Has Springfield straightened up?
NOT REALLY. THE FUNNY BUSINESS HAS JUST GOTTEN SLICKER

By Ellen Warren. Ellen Warren is a Tribune senior correspondent who believes that, had Abraham Lincoln lived, he would have moved to Chicago
Published June 22, 2003

Snooty palates might find it unseemly, but the culinary pride of Springfield, the capital of this great Land of Lincoln, is a sandwich.

And not just any sandwich but the horseshoe, or the "world-famous horseshoe" as it is billboarded on the menu at Norb Andy's, a Springfield hangout since 1937 for politicians, reporters, lobbyists and other lowlifes.

The horseshoe is an unlikely combo of toasted bread topped with meat. Heap a huge layer of French fries over that and then douse it all with melted cheddar.

The locals swear by these gut bombs, which have about 2,500 calories each--roughly a day's worth.

Earlier this year, Norb Andy's owner Barry Friedman unveiled a healthier version of the classic horseshoe to mark American Heart Month. The "prairie shoe" substituted baked for fried potatoes, a veggie burger for hamburger and low-fat cheese for the real stuff. It tallied "only" 580 calories.

The pared-down version of the classic is an ideal metaphor for the Springfield of today. It looks the same. But the fun, frivolity and delicious excess are gone.

In the old days, everybody stayed at one of three hotels, the Leland, St. Nicholas or the Abe Lincoln. If you were looking for just about anyone, you could find them there.

Springfield lore has it that the horseshoe was invented at the Leland in 1928. And the St. Nicholas was a rollicking hangout, legendary for the infamous shoeboxes, full of $800,000 in cash, uncovered in the room of Secretary of State Paul Powell after his death back in 1970.

Now, the old Leland houses the Illinois Commerce Commission and you need an ID to get inside. The Abe Lincoln is a parking lot.

From the street, the St. Nick hasn't changed much. It's still a dirt-colored, 11-story brick building in sight of the Capitol.

But the sloshed lawmakers who used to be helped across the black-and-white tiled threshold by an over-served reporter or lobbyist--or perhaps a young companion of the female persuasion? Well, that scenario has been largely consigned to nostalgia.

The St. Nicholas of 2003 is a forgettable apartment building, its heyday recognized by its place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Lodging in Springfield now is a whole different story. Many legislators have condos (equity and a tax deduction for mortgage interest).

As for other visitors to the capital--supplicants, lobbyists and such--it's nigh impossible to get a room on short notice at the two big hotels downtown, the Hilton and the Renaissance, coveted because they're in walking distance of the Capitol.

These are serviceable hostelries with unremarkable bars where regular visitors can get martinis to sip in their rooms while they power up their laptops and continue working into the night.

"It used to be we didn't mind the image of the cigar-filled backroom deals," says a wistful State Sen. Denny Jacobs, 65, a veteran East Moline Democrat whose late father, Oral "Jake" Jacobs, remembered for his lime-green suits, served in the legislature in the 1960s and 70s.

"I'm a dinosaur," says Jacobs, who often chain smokes Marlboro Light 100s and has been known to sip a beer right there on the Senate floor as a long day winds down.

Jacobs says he will retire at the end of his current term. "Maybe the new generation [of legislators] is going to better serve the public," he says. His intonation suggests he doesn't actually believe that. When the question is put to him directly, the answer is immediate: "No, I don't."

Chicagoans tell cruel jokes about Springfield. The best view of the capital? In the rearview mirror as you're leaving town. How come drivers don't use turn signals in Springfield? Because tractors don't have turn signals.

"I don't think the people in Chicago think we can speak in full sentences," says Doug Mayol, owner of a card and gift shop a few blocks from the Capitol. Mayol lives in the house his grandparents bought when his mother was born 80 years ago. He's a Springfield lifer and proud of it.

"Nobody I talk to hooks their thumbs in the bib of their overalls," he says, warming to his topic. "And, there's no cow stuff on my . . ." He lifts his left leg to show the sole of his orange-and-gray Vans skateboard shoe. Nope, not a trace.

Curiously, the rap on Springfield these days is not that it's a hayseed town.

In fact, complaints that circulate currently about the state capital are that the place is too slick. Yes, you read that right.

Take, for example, the matter of gambling boats. In Springfield, Jacobs is known as the "father of riverboat gambling," having authored the 1990 law legalizing it. He has little riverboats on his tie and a wooden model on his bookshelf--but he disputes the title. "Grandfather," he says.

Anyhow, Jacobs doubts he could get such a bill through now. Not because of bluenose antipathy toward gambling. Oh, please. But, because of the changes in the well-greased way today's Springfield operates.

Good lawmaking is flummoxed, Jacobs says, because legislators don't spend enough time in bars and other congenial settings negotiating the fine points. And because there's too much partisanship. And because of the explosion of paid lobbyists and special-interest groups.

Especially frustrating is the increasing concentration of power. In the argot of Springfield, the five most powerful people are "The Four Tops" and "The Fifth Dimension." These are the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate plus the governor.

With the election last November of the first Democratic governor in a generation and the Dems' reclaiming the majority in the Senate, it's actually more like a Chicago Holy Trinity: House Speaker Mike Madigan, Senate President Emil Jones and newly-elected Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Democrats all. (Chicago's Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley, of course, does plenty of string- pulling, though he rarely ventures to Springfield.)

To take just one recent seismic event, the slickness that some lawmakers decry was illustrated by passage in May of a law sought by SBC Communications Inc. that gave the phone giant a big edge in the Illinois phone market.

From introduction of the bill to the governor's signature, a mere four days passed. This speed came from a meticulously plotted campaign. It involved the collaboration of the Holy Trinity but also squads of the state's most powerful lobbyists, the bulging muscle of organized labor, enormous campaign contributions on both sides of the issue and SBC's shrewd foresight in hiring Mayor Daley's brother Bill as president of the company.

Rivals of the legislation were slack-jawed with admiration for the masterful job SBC did.

Among other things, the SBC story illustrates the increasing importance of lobbyists. Altogether more than 70 of the state's best amassed a Mt. Everest of billable hours on this issue alone.

SBC covered all bases with some of the state's savviest lobbyists: Former Democratic House Majority leader Jim McPike, a close friend of Speaker Madigan; Victor Reyes, a former top political enforcer for Mayor Daley; and former Republican Senate President James "Pate" Philip's ex-chief of staff, Carter Hendren.

On the opposite side, MCI and AT&T, already relieved of more than $500,000 in campaign contributions to state legislators in the last election, didn't stint on hiring from the top lobbying tier either. They were paying at least 11 former lawmakers led by former Democratic Chicago State Rep. Al Ronan.

Ronan might have been on the losing side on this one but his power is so pronounced that when he eats dinner at Augie's Front Burner, a popular high-end restaurant, count on a traffic jam at his table as lawmakers and lesser lobbyists line up to pay him homage.

And speaking of homage, no lobbyist gets more from both Democrats and Republicans than former Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson, chairman of Chicago's powerful Winston & Strawn law firm. The firm's lobbying clients this session alone ranged from the deep- pocketed cigarette-maker Philip Morris and the similarly well-heeled Illinois Venture Capital Association to Friends of Farnsworth House, the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe masterpiece in Plano, Ill., that needs an angel to buy and preserve it.

How big is Big Jim? Even Oprah once snagged him to help her sway votes on a child-protection issue in Washington.

While the list of key lobbyists is top-heavy with white guys in dark suits, women are gaining capital clout, both in and out of the legislature.

No group was more instrumental in Blagojevich's election than organized labor, with much of the credit going to state AFL-CIO President Margaret Blackshere. Proudly Irish, the redheaded Blackshere wields ever more power in the capital.

Labor president, however, is not her only title. She's also the chief of the "West Wingers." This is a little-known group of women legislators and cronies who meet Wednesday nights at the Springfield bed-and-breakfast where Blackshere stays to watch the television political drama and chow down on Thai takeout.

Veteran Chicago Democratic Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie is the first woman in either party to rise to the influential post of House majority leader, the No. 2 slot.

A longtime supporter of women's rights, consumer protection, gun control and death penalty reform, Hyde Parker Currie pushed through this session's major budget bills and is widely viewed as the most skilled debater in the legislature.

She can determine what bills are called for a vote. So, it was only fitting that in a recent Capitol Capers musical review, slinging a bright blue boa, Currie belted out a variation on the tune popularized by Queen Latifah in the movie "Chicago."

"If you're good to Barbara, Barbara will be good to you," she soloed to a tumultuous standing ovation.

Chicago Democratic Sen. Carol Ronen probably is the No. 1 Blagojevich ally in the General Assembly, having successfully managed his difficult first campaign for Congress in 1996. Ronen has piloted difficult-to-pass legislation including this session's successful women's pay equity bill that had been stalled when Republicans, under conservative GOP Senate President Philip, ran the chamber.

Democratic State Rep. Mary K. O'Brien (Watseka) is a former Downstate prosecutor. This mother of a toddler son (he's been rocked to sleep on the House floor by her legislative colleagues) used her position as chair of the Criminal Judiciary Committee, despite her personal misgivings, to further debate on death penalty reform.

The circumstances leading to passage of the sweeping overhaul of death penalty laws--earlier thought to be hopeless in this legislative session--were diametrically different from those surrounding SBC's spend-a-thon victory.

In the case of the capital-justice reforms, a committed few--among them Chicago Democratic Sens. John Cullerton and Barack Obama and House GOP leader Rep. Tom Cross (Oswego)--worked to win compromises. They chipped away at prosecutor and police objections in the kind of slow, painstaking, one-on-one effort that harkened back to the best of the good old days of lawmaking. That said, the fact remains that without the endorsement of Madigan and Jones, this--and all--legislation never would have emerged for a vote.

Meanwhile, Madigan's daughter, newly elected (and newlywed) Attorney General Lisa Madigan, is showing admirable political agility, besting former Gov. Thompson when he pushed legislation on behalf of Philip Morris. Lisa Madigan and her people (her chief of staff, lobbyist and spokesperson are women) successfully made sure that the cigarette-maker's bill never made it to a vote.

As the budget debate continued into the final hours of the spring session, many lawmakers sought the expertise of Elgin Republican Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, renowned for his mastery of budgetary complexities and his ability to put them into plain, pithy English.

And, as in legislatures across the country, unelected experts--such as House Democratic staffer John Lowder--are go-to policy people when legislators don't have the time--or will-- to absorb the intricacies of the state budget.

One more powerful woman is Judy Baar Topinka, the only Republican to win statewide office when she was re-elected treasurer last November. Topinka, a dervish of activity who seems to never miss a county fair or local parade, chairs the state GOP. She personally lobbied for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, which this spring passed the House but could not muster enough votes in the Senate.

Notoriously unpretentious (she loves to brag about fashion bargains from secondhand shops), she has friends in both parties. However, earlier this month her name was added to the growing list of state officials whose political operations are being scrutinized by the feds.

With Illinois Republicans taking a walloping last November, it is no surprise that one of the longest lines on Inauguration Day in January was outside Topinka's office in the Capitol. Armies of state employees, beholden to Republican sponsors for the past 26 years of GOP control, had no place else to pay their respects.

Four months later, on the shores of Lake Springfield, Republicans are finding their inner Democrat.

Speaker Madigan is the one-man receiving line at the front door of his annual fundraiser at the Island Bay Yacht Club. Nearby, lobbyists, state workers and those who do business with the state (or hope to) line up to pay for the $150-per-person tickets and follow the printed instructions, "Make check payable to: Friends of Michael J. Madigan."

"In this town, to a Republican . . . the Democrats never looked prettier," says lobbyist Jim Owen, a former top aide to Pate Philip, standing near the foot-high "Beer" sign at the Madigan yacht club event.

At the buffet table: crab puffs with tartar sauce and Japanese hibachi kabobs. What's that smell wafting by? It's Republican Eau de Fear.

Of course, the prevailing odor in Springfield a generation or two ago was best articulated by the previously cited Paul Powell, who was known to remark, when a lucrative deal was on the table, "I can smell the meat a-cookin'."

Springfield's changes thus run even deeper than partisan power. Over the past few decades a different culture has evolved in the capital, born of a realization among legislators that if they get caught drunk driving, blatantly running around on their spouse or with the 2003 equivalent of shoeboxes full of cash, neither media nor electorate are likely to look the other way.

Jacobs points out the generational changes with an illustration close to home. His own legislator-father divorced his wife of 48 years, Denny Jacobs' mom, to marry a woman he met in Springfield who was "my sister's age." Unlike yesteryear, says the son, "these are things that people don't take lightly."

"If you were a politician 30 years ago and you were pulled over [for drunk driving], the policeman would take your keys and that would be it. Now, they'd call a news conference," says Chicago Democratic Rep. Robert Molaro.

"How can we possibly have anything but vanilla [in the legislature]," Molaro asks. "The Damon Runyan era is over."

Perhaps. But there's still been room for some juicy government scandals.

March's bribes-for-licenses convictions, stemming from the era when George Ryan was secretary of state, offer one example. There's also the aforementioned federal probe of charges that state employees, working for both Republican and Democratic leaders, did political work on taxpayer time. With this as the backdrop, lawmakers this spring approved a new ethics law, which might actually make some headway toward cleaning up state government.

The current situation is particularly uncertain for Democrats, who have waited lo these long, dry decades for a candidate from their own party to be elected governor. A shudder went through their ranks in May when they began to feel Blagojevich was doublecrossing them.

For weeks, Blagojevich, who had campaigned last fall against expanded gambling in Illinois, had hinted he was now open to such expansion to help balance the state's books, which are hemorrhaging red ink. But then he did a seeming 180, slamming the door shut on expanded gambling. Worse, he made his announcement in Chicago, bypassing Springfield to blast legislators (like Jacobs, though he didn't name him) who favored gambling as one way out of the state's $5 billion budget abyss.

A stay-away strategy with respect to the capital plays well outside Springfield as Blagojevich successfully rails against a bloated state bureaucracy and lawmakers on a spending spree.

The governor's scarcity in Springfield has led to suggestions--only partially in jest--that the nation's largest governor's mansion (50,000 square feet), occupying a square block in Springfield, be sold or turned into a bed-and-breakfast to ease the budget deficit.

For the record, Blagojevich says he's not avoiding Springfield. He tells the Tribune Magazine: "There's a whole big state out there where the people who hired us want to know what's happening, want to be informed and want some of their concerns to be addressed.

"So, we spend a lot of our time traveling around the state talking to people."

Nevertheless, during the last 48 hours of the session, which ended early in the a.m. on June 1, Blagojevich was a very high profile presence in Springfield, even venturing onto the House floor in shirtsleeves to chat with rank-and-file lawmakers. This took some steam out of the view of the chief executive as a "mail-in" governor.

Still Blagojevich, the first Democrat elected governor since Dan Walker won in 1972, uses a D.C. reference to explain his position on Springfield: "You resist the temptation to surrender to a Beltway-type mentality that you see in Washington."

The governor's analogy is an apt one. In some ways, political Springfield has the self-importance, arrogance and venality of Washington with--is it possible?--less charm.

This has veteran pols, like Jacobs and former Rep. Sam Panayotovich, yearning for old times.

"Years ago, you would see Republicans and Democrats going to dinner and enjoying companionship and friendship and working together. That's changed," says Panayotovich, now a lobbyist. Until it closed in 1994, the tavern he had co-owned, Play It Again, Sam's, was the site where much of that liquid-fueled "working together" occurred.

That the bar occupied the first floor of a state office building that also housed the Illinois Department of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse was just more evidence of the get-along atmosphere in Springfield in the old days.

Back then, deals were cut at places like Sam's, or the Southernaire--a rambling brick restaurant at the edge of town that is now Chesapeake Seafood House, although it's 720 miles west of Chesapeake Bay--as well as the below-street-level saloon Norb Andy's, and above all, the St. Nicholas and the Leland.

After hours, in companionable settings, "we were able to work it out on a person-to-person basis. You had people you could rely on. You could take their word to the bank," says Jacobs. Despite promises from colleagues, "Now, you just don't know," he says.

"The White Sox deal (to build a new South Side ballpark to keep the Sox in Chicago) was cut at Play It Again, Sam's," says Panayotovich.

It's not that horse-trading behind closed doors doesn't still go on--the recent budget deal had some of that. But veteran pols say, sadly, it's the exception rather than the norm.

When he started in Springfield in 1986, after years as mayor of East Moline, "it was easier for someone to iron something out. Or just have a damn good time," says Jacobs.

Like that lower-fat horseshoe that looks like the real thing, a quick visit to the Capitol can give the appearance of the good old days.

Consider one recent 72-hour scenario in this seat of government:

Ginger, from the '60s sitcom "Gilligan's Island," addresses the Illinois Senate; the Illinois House approves a bill to make popcorn the state's official snack food; the annual House-Senate softball contest brings out a bunch of aging jocks for some intramural hijinks.

But, truth to tell, the intramural softball game and karaoke party afterward is one of few events that bring Democrats and Republicans together to frivol.

New York actress Tina Louise, Ginger on "Gilligan," is a rare diversion in the Senate and, later, at a reception hosted by the Cable Television and Communications Association in the elegant white marble interior of the Illinois State Library.

At that library cocktail fest, 2002 GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate Jim Durkin, a former Westchester state rep, blushes--he actually turns red--as he recalls watching Ginger when he was 8.

"It was my first attraction to a woman," he says. Mindful of today's moral climate, he quickly adds, "Other than my wife."

Play It Again, Sam's is just another office building now. And most legislators are likely to go home after the day's session, pop a batch of the state's official snack food and watch a "Gilligan's Island" rerun on cable.

"When I first came down here," says Denny Jacobs, "it was nothing to see legislators out until 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, including myself."

He says, with regret, "It's not the same."

TOP 10 LOBBYIST GIFTS

The 4,000 Springfield lobbyists spent more than $1 million last year on gifts and entertainment for legislators, disclosure forms show.

1) Snowgripper Traction Mats to various legislators from Ill. Corngrowers Assn.: $660.64

2) Cubs rooftop party hosted by AT&T Wireless: $3,750

3) Golf balls for Rep. Kurt Granberg from energy firm AmerenCIPS: $320

4) 33 meals for Rep. Granberg from connected Quincy law firm Awerkamp & McClain: $707

5) Passover Seder for 15 lawmakers by Philip Morris, Miller Brewing, Kraft Foods: $1,500-plus

6) Meals for Sen. Steven Rauschenberger from Elgin Riverboat Resort: $1,809

7) Venetian Night party for 45 lawmakers hosted by energy firm Midwest Generation: $31,000

8) Pens, pads, Lifesavers for 177 lawmakers from AARP: $423

9) Legislative award (fire ax) to State Rep. Lou Lang from Assoc. Firefighters of Ill.: $550

10) Reception for leading lawmakers by Ill. AFL-CIO: $22,450

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune