiseled in stone,” Edgar said of the reform report. “And if it is, then you’re going to have a tough time.”
Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services
Certain Republican Senators have decided to be an asshole and depriving over a million Americans of unemployment benefits starting today. Thank goodness their actions are ignored on the Sunday Chat Shows. That way we can focus on the important things like allowing “President” McCain to reinvent history a couple times a month or White House social secretaries.
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