From The Southern Illinoisan

Doubts About Blagojevich's Leadership Surfacing

MIKE LAWRENCE
Sat, Aug 09, 2003

Gov. Rod Blagojevich is developing a nasty habit of being right in the wrong way.

The governor astutely asserts cost-of- living pay increases for judges and state officials are untimely during an epic budget crisis. He makes sense when he claims other elected statewide officials should help slash government spending. He correctly contends the General Assembly should have sent him a stronger ethics package. He deserves credit for detouring the drive to dramatically expand legalized gambling.

But he resisted the salary boosts with a power play that summons constitutional concerns about gubernatorial excess. He sought additional funding cuts with an arrogant ambush on his fellow statewide officers that conveyed a fundamental disrespect for those chosen to reign with him. He imperiled the progressive provisions of the ethics measure by abusing his amendatory veto authority and casting the legislation's fate to lawmakers less than enthused about approving it in the first place. He waited until well into the legislative session to blast lawmakers as soldiers for sin after sending signals that he would embrace their gaming agenda to swell the state's revenues.

Blagojevich did not confront lawmakers about the cost-of-living hikes while they were in Springfield. He did not seek to change the decades-old law that provides them automatically. Instead, he stymied the enhancements with an appropriations reduction that flouts the law and gives the back of his hand to other branches of government.

The governor lulled statewide officials into thinking they would be spared substantial budget cuts. Then he demanded them well after the legislature had adjourned and just days before the new fiscal year. Blagojevich worked closely with reform groups on ethics legislation. Then he cavalierly dismissed their pleas for him to sign the package, lock in the gains they had achieved and work for additional advances in the fall or next spring.

Not surprisingly, the governor is scoring well in the opinion polls. Illinoisans understand he inherited a mess. They appreciate his rejection of income and sales tax increases -- particularly given his campaign pledge not to hike or broaden them. Relatively few are discovering -- and only now -- that his mix of cuts and revenue enhancements do reach the little guy despite his rhetoric to the contrary. Even fewer care that the lynchpin of his budget strategy has been a risky scheme to borrow billions and hope for a near miracle on the economic front.

As Blagojevich and his handlers know, the howls of judges and other public officials over thwarted pay raises and spending cuts have only reinforced the image they want to burnish -- that of an outsider bent on reform. His use of lawmakers as foils when touting tougher ethics laws and condemning gaming growth has proven effective. However, the governor should take no great comfort in all of this.

Among those disheartened by the style and substance of his stewardship are battle-scarred warriors for reform. Many who want him to succeed governmentally and politically fear he is more interested in poll numbers than budget numbers, more engaged in manipulating than managing, more inclined to co-opt than to co-govern -- all of which makes him ultimately more vulnerable.

Disenchantment with a governor tends to spread regardless of where it originates. In George Ryan's case, disillusionment took root in households before it took hold in the Statehouse. Even when the most egregious aspects of Ryan's scandalous rule as secretary of state were unknown, the people sensed they could not trust him. In Blagojevich's case, doubts about his credibility and sincerity are beginning in the Statehouse, but they won't stop there unless he changes his ways.

MIKE LAWRENCE is associate director of the Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.