Monday, January 30, 2012
 
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Quinn faces hurdles as session looms

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[January 30, 2012]  SPRINGFIELD (AP) -- It's tough being governor of a state weighed down by massive debt, overdue bills and rising expenses. It's even tougher when lawmakers seem happy to ignore your ideas when it suits their mood.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn introduced a budget last year and saw it put on a shelf by legislators, who drafted their own plan with much lower spending. His vetoes were overturned on issues as important as the state's power grid and as minor as roadkill. Ideas like consolidating small schools and restructuring state debt to pay overdue bills were brushed aside.

As Quinn prepares for his State of the State address this week, he faces twin challenges. He must come up with ideas to ease some of the country's worst financial problems and a strategy to enact them at a time when the budget crisis demands extraordinary action before the problems grow too big to solve.

The lawmakers giving Quinn a hard time aren't just from the opposing party. The Illinois Legislature is controlled by his fellow Democrats. Its top leaders are from Chicago as he is.

Yet Senate President John Cullerton has been known to tell audiences that if Republicans had nominated a different candidate in 2010, Quinn would not be governor now. And House Speaker Michael Madigan last week damned Quinn with the faint praise of calling him "very well-intentioned" and noting that he was once a political gadfly of little influence.

The upcoming legislative session is likely to be particularly challenging.

Quinn has said he will make it a priority to solve Illinois' $85 billion unfunded state pension plan. In his address Wednesday and then his budget, he may propose reducing Medicaid, forcing schools to pay more for teacher retirements, cutting state jobs and trimming spending in other areas.

But lawmakers will be skittish about doing anything controversial in an election year. In particular, any effort to solve the pension problem could pit Quinn's fellow Democrats against union allies whose votes and campaign help they will need.

Quinn says he has the skills to lead legislators through difficult decisions. He points to passage in 2011 of bills restricting teacher strikes, cutting workers' compensation costs, establishing civil unions and more.

"I thought we did pretty well last year," Quinn said.

Certainly, Quinn has worked effectively with the Legislature's Democratic majority when they share the same general goals. His relationship with lawmakers doesn't begin to resemble the poisonous atmosphere under his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich. But when they want to go different directions, Quinn is sometimes left behind.

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Legislators complain that he can be inconsistent, throwing out proposals and making threats, but then backing away. Negotiating with him is frustrating because he isn't clear about his demands, said Rep. Lou Lang, who met several times with Quinn last year to discuss gambling expansion.

"I'm still a supporter of Pat Quinn, but I think there's a lot of unrest in the General Assembly," Lang, D-Skokie, said last fall. "If he wants to accomplish great goals, he needs to be engaging with the members of the General Assembly. Sit down, talk to us: 'What do you want? Here's what I want. Here's a controversial bill -- do this and I'll sign it.'"

Quinn, 63, made his name as a crusader. He successfully led a push to cut the number of Illinois House members by one-third and helped create a consumer-protection board. He ended a practice of letting lawmakers collect their entire salaries on the first day of work.

Later, he began working his way into the government he had so often criticized. He served one term as state treasurer and then was elected lieutenant governor, serving under Blagojevich.

When Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges and tossed out of office, Quinn suddenly found himself running a state shaken by scandal and nearly paralyzed by a budget crisis.

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During his first year, Quinn asked for a tax increase but didn't get it. He chose a 29-year-old with no police experience to run the state police and, months later, wound up withdrawing the nomination. He zigged and zagged on how to strengthen state ethics laws and ultimately signed a measure that many reform groups found wanting.

When it came time to run for a full term, Quinn narrowly won the Democratic nomination and then eked out a victory in the fall over an extremely conservative Republican.

Since then, Quinn and legislators have tackled some major issues. They raised income taxes, legalized civil unions and abolished the death penalty. They cut retirement benefits for future state employees and put new restrictions on teacher strikes. They reduced the cost of workers' compensation and unemployment insurance for Illinois businesses and passed tax relief for some specific companies, businesses in general and poor families.

"We achieved a lot, working with the Legislature," said Quinn spokeswoman Brooke Anderson. "Illinois is back on course."

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She said nearly 2,200 measures have become law under Quinn, and he has used his veto pen only 110 times, for a rate of 5 percent. The rates under the three previous governors were 10 percent, 9 percent and 16 percent. Anderson said that shows Quinn is working better with lawmakers than his predecessors did.

When Quinn does use his veto powers, the results are decidedly mixed. He blocked or amended 30 bills last year, according to legislative records, but lawmakers wound up rejecting his position on 17 of those. In other words, Quinn's position carried the day less than half the time.

Quinn tried to strengthen his hand on one of those measures by returning to his activist roots. He repeatedly called on the public to support his veto of legislation allowing utilities to raise rates to pay for modernizing the state's power grid, and he created a website where people could register their outrage. Lawmakers still overrode his veto.

There are some signs that Quinn is changing his approach.

Rep. Frank Mautino, a Democrat who plays a key role in budget negotiations, said Quinn's staff has already begun sharing information on possible Medicaid cuts in an effort to build support. And several legislators praised Quinn for hiring a respected former House member, Gary Hannig, to represent him on some big issues.

Quinn's relationship with the General Assembly is nothing like the toxic atmosphere that developed around Blagojevich. Instead, legislators describe him as a nice guy who too often wavers and changes course.

"People like Pat Quinn," said Rep. Roger Eddy, R-Hutsonville. "It just gets to be frustrating trying to figure out where he's going to land."

[Associated Press; By CHRISTOPHER WILLS]

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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