Phil Kadner: Your chance to replace incumbents in Illinois

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McCarthy

Updated: February 5, 2012 8:11AM

If only we could replace all those elected incumbents ...

You hear that a lot whenever people complain about the government.

They seem to believe there are some miracle workers out there, people with no political experience, who could come in and do what no one has done before.

Ask what that thing is, however, and you’ll get a lot of different opinions.

Well, there’s an opportunity here in Illinois, if change is what you really want.

State Sen. Maggie Crotty (D-Oak Forest) announced last week she would not seek re-election this year. State Rep. Kevin McCarthy (D-Orland Park) announced he was resigning and wouldn’t finish his current term.

State Sens. Edward Maloney and James Meeks, who live in Chicago but represent a good chunk of the Southland, previously had said they would not seek re-election in 2012.

So the political landscape of the Southland is going to change.

But will that alter the way the Legislature does business or even dramatically impact the future of the Southland? The easy answer is, “No.”

The prevailing wisdom is that Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) makes all the important decisions in Springfield. And there’s a lot of truth to that.

Madigan is one of the most powerful political leaders in the history of this state, and he has the ability to kill any legislation he doesn’t like.

But Madigan isn’t all powerful. In Evergreen Park, state Rep. Kelly Burke, a fellow Democrat, defeated Madigan’s candidate in the 36th House District in 2010.

So there’s an opportunity to send some new people to Springfield, although how effective they might be is questionable.

State Rep. Al Riley (D-Olympia Fields) compares the legislative process in Springfield to the peloton in the Tour de France.

“You have this group of bike riders that stays together for much of the race, and then you have those few who jump into the lead occasionally,” he said. “But the pack always reels them back in.

“There are sociological and psychological dynamics at work in any legislative body. It’s a group
dynamic, and there have been scientific studies about that. Ultimately, it is really all about reaching a consensus, and that’s what we do.”

Riley notes that it’s “easy for people to be cynical” about the political process, but it is much more difficult to get involved and try to make things better.

People always talk about how a “regular guy” can’t get elected to office, but McCarthy and Crotty were about as close to that definition as anyone I’ve seen.

They weren’t lawyers, they weren’t wealthy, and they didn’t have well-oiled political organizations backing them when they ran for office. They knocked on doors. They went to meetings of church and homeowners organizations.

Did they change things?

Well, McCarthy passed a tuition tax credit bill that allows people who send their children to private schools to get a few hundred dollars back from the state.

I didn’t like that legislation much because McCarthy had originally campaigned on a pledge of increasing public school funding. But it made him popular with the Chicago Archdiocese and alienated the teachers’ unions.

And that allowed him to eventually sponsor a landmark pension reform measure because he was never beholden to the unions for support.

He also ended up sponsoring legislation to reform the telecommunications industry and advocating a bill that will allow ComEd to build a new electrical grid in Illinois.

McCarthy became Madigan’s right-hand man for some of the toughest bills to ever pass the House.

Is that the kind of change people wanted when they voted McCarthy into office? Well, voters kept re-electing him until he decided on his own that it was time to quit.

Crotty passed legislation that required that renters be given 120 days’ notice before being evicted
if their landlords were in foreclosure.

Maloney passed legislation expanding enrollment at the Chicago School for Agricultural Sciences from 600 to 720. Meeks fought to alter the state’s public school funding formula but ultimately failed.

Now the public will get a chance to replace these legislators, but will people even care?

Many people don’t know the difference between a state senator and a U.S. senator.

With the boundaries of legislative districts changing, it’s difficult to find out what House or Senate district you will live in next year.

But if you live in the Southland, you will get an opportunity to change things.

Let me know how that works out for you.