Black lawmakers lost a bitter contest Tuesday when the Senate gave final approval to a home equity insurance program for Chicago homeowners, but they were able to take solace in the fact that a plan for the nonpartisan election of the city`s mayor was declared dead for the session.
House Speaker Michael Madigan (D., Chicago), who supported the home equity program, also said that the nonpartisan election bill, which had been supported by many of the same lawmakers as the equity bill, would not be given further consideration as the General Assembly headed toward its scheduled Thursday adjournment.
The controversial home insurance program, intended to protect property values in the city`s racially changing neighborhoods, was given final legislative approval on a 42-13 roll call in the Senate and sent to Gov. James Thompson.
The governor, who has often said he would sign the measure, repeated that pledge outside his Capitol office to members of the Save Our Neighborhoods/
Save Our City coalition.
”It is in my view a good-faith, sincere desire on the part of people to preserve the value of their homes and their neighborhoods,” Thompson told reporters. ”To do this, they`ve asked for nothing from government; they`ve simply been asking, and will receive under this bill, the right to tax themselves.” . . . And if it works, not a penny will ever be used and neighborhoods will be strengthened.”
Under the legislation, residents in individual neighborhoods could create special home-equity districts by referendum and agree to levy a maximum tax of 12 cents per $100 of assessed valuation on themselves. The tax would amount to about $17 a home in the special districts.
Modeled after an 8-year-old Oak Park ordinance, the program would guarantee that property values for homeowners who opt to participate would not fall below the fair-market values established at the time they signed up. If property values did fall, the funds generated by the tax would be used to pay the difference between the sale price and the initial market value.
Senate President Philip Rock (D., Oak Park) said the proposal is aimed at eliminating unscrupulous real estate agents and panic peddlers who attempt to fleece homeowners in border neighborhoods.
But blacks charged the proposal was racially motivated because it indicated, if only subtly, that property values would automatically decline when blacks or other minorities moved into a neighborhood.
”I have not charged racism,” said Sen. Earlean Collins, a black Democrat from Chicago. ”Things are the way our constituents perceive them to be, real or imaginary, and no one can say that this issue is not looked upon in the city of Chicago among masses of people as being purely racist.”
Collins said the home-equity bill and the proposal for nonpartisan elections in Chicago are two examples of a number of racist bills that have been pushed in the General Assembly since the death of Mayor Harold Washington.
Blacks opposed the nonpartisan bill because they feared it could enhance the opportunities of white voters to unseat a black mayor.
But Madigan on Tuesday said the nonpartisan election bill was dead, although he offered no reasons for personally killing the bill other than to say he remained undecided about its merits. It had been opposed, however, by George Dunne, president of the Cook County Board, county Democratic chairman and one of Madigan`s closest political allies.
”I just felt that that particular bill ought not to advance right now,” Madigan said. ”I could never come to a solid conclusion whether it was good or bad.”
The proposed legislation, which had easily cleared the Senate six weeks ago, would have eliminated partisan labels in the mayoral race and established a runoff election if a single candidate failed to win a majority in preliminary balloting.
The home equity insurance proposal was sponsored by Senators Thaddeus Lechowicz, a Democrat, and Walter Dudycz, a Republican, who both represent Northwest Side districts. Madigan was a cosponsor of the legislation in the House, where it was narrowly approved last week on a 61-49 roll call.
The sponsors of the state home equity legislation had promised they would not give final consideration to the plan if the city adopted its own program. But Mayor Eugene Sawyer vetoed a similar ordinance that was passed by the City Council on a 26-24 vote, a margin seen as too close for aldermen to override the mayor`s veto.
Sawyer, trying to pacify the vocal supporters from the Northwest and Southwest Sides, offered to create a task force to monitor housing laws and
”give psychological insurance” to persons threatened by panic peddlers.
