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Champaign-Urbana
News-Gazette
State House change
deserves a look
Editorial
April 26, 2001
Voters sure took
it out on the Illinois House of Representatives in
1980 when,
upset about a sneaky vote by legislators to raise their
own pay,
the citizenry responded by slashing the House membership
from
177 to 118. That Cutback Amendment will forever be the legacy of
populist lawyer Pat Quinn, who organized the petition drive to get
it
on the ballot.
The cutback had other results, however.
It didn't just evict 59
members from the House and reduce
spending in the lower chamber. It
unintentionally served to rid
the House of many of its most
independent thinkers, those who
were not beholden to either the
Democratic or Republican party
bosses.
Instead of having three members from each of 59
legislative
districts -- including one from the minority party
in that area --
the House was reorganized into 118 single-member
districts. That had
several dismal consequences for state
government. It consolidated the
power of the two partisan House
leaders, so much so that they not
only have control over the
bills that get heard and passed, but they
also have control
(through campaign contributions) over who gets
campaign support,
and even who gets elected. That same consolidation
of power has
increased the amount of money spent in legislative
campaigns,
making fund-raising and political action committees a
bigger
factor in state government. Too often, legislative candidates
have little control over how much or how money is spent on their
campaigns. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money is
funneled through the offices of Democratic House Speaker Michael
Madigan or Republican leader Lee Daniels.
There is no
greater problem in Illinois government than the onerous
authority wielded by the legislative leaders.
A bill
stalled in the House would allow for a statewide referendum in
2002 on returning cumulative voting in Illinois House elections.
The
bill, which has support from Democrats and Republicans,
including
Rep. Rick Winkel, R-Champaign, is not perfect. It
calls for the
creation of 39 large, three-member districts, not
the 59 districts
the House had for years before the Cutback
Amendment.
But the proposal is a worthy starting point of
discussion. And we
congratulate those, such as former Illinois
state Rep. Abner Mikva,
and current members such as Winkel, who
have encouraged a return to
multi-member House districts. The
Legislature should heed their call. |
