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Questions & Answers The Four Tops Q. What are the issues you would like to see addressed this spring? Number one: budget. Number two: further review of electric utility deregulation, review of telephone regulation and medical malpractice. Q. Why electric and telephone regulation? They’re both scheduled for review. Q. Do you think the legislature will spend a lot time addressing those issues? I think the legislature will spend a lot of time on all four of those issues. In the case of the budget, going into the preparation of the next budget, we are looking at $900 million of one-time revenue in the current budget. So, for those budget-makers who would like to stay even — in terms of the provision of service by the state of Illinois — in order to stay even, you have to find $900 million, just to stay even, before you get to a consideration of increases or growth in the budget. I think we ought to spend a lot of time on electric utility deregulation because, although Illinois appears to have successfully transitioned to deregulation, there’s a lot of serious issues to be addressed in terms of electric utility deregulation. Number one would be the rate freeze that was put in place. At the time, it was argued that this would be beneficial for ratepayers, especially residential ratepayers. Over time, a legitimate question has been put, “Well, although we put a lid on what the rates might be, we may have also put a floor on what the rates could be.” And competition over the last couple years, without the rate freeze, may have driven those rates lower than they are right now. In addition, we provided for what they call stranded costs at the time of the electric utility deregulation, which is an industry way of saying that the mistakes of the utility companies, notably Commonwealth Edison, in building nuclear plants would be paid for by the ratepayers. We did that. Having done that, having done the rate freeze, you’re now looking at a cliff, in terms of where you go with cost for the utility companies and for the rates. In the case of the telephone companies, there has been a great change in telephone service. You probably carry a cell phone. And so all of that should be reviewed now, rather than later, because of the dramatic changes in the industry and technology. Q. The argument is that a move to a more free-market system would benefit everyone? And in the case of the phone regulation — privately, I put the question, and I guess I’ll put it publicly right now: Why couldn’t we follow the model that we followed in electric utility deregulation, where, in essence, we made Commonwealth Edison and the other distribution companies common carriers and took them out of the generation business. Why couldn’t we just make SBC a common carrier for distribution and take them out of the other aspects of it. I’m sure they have some kind of response, but I think it’s a question that ought to be put. If you were to do that, then there’s a little more rhyme and reason to this idea that they’re deregulated, but the legislature or the Commerce Commission is setting the rate for wholesale sales from people like SBC to the others. Q. The comptroller says there’s $1.9 billion in one-time money in this year’s budget. We disagree with him on that because we would say that we simply moved that $400 million to one place in the budget from another because of the borrowing we did at the end of the fiscal year. We did that borrowing. We brought that money in. We paid down our obligations and, therefore, that money was just put into a different section of the budget, so that’s a difference we have with the comptroller. The $900 million is pretty well agreed. In addition to the $900 million, we have to be concerned with our obligations to the state pension systems. I forget the exact number, but that would easily take the $900 million over a billion dollars. Q. The pension systems say they’ll need $2.5 billion this year — a $600 million increase over last year. To what degree is pension funding a serious issue in Illinois? It’s a grave issue because of the long-term obligations we’re under and because of the short-term squeeze that puts on our ability to be responsive to the people of the state of Illinois in terms of the services we provide. Q. Along the same lines, we’re already talking about a $1 billion hole in next year’s budget. How much progress have we made from two years ago, when the number was $5 billion? We’ve made progress. The biggest problem we have is the governor, his desire to continue to spend more money when we’re running a budget deficit. And I’ve said to people that, in retrospect, had the governor in his first year in office taken advantage of the honeymoon afforded him because he was the first Democratic governor in over 25 years, with both chambers of legislature under Democratic control, had he taken advantage of that honeymoon to simply say, “Let’s do a status quo budget in my first year, and we can rectify receipts against expenditures,” why we’d be in pretty good shape today. But you’ll recall, coming into office, he claimed there was a deficit of between $3 [billion] and $5 billion and, with that in mind, he proposed spending an additional $1 billion, which the legislature did, in his first year. So it was only in his second year, when I decided to take a stand for fiscal responsibility and to fight, that there would be no more structurally imbalanced budgets, that we would end balloon financing and that we would only spend the money we had. And we would not spend money we didn’t have. In that second year we made some progress. Those of us who want to believe in fiscal responsibility, we made some progress. But we have a long way to go. Q. During those negotiations last year, you aligned yourself with the Republicans leaders in both chambers. Was that a marriage of convenience or something we should expect to see in the future? I’ve told Rep. [Tom] Cross and Sen. [Frank] Watson that I plan to maintain the coalition. And let me add that coalition-building on my part is nothing new. When I came back in as speaker in 1997, I provided that there would be Republicans serving as chairs of committees in the House. I’ve continued that practice ever since. In this session, I provided that a former leader, Lee Daniels, would be the chair of a committee on mental health and developmentally disabled people. And so, in my mind, the people of the state are not interested in useless, wasteful partisanship. They’re interested in a good, solid work product coming out of a legislature, which is populated by people from both political parties. And so I believe, and I think the people of the state agree with me, that everybody elected to the General Assembly ought to be involved in the decision-making, and, as far as I can facilitate that, I’m going to do that. Q. As you mentioned, the rising cost of medical malpractice insurance is a significant issue. The Republicans contend the state needs to cap plaintiff awards for pain and suffering, which Democrats generally do not support. Short of that impasse, are there solutions that can be worked on this session? Let me say quite a few things about this. Number one, there’s been a recent declaration coming out of Texas, from I believe General Electric, which is in the insurance business, that caps don’t work, that they don’t get the job done. OK. In addition, there’s real strong evidence that shows that where you have caps, as they do in, say, California, what it’s done is to provide that poor people with significant injuries as a result of medical malpractice, but not real bad injuries, can’t get a lawyer to take the case because if a lawyer takes a case in California, with the $250,000 cap, he processes the case, he gets a judgment for, say, $1 million. The law reduces the million to $250,000 and it reduces the fee also. So, for the lawyer, he doesn’t see an economic incentive to get involved with the case. Now, if you’re a wealthy person and you wish to pursue the action for whatever reason, you can afford to do it. If it’s just an egregious matter where there may be some punitive damages, there may be another reason to pursue. But the important thing to understand is that for poor people, victims of medical malpractice, in California, they have effectively been disenfranchised. They effectively have no remedy under the law. And I just don’t believe in that type of a governmental system. I believe in a legal system where there’s always a reasonable remedy. That’s not to say that you’re entitled to the ultimate remedy, but there should be some remedy available. Next, I want to talk about the conflict of interest that the Illinois State Medical Society functions at. The medical society is the lobbyist for the doctors who subscribe to their program. Not every doctor in the state is a member of the medical society, but, for those who join, the medical society is their lobbyist, and the medical society has created and operates an insurance company. Last spring, as we discussed and debated the issue of medical malpractice insurance cost, it was very apparent that, when pressed, the medical society lobbyist would represent the insurance company, not the medical society, which means not the doctors. We are now coming to the point where some doctors are realizing that. And some doctors [who] have been told what proposals were on the table, which were rejected by the medical society lobbyist, are starting to ask, “Why didn’t you take that proposal. Because that would have helped the situation.” In conclusion, there are a lot of things that can be done to improve medical malpractice liability cost. You can strengthen the safeguards that are in place already, in terms of requirements to file the lawsuits. You can deal with instructions to the jury, coming from the judge. You can deal with personal asset protection for doctors. But, if you participate in the meetings, you follow all of the proposals back and forth, the ultimate goal of the medical society and its insurance company is to disenfranchise people who want to file lawsuits. That’s what it’s all about. That takes you back to the fundamental question: What kind of a legal system do you want in your state? Is it a legal system for small individual people, victims, or is it a legal system for insurance companies and for those who are required to pay out from the insurance companies? Q. Is that the message the Democratic Party will use? Because some would say the Republican victory in the 5th District Illinois Supreme Court race is a victory for caps? I’m sure the Republicans will argue that the [Lloyd] Karmeier victory in the Supreme Court election is a referendum in support of caps on awards and they’ve taken the easy route. They haven’t taken the high road, but they’ve taken the easy road. My position is what I just said to you. Where there are abuses in the legal system, they ought to be eliminated and I’m ready to do it. At the same time, I’m not going disenfranchise people who need some relief and remedy under the law. Q. Do you think that Illinois municipalities or the state should look for an expansion of gambling to aid their budget situations? I would not recommend to any government that they depend upon gaming to balance their budget. If they’re interested in gaming, I would say to them, “Look upon it as an extra.” In my opinion, better that we didn’t have gaming, but it’s here. It’s in adjoining states and so we have to learn to live with it. If we had it to do all over again, I would have preferred a system where there would have been governmental ownership of all of the casinos, as happens in Canada, because then the profit goes to the government. Q. That said, how do you feel about city ownership of a casino? Do you think ownership should fall to an individual city or more to state ownership? In my view, it could be either one. The state could own it or a city, such as the city of Chicago, could own the casino. Having said that, my view on that would be that the ownership would be in the hands of the government, but the operation and the management would be done by a private company and, if possible under the law, require that it be a company that has a high standard of performance, and that probably means one of the companies coming out of Las Vegas. Q. Rockford, Waukegan, Chicago and the south suburbs have been mentioned as possible sites, if the General Assembly and the governor were to allow new casino licenses to be created. Do you see any problem in particular with any of those sites? I wouldn’t see any problem with the sites. Q. What is the impact of having both chambers of the legislature and the Executive Mansion controlled by Chicago Democrats? It was portrayed as a negative in fall legislative campaigns. Is there a noticeable impact you can point your finger to? The best impact I can point my finger to is the position I took in support of fiscal responsibility and ending balloon financing and only spending money that we have, which I don’t think would be expected for a Democrat from Chicago. But I did it. I think the state is better off for it. I think the Democratic Party is better off. Q. You’ve been a member of the legislature since 1971. Is that attitude something you’ve picked up along the way? Is there anything you can point to, an experience that changed your perspective during that time? I wouldn’t call it a change. You know I started my career as part of the organization of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was a fiscal conservative. And I clearly remember the failure of New York City in the middle ’70s because of failure to end balloon financing and failure to end policies where they would spend money that they didn’t have. I was a member of the Illinois legislature when the Chicago Board of Education failed, for the same reasons. So, just drawing upon my experience and my observation, you have to watch government very carefully because, if you don’t, it’ll spend itself into failure. Q. We continue to see a push for education funding reform. You were a delegate to the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention that decided the state has the “primary responsibility” for financing the system of public education. What does that mean to you, and are we failing to do that as a state? To me, the language speaks for itself. I supported the amendment of, I think 1990 or 1992 that would have clarified that language. It would have given the [state] Constitution stronger language where you could argue that it should be 50 percent of the aggregate to the local districts. So my view is the language of the constitution. I would have preferred that that amendment would have been adopted. And I did support the [former Gov. Jim] Edgar bill, which would have raised the income tax and reduced property taxes in terms of supporting education. Illinois does not meet its constitutional responsibility or expectation. Use whatever word you want to use, but we fall short of the mark. We should do better. An impediment to that today is the position of Gov. [Rod] Blagojevich, where he has stated repeatedly that he’s not in favor of raising the income tax or the sales tax. You may remember I made a statement down at Southern Illinois University, which was very measured, in response to a question. And he took a very measured statement, where I was simply saying that if the governor wanted to raise the income tax, I would be supportive, and made it into a position where I was the one who was the advocate of the increase. And then he used that for political purposes for about three months. So, he’s pretty well maneuvered himself in a corner, where, in all likelihood, it won’t be possible for Illinois to meet its obligation under the Constitution. Q. The end-of-session budget meetings between the governor and the four legislative leaders started under Gov. Jim Thompson. Last year was the first year when we had these memorandums of understanding, written budget agreements. Do you foresee those as something that will be commonplace in future budget negotiations? Going forward in the near future, yes. And that happened because of a broad, widespread distrust of the Blagojevich Administration, which they acknowledge, at least in private. And so, in the near term, you will see more and more of memorandums of understanding. Q. Does that include outside the scope of the budget negotiations? I think it will happen wherever members of the legislature are interacting with the governor’s office. Q. There’s been talk with regard to a gaming bill that this is the type of issue in which the governor needs to step forward. As speaker of the House, what role do you think the governor should have in either advancing or halting legislation? Well, my conceptual view of the relationship between the governor and the legislature is that the governor should be active in advocating positions on legislation. So, in gaming, he ought to stand up and tell us exactly what he wants to do. He either wants something or he doesn’t. Make a decision. Tell us what it is. And let us move forward with that or something else. He’s chosen to equivocate on the gaming issue. That’s his choice. So, it’s simply a disagreement between him and me as to how he ought be conducting himself as governor. But he was elected as governor. He can do as he wishes. Q. How would you assess the current balance between the executive and legislative branches of Illinois state government? Does one outweigh the other, and has that changed? I would think that today it’s well balanced, which means that they’re almost equal, which was the intent of the drafters of the Constitution. I’ve played a role in that, just in terms of how I conducted the last session and my longtime advocacy on keeping a watch on the governor’s use of the amendatory veto. I’m a member of the legislature and if I’m required to choose between the executive and the legislative [branches], I’m going to choose the legislature. I think that’s what I should do. I think that’s what the members of the House, who select me as the speaker, want me to do, so that’s what I’m gong to do. But, getting back to your original question, today I think it’s in good balance. In earlier years, it was out of balance, in favor of the executive. And it would be in balance in favor of the executive, except that I’ve chosen to stand in support of the legislative [branch] and to work toward that balance. Q. Barack Obama became a star of the party overnight. Who do you see as potential future stars in the state Democratic Party? That is a question [that] if I were to answer it I would make one or two people happy and many people not happy. So I’ll punt.
Go to questions and answers with: Go to questions and answers with: Go to questions and answers with: Click here to go to pdf of complete Q&A text. Illinois Issues, January 2005 For information about how to subcribe to Illinois Issues go to: Go to Illinois Issues blog at http://illinoisissuesblog.blogspot.com/
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