May 11, 2005
LONGTIME GADFLY QUINN "NEUTERED" AS LT. GOVERNOR
ANALYSIS & OPINION BY RUSS STEWART
In Springfield, among political friends and foes alike, there is a near-universal consensus that Rod Blagojevich has performed one estimable, difficult and long-overdue public service during his brief tenure as governor: he's put a cork in Pat Quinn.
Long a gadfly on Illinois' political scene, Quinn, age 56, is now the state's lieutenant governor, and he aspires to succeed Blagojevich in 2010. But that opportunity will arise only if Blagojevich is re-elected in 2006, since the party candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run as a team, receiving a single vote. And it will arise only if Blagojevich doesn't try to dump him, as the governor has more than enough campaign cash to fund a challenger to Quinn in the 2006 Democratic primary. Quinn won the 2002 primary, against desultory opposition, with only 42.1 percent of the vote; in 1998, against formidable opposition, he lost.
As a longtime battler against the political establishment, Quinn surely finds it frustrating that his future is inextricably tied to Blagojevich's. If the governor loses the 2006 election, so does Quinn.
Hence, the old Quinn, an inveterate organizer and vociferous critic of political corruption, favoritism and governmental ineptitude, has evolved into the new Quinn, a cautious, temperate cog in state government. After decades of infuriating politicians and exercising abysmal political judgment, particularly an ill-advised campaign for secretary of state in 1994 against George Ryan, when he could have been re-elected as state treasurer and then run for governor in 1998, Quinn has changed.
"Had we only known," joked one state legislator. "We've been trying to stifle Pat Quinn for 30 years, and all it took was making him the lieutenant governor."
Quinn, who broke into politics in 1972 as a field organizer for former Democratic governor Dan Walker and then became one of Walker's top aides, is a portrait of political persistence. Since 1982 he has made seven bids for public office, winning three times. He was elected as a Cook County Board of Tax Appeals commissioner in 1982, as state treasurer in 1990 and as lieutenant governor in 2002. He lost Democratic primaries for state treasurer in 1986, for U.S. senator in 1996 and for lieutenant governor in 1998, and he lost the1994 election for secretary of state.
The key to Quinn's longevity has been his garrulous visibility. He could always be counted upon to issue bombastic press releases or hold incendiary press conferences, blasting the unethical behavior, hypocrisy or ineptitude of some government official or bureaucracy, from Cook County to state government. For years he was viewed by his legion of critics as an opportunist who would do or say anything to get a headline or to get elected to some office.
But now, as Blagojevich's number two, mum is the word. Quinn realizes that what he says could get him removed from his present office. Hence, despite charges of ethical lapses and politics-as-usual fund-raising of the Blagojevich Administration, which promised to be the "new way," Quinn, the erstwhile professional "reformer," has kept his trap shut. "If the governor was a Republican, he would be mouthing off every week," said one state legislator.
Quinn takes issue with that assessment. "Nobody's perfect," he said of the governor. "He's made mistakes. But he has demonstrated a commitment to the citizens."
The Blagojevich Administration has been criticized for an appearance of impropriety on numerous occasions. Two members of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board were appointed after they donated $25,000 each to his campaign. A total of $365 million in state contracts went to firms that donated $925,000 to his campaign. The chairman of the Illinois Capital Development Board donated $5,000, and his law firm donated $30,000, before his appointment. A $2.4 million contract went to an ad agency that donated $37,000. And, after Maximus Inc., a Virginia-based company, donated $105,800 and got $30 million in contracts, the company got a waiver so that it could bid on a $400 million contract proposal that it was paid to develop.
Quinn has uttered no word of criticism.
In the past, Quinn has vociferously criticized the alleged "anti-consumer bias" of the Illinois Commerce Commission, which regulates utilities and approves rates. Back in 2003, allegations were made that SBC, whose president then was Bill Daley, the brother of Mayor Rich Daley, was trying to "pack" the ICC with "pro-business" members. Blagojevich appointed two new commissioners, who have since been supportive of SBC and business interests. Quinn said nothing. "I do not go out of my way to criticize people," he said.
Quinn, however, does point to his record of advocacy as number two. Among his efforts, he has proposed that $3 be cut off the cost of any item sold with an erroneous scanner price, that banks be prevented from "double dipping" on ATM fees, by charging both a point-of-service fee and their own bank fee, and that the sale of prepaid phone cards be regulated, requiring certification of card providers and disclosure of charges, and that a state tax donation writeoff be created to have public agencies pay for defibrillators. He also has suggested that the Archdiocese of Chicago urge Resurrection Health Care to stop "overcharging the indigent and uninsured," saying that insurers can get volume discounts for their insured patients but that the "uninsured have no leverage."
In the past, Quinn organized state referendums on the Legislative Cutback Amendment, which reduced the size of the Illinois House, and to create the Citizens Utility Board, which monitors utilities. He also got the Bernardin Amendment, a nonbinding referendum which recommended government- subsidized (meaning free) health for all, on the ballot, and it passed in 1998.
Quinn also tried to put the Taxpayer Action Amendment, which would amend the state constitution to abolish the flat-rate income tax, on the November 2004 ballot as a binding referendum. He said that 81,343 Illinois families earn more than $250,000 annually, and he wanted to tax every dollar earned over that amount at 6 percent, which he claimed would generate $1.15 billion in revenue. Quinn wanted to allocate half of that amount to education and half to property tax relief, which would slice taxes by $208 per year for 2.7 million property owners. The General Assembly failed to pass a bill to put the amendment on the ballot. Quinn, however, does not support House Bill 750, a pending bill which would do the same thing and which is opposed by the governor.
"We need to reform school finance, and the amendment would have done it," Quinn said. "We must reduce reliance on property taxes."
Quinn said that he "likes his job" and that he expects to run for re-election in 2006. As for the future, he is mum. If the Blagojevich-Quinn ticket prevails in 2006, Quinn would be a credible contender for governor in 2010, along with state Attorney General Lisa Madigan and state Comptroller Dan Hynes. Should Blagojevich get himself on the Democratic national ticket in 2008 and get elected president or vice president, Quinn would become governor.
But Quinn has two severe political problems:
First, his office and his issues are not conducive to raising money. The lieutenant governor's office has a budget of $2.3 million and doesn't regulate anything, and there's little Quinn can do to help anybody get state contracts. So why contribute to him? He raised just under $500,000 in his 2002 campaign, and he has less than $10,000 in his campaign account.
Second, he has no institutional political support. To be sure, activists around Illinois -- consumerist, liberal, environmental -- love the guy. Quinn was an early backer of Howard Dean for president in 2004. But while activists vote, they don't deliver bundles of votes.
Quinn lost the 1998 lieutenant governor primary by just 1,468 votes to Downstater Mary Lou Kearns. He carried Cook County by more than 40,000 votes, but he lost 76 of the remaining 101 counties. He ran well in predominantly black city wards, and carried Chicago by 29,024 votes, and he won the suburbs by 11,620 votes.
In 2002, against two foes -- unknown Chicagoan Joyce Washington and Downstater Mike Kelleher -- the well known Quinn managed to lose Cook County by 849 votes to Washington, who is black and who topped Quinn in Chicago by 34,394 votes. Quinn had 471,038 votes statewide, to Washington's 362,902 (32.6 percent) and Kelleher's 284,549 (25.4 percent). Quinn ran strong in the Collar Counties and even with Kelleher Downstate. Nevertheless, his win was hardly a mandate.
The bottom line: Democratic county chairmen and ward and township committeemen are getting no patronage from Blagojevich, and they would get even less from Quinn. Quinn would be a huge underdog against either Madigan or Hynes. He'd have to build a Downstate base and raise big bucks.
So Quinn's road to Illinois' governorship runs through the White House. He needs Blagojevich to get there. If not, he will be just another in a long line of number twos who never made it to number one.