THREE HUNDRED grade schoolers were sitting on the floor of a Springfield gym listening to Gov. James Thompson explain his job, waiting to ask how many pets daughter Samantha has and what he thinks of President Reagan`s ”Star Wars” defense plan.
”In some ways, I think being governor of Illinois is, well, maybe even more exciting than being president,” Thompson told the wide-eyed pupils.
At 48, James Robert Thompson has not fulfilled his boyhood dream and manhood ambition of finding out how exciting it is to be president. But he speaks from extraordinary experience about what it is like to be governor of Illinois.
Chief executive of the nation`s fifth most populous state since Jan. 10, 1977, Thompson on Monday becomes the longest-serving governor in Illinois`
167-year history, surpassing the 2,947 days that Republican Gov. Charles Deneen of Chicago spent at the state`s helm from 1905 to 1913.
”That`s a long time,” Thompson said at the school assembly last month.
”Some people say it`s too long. Some people say it`s not long enough.”
Thompson has 23 months to serve in his unprecedented third term and has not decided whether to test the odds of winning another four years in the Executive Mansion, a time frame that would take his steering of the state to 1991.
”I wouldn`t call it a legacy,” Thompson said demurely when asked what the lasting effect of his administration would be. ”It`s not over yet.”
Thompson, a former law school professor and federal prosecutor, is clearly a man who enjoys the trappings of gubernatorial life. The constant escort of state troopers, the availability of state airplanes, the familiarity with people he has just met and the celebrity status accorded him are undeniably an enjoyable part of the job.
On the job, Thompson is a ”nuts and bolts” governor, a chief executive who would rather oversee state-financed brick and mortar than discuss or devise imaginative approaches to complex social problems. He personally selected the flamboyant design for the new State of Illinois Center in Chicago`s Loop, a building he has hailed as ”the first building of the year 2000” and one that he inspected frequently during construction.
Though he generally is liberal on social issues and cautiously conservative on fiscal matters, some critics say Thompson lacks an overall philosophy other than one that is politically useful.
Even so, the first eight years of the Thompson administration have been generally productive for Illinois and its 11.5 million people. His pragmatic political style has led to a relatively good relationship with the General Assembly, which has translated into some beneficial programs.
Professionally and politically, Thompson has grown in the office, reaching an enviable position as a senior governor among his comrades and friend of a Republican administration in the White House, as well as titular leader of the state`s Republican Party. He has dropped the unyielding style of a federal prosecutor and is more likely to work for negotiated compromises.
When the Chicago Board of Education was drowning in financial distress in the winter of 1980, Thompson almost literally locked board members, bond experts and key government officials in with him in the Executive Mansion until they forged a way out of the morass.
Settlements of issues key to the business climate of Illinois, involving worker`s compensation and unemployment insurance, also were hammered out in the mansion. Both business and labor have ”open doors” to the Thompson administration.
Personally, there are two sides to Thompson–Jim Thompson the enthusiastic campaigner, the antiques collector, the friend of all
Illinoisans; and Jim Thompson the governor, the negotiator, the international salesman for Illinois.
Though he still inaugurates the opening of the Illinois State Fair with a trip down the Giant Slide, gone are the days when Thompson rode a high-stepping horse around the second floor of the Capitol and wore boots, blue jeans and T-shirts to work.
Almost forgotten are the days when he told thousands of angry mine workers that their problems were not his fault and that he would go to Washington with them to fight the Jimmy Carter administration. Or the hot June day when he vowed to veto any ”anti-labor” legislation and invited thousands of union members to the mansion lawn for a beer bust.
Three-piece suits in conservative gubernatorial gray are now the norm during office hours, which more than ever are likely to be conducted in Chicago or Washington, or on international trips to encourage foreign corporations to locate plants in the Land of Lincoln.
”Jim has really matured in office,” a Thompson associate said. ”Jim Thompson likes being governor, and always has, but in those early days he and his staff were flying by the seat of their pants.”
Despite his established national position, developed through his strong personal image, his stewardship of various governors associations and his work as Reagan`s Illinois re-election chairman, he seems farther than ever from his long-held aspiration for the nation`s highest position. The young man who more than 30 years ago signed a yearbook ”Jim Thompson, Pres. of U.S., 1984-1992” has watched his timetable sidetracked through shifts in the nation`s philosophy and some errors in his own two cuts ahead of any other governor sitting in this country, intellectually, and a cut ahead of any president since Eisenhoweran and president of the City Club of Chicago.
”But we have yet to see a definable philosophy emerge from Thompson except for a totally pragmatic one.
”The general drift you gwho likes bigness. He`s certainly a big-government man, very close to organized labor, very close to big business and certainly `Big Jim the Builder.` But I`m not sure when you put all that tof a definition of who he is.”
The chief spokesman on the state`s tax climate credits Thompson with doing more to reform the state tax structure than any other Illinois governor, inclunitiated the state income tax.
Douglas Whitley, executive director of the Taxpayers Federation of Illinois, gave Thompson high marks overall for his governorship but especially in tax n administration, the state sales tax has been lifted on food, drugs and farm- and manufacturing equipment, the inheritance tax was repealed and business taxes have been revised to be more equmunity.
”He hasn`t always initiated them, but he has had a significant influence on restructuring the tax code and mostly for the good, if not almost exclusively,” Whitley said. ”Het was absolutely necessary to raise taxes.” In a recent interview in the Executive Mansion, Thompson said, ”I think the whole reform of the tax system, and yet keeping it one of the ms of burden in the country, was a large achievement, especially in a state that got whacked in recession.”
Thompson thview to detail his achievements of the last eight years, the governor pulled out a photo-copied list of accomplishments prepared by an aide.
Included were Class X mandatory sentences fost-containment measure, reorganization of the Regional Transportation Authority, creation of the Department of Human Rights, development of the ”best fish hatchery in the world,” recapturinggged trips to Washington, tougher child-abuse laws and stepped-up economic development efforts.
Thompson said he can`t remember ”one-twentieth of what I`ve done”
during his administrecord remarkable.
Thompson maintains that his initiatives generally have been accepted by the legislature, which has been controlled by Democrats except for two years when Republicans se. But Democrats were largely disorganized in the early years of Thompson`s tenure after the death of their party leader, Mayor Richard Daley, in 1976.
”The stuff I didn`t get righson said. ”I started asking for substantial transportation funding in 1975 during my first campaign. I finally got it in 1983, eight years later. We got the tax package done. It wasn`t what I it did the job. That`s fine.”
Senate President Philip Rock (D., Oak Park), who has sided with Thompson often enough to draw pointed criticism within his own party, said the governor job.”
Thompson discarded early on the confrontation style that his immediate predecessor, Gov. Dan Walker, used with the legislature. But Thompson has long been accused of avoiding lesembly, waiting until a bill is on his desk to make an imprint on the legislative process through the amendatory veto.
Tuild Illinois” program notwithstanding. He also is sometimes slow to jump on issues. He twice vetoed public busing for private school students before endorsing it last year as his key legisla the General Assembly rejected. His administration dismissed a tax-amnesty program proposed last year by Rock as almost meaningless, projecting it would add $20 million to the state treasury. than $150 million.
He always has maintained that education is one of his highest priorities, a statement borne out in terms of dollars but one that always draws criticism from educatoone enough.
Thompson also has been known to splash proposals–such as the ”Thompson Proposition” that would have held government spending to the amount of growth in Illinoisans` salar with balloons on Michigan Avenue in 1978–and then drop them when they lose their publicity and political value.
”This job is a never-ending story,” Thompson said. ”For some issues,`s back again. I thought I did that six years ago.`
”Some things come in their turn. . . . When you`re spending all your time trying to bring the state out of recession, you don`t havengs that are nice to have when you can afford them. But when your times are better, when you`ve got cost-cutting behind you and the state in good shape, let`s think more to the future.”
l have some money in the bank, with a recovering economy pumping an additional $500 million into the state treasury. His legislaois banking regulations up to date, continuing to promote economic development and rebuilding the state`s infrastructure.
Thompson also is expected to step up economic development efforts. In recent weeks he has traveled to Houston, Detroit, Japan and Western Europe to promote business and tourism in Illinois.
Previous trips to the Far East and Europe evoked stories about their costs, which included staff visits to bath houses and costly hotel rooms and limousine rentals.
”I let myself get spooked by the stories that talked about the cost, the stories they love to drop on you four months after you do the trip,” Thompson said, arguing that the visits helped the state`s image even if they didn`t produce an automobile factory in the state.
”I finally said to myself that that was baloney. If I`m not going, I`m not doing my job. And I`ve got to do my job, so I`m going.”
Thompson, ever conscious of the media, said his most recent trip to Japan last December was done ”on the cheap.”
Whether his endeavors succeed in enticing a General Motors or Mitsubishi automobile manufacturing plant to Illinois, however, Thompson has said he will introduce a multibillion-dollar public works project this week, what he calls a ”Build Illinois” program that could put Illinoisans to work–and fuel his re-election campaign.
Thompson`s recent actions lead most observers around the Capitol Rotunda to think that he will seek a fourth term next year, but Thompson said he will not make a decision until the General Assembly adjourns in July.
”I don`t want to be forced into a decision about what I`m going to do,” he said. ”There`s a lot of thought and a lot of consultation. I`ve got to take into account what`s best for my party, my state, as well as my family and what`s best for me.”
But Thompson sounds intrigued increasingly by the possibility of a corporate job–if he should decide that a decade as governor is enough–and the high-level corporate contacts that he is making on his economic-development pitches can`t hurt.
”As these guys describe their problems to me, I feel a challenge,” he said. ”I walked away from my meeting with Tenneco saying, `Hey, I think the job of putting J.I. Case and Harvester together for the next year is a challenging executive thing.` I sort of said to myself that I`d enjoy doing that. . . . I`ve been trained for executive challenges for the last 15 years.”
Other alternatives–the same had he not won his third election two years ago by a scant 5,074 votes–include corporate law or seeking a judgeship. As a former U.S. attorney for northern Illinois, Thompson noted that he has done every job within the legal field except being a judge.
”I`ll run again if I think there is sufficient challenge for the next six years or if I decide I want to stay in the political arena,” Thompson said. ”I intend to be comfortable with my decision, no regrets, no hand-wringing.”
And what about Thompson`s place in history?
”Feb. 4. That`s enough history,” he said. ”I don`t need to be part of more.”
