No longer a political patsy, suburbia is challenging Chicago and Downstate`s power in Springfield
In a corner of a seventh-floor room inside the antiseptically appointed office building standing across the street from the Illinois State Capitol, a lone computer terminal sits surrounded by the products of its uncounted hours of labor.
After being loaded with the necessary data, it recently spewed out reams of strategic output: areas of attack, areas of strength, areas of surprise and areas of vulnerability, all laid out in 177 maps that are now hung with strips of masking tape on the room`s walls and doors.
This is the Republican War Room. And the maps and the decisions made here could lead to political battles that could ignite fires of regionalism across the state. To the suburban areas around Chicago in particular, the maps could become a rousing call to arms after years of their relative impotence in their relationship with Chicago and the rest of the state.
In simplest terms, the maps represent the boundaries of the state`s 59 Senate and 118 House districts as redrawn to reflect Illinois` 1990 population-and to favor the demographic and voting characteristics of Republicans, who won the remapping right in a random drawing when a bipartisan commission deadlocked.
The maps are significant not only because they will affect the fate of current legislators and future candidates but because, with the coming November elections, they may set the stage for a new era in Illinois politics. To the Chicago suburbs in particular, long a third-party player in the dynamics of the General Assembly and often leapfrogged by the combined forces of Chicago`s Democratic delegation and Downstate legislators, the maps provide the opportunity to set the legislative agenda in Springfield rather than merely react to city- and Downstate-driven initiatives.
Such a shift in roles could result in a shift in the flow of state resources, redirecting dollars from Chicago to the suburbs in issues ranging from school funding and property taxation to transportation. It could lead the state, now in the throes of adjusting to tighter budgets, to consider new priorities in allocating its monies in such areas as aid to the poor.
Indeed, if the Republicans can convert their maps into legislative victories in November, their bending and juggling of the state`s voting districts to insert areas with GOP voters into traditionally Democratic enclaves will do more than just erase more than a decade of subjugation under the Democratic Party. It also will provide a long-awaited impetus for the political empowerment of the suburbs.
But at what price?
”I look at suburbanites as a (special) class of people,” State Senate Republican leader James ”Pate” Philip once said. ”We`re hard-working. We pay our bills. We`re not on welfare. We don`t take public aid. We`re the powerhouse of this state.”
Philip, a Wood Dale resident and Du Page Republican chairman, and House GOP leader Lee A. Daniels of Elmhurst are the leaders in this potential political realignment-an unaccustomed position for two men who share the dubious distinction of being the minority leaders of their respective legislative chambers.
Philip, 61, is a hulking former Marine who recently retired as a district sales manager for Pepperidge Farms Inc., a job that earned him the nickname of ”Du Page Doughboy.” A 25-year legislative veteran and the longest-serving GOP county chairman in the state, Philip represents the interests of the suburbs that first began to grow in the post-World War II era as landing strips for white flight from Chicago.
Daniels, 49, an attorney and former assistant state prosecutor, is a protege of Philip and a 15-year legislator. A product of Philip`s Du Page organization, he represents the younger suburbs and holds a more pragmatic view of the suburban-city-state relationship than his mentor. Still, Daniels has been forced into a decade of pro-suburban parochialism by the Democrats`
overwhelming majority in the House.
The political fortunes of both men and their suburban constituents received a significant boost with the election in 1990 of the first governor from Downstate in decades, Jim Edgar. Edgar`s efforts to win support from the heavily Republican suburban areas of Cook and the collar counties represented the first blow struck for the suburban agenda in the `90s.
In running for governor, Edgar knew that as a native of Charleston and the secretary of state, he had to actively involve himself in suburban issues to offset the notion that he was primarily just a dispenser of license plates and drivers` licenses. He had to show empathy for suburban problems to prevent any appearance of Downstate naivete, and he displayed a soft, caring paternalistic image to demonstrate that he intended to protect and push their interests.
Edgar`s victory over Democrat Neil Hartigan was the only way to ensure that the Democratic-controlled legislature would not approve, and a chief executive not sign, a Democratic-drawn map for the 1990s that would keep Republicans and the suburbs in their subservient minority posture for the next decade.
Edgar`s victory, his anti-tax posture, his staunch partisanship and the legislative chess game he helped orchestrate to send the General Assembly into a record 19 days of overtime in his first year as governor in 1991 combined to raise the suburban agenda to one of its highest levels ever.
By refusing to back down on his desire for a suburban property-tax cap or to cut traditionally Democratic social-spending concerns, Edgar eclipsed any pro-suburban efforts by his GOP predecessor, Chicagoan James Thompson, during Thompson`s record 14 years as governor.
And Philip`s success this spring in derailing, at least for now, plans by Edgar and Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to construct a new $10.8 billion airport at Lake Calumet was a sign that a power shift has already begun.
But the current and potential opportunities for suburban empowerment at the expense of Chicago and the state`s rural communities are only a recent aftereffect of the population migration to the suburbs that has been taking place in the past 40 years.
”We may be seeing the awakening of a sleeping giant,” says Rep. E.J.
”Zeke” Giorgi, a Democrat from Rockford in his 27th year in the General Assembly.
In 1945 H.L. Mencken decried the use of the suffix -ite, especially in the word ”suburbanite,” as a ”hideous” way to indicate where people live. Since then, however, and despite Mencken`s diatribe, the use of the term has grown along with the number of those in Illinois and the rest of America who consider themselves suburbanites.
Nationally, the central city is home to 31 percent of the population, roughly the same percentage as in the 1930s. The suburbs, on the other hand, are now home to 46 percent of the country, up from 14 percent in 1930, according to the Washington-based Population Research Bureau.
Shortly before World War II, Illinois had a population of 8 million, of which 43 percent lived in Chicago, 42 percent Downstate and 15 percent in suburban Cook and the other five collar counties. Half a century later, the 1990 census showed that while Illinois` population had grown to 11.4 million, only 25 percent now resided in Chicago, while 36 percent lived Downstate and 39 percent in the Chicago suburbs.
Yet, the axiom notwithstanding that there is strength in numbers, the infusion of people into suburbia has not translated into increased political power for suburbanites.
In their rush to flee from the crime and congestion of the cities to the countrified and now shopping-malled atmosphere of the suburbs, the new suburbanites left one item behind: the political power, in terms of jobs and dollars, established in the city through an elaborate patronage system that has continued to thrive despite the heralded decline of bossism and machinism. ”The cities in every area of the country have tried not to give up power without a struggle, particularly Chicago, which has had so much political power for so long and the knowledge of how to play politics,” says Bill O`Hare, a population and policy trends researcher based at the University of Louisville. ”It doesn`t come easy, but sooner or later, the demographics kind of overwhelms the politics. If that`s where the people are, you have to put the (legislative) seats out there.”
Historically, political representation in the General Assembly has been based on a simple formula: Decide what Chicago will get and split the remainder between the suburbs and Downstate. As late as 1954, the state constitution guaranteed that a third of the Senate and almost 40 percent of the House represent the city-a mandate that ended officially in 1960 but in practice continued in subsequent years as a blueprint for political representation.
As the population shifted from city to suburbs, city Democrats-as when their party won the right to redraw the state`s voting boundaries in 1981-resorted to stretching Chicago districts into suburban areas to ensure that just enough Democratic voters resided within those areas to defeat Republican challengers.
Although the city, by the population figures of the 1980 census, was entitled to only a quarter of the seats in the General Assembly, the 1981 Democratic map exaggerated Chicago`s representation to roughly 30 percent of the General Assembly at the expense of the Republican-oriented suburbs.
The game of politics is not just one of raw numbers or percentages but how these figures are used. For the past decade, the keeper of the formula has been Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago, architect of the 1981 state remap. A product of the Southwest Side`s 13th Ward, Madigan has carried on the city`s historic political dominance. Combining forces with Downstate Democrats and a willing chief executive in Thompson, he has worked to keep Chicago`s and his own interests preeminent on the legislative agenda while forcing suburban lawmakers to settle often for little more than leftovers.
As a result, Chicago-Downstate tradeoffs have been the traditional final rite of the legislature during its annual spring sessions.
When rural Southern Illinois lawmakers last year sought guarantees that Illinois` high-sulfur coal would be used by the state`s utilities despite federal clean-air restrictions, Chicago lawmakers supported it as long as Downstaters would vote to expand McCormick Place. When a state gasoline tax hike was proposed in 1989, both the Downstaters and the Chicagoans supported it because it meant funds for new road construction in Downstate areas and new funding for the Chicago Transit Authority.
Even more significant than the tradeoffs in public funds that have made the Chicago-Downstate connection so convenient are the trade-offs involving political funds. Under Madigan`s direction, the House Democratic campaign organization has raised millions of dollars, generating nearly $2.5 million in 1990 alone. As a result, he has been able to wield a clout of campaign dollars powerful enough to influence the minds and votes of even the most independent Democratic legislators, especially those facing difficult re-election contests and in need of crucial campaign funds.
Although the suburbs always have had a lengthy agenda, their progress has been checked by the Democrats` and, more specifically, Madigan`s control of the legislature. The Senate has been in Democratic hands since 1975, albeit by only a slim 31-28 majority during the last six years under pragmatic Democratic President Philip Rock of Oak Park. The House shifted from Republican to Democrat control in 1982 as a result of Madigan`s map. Under that same map, the speaker`s political base has grown to a commanding 72-46 veto-proof majority over the GOP.
With the Republicans` new 1992 map, the November elections could put the GOP in control of the Senate and at the very least significantly narrow Madigan`s majority in the House. But just the Senate`s passing into GOP control would provide the impetus for further advancing the suburban agenda.
”There are many things we need in these areas,” Daniels says. ”We won`t be held up by certain legislators from Chicago who think the suburbs ought to pay a dear price for everything they get.”
To the children who lived in the Lombard Lagoon area in Du Page County in the mid-`60s, the five-block walk from their families` 1950s formula-constructed homes along Vista Avenue to Schafer Elementary School was often one of exploration, not tedious routine. It was a hike through stretches of undeveloped prairie along pathways running through thick growths of weeds and underbrush and leading to what was then a lone outpost of institutional brick and concrete.
Today Schafer school is on a cul de sac surrounded by the ranch and two-story homes with trimmed lawns of a well-kept subdivision. This
transformation of the area around Schafer school is but one of the many signs of the population growth in Du Page County, a process being duplicated in other suburban areas, from Woodstock in McHenry County to Frankfort in Will County.
Along with the increased population have come increased demands: for bigger and better schools, more and better roads, bigger and more modern police and fire departments and, to administer it all, expanded local governments. All this, of course, carries a price tag, and the burden of paying for it has fallen largely on the suburban property-tax payer.
”Everything I want to do to keep up (with the population growth) costs money. The improvements that have been made out here are good, but the improvements come from property taxes,” says Robert Depke, Lake County Board chairman and Warren Township supervisor. ”Everybody`s moving out here to the suburban counties,” he adds. ”We would just like to get our fair share back from the state.”
To suburbanites seeking relief from ever-higher property taxes, ”fair share” is the rallying cry over the issue of who gets what from Springfield, and the clamor for ”fairness” is the loudest when it comes to the funding of public schools.
More than $3 billion for public grade and high schools is currently doled out by the state each year through a complicated general state aid formula. Chicago public schools get slightly less than one-third of the money, an amount reflecting not only enrollment but also the large numbers of students from poorer families that the system serves.
The distribution of state dollars for education also takes into account how much money school districts receive from local taxes. Because the more money a school district gets from local taxes the less it gets from the state, the distribution formula works against many suburban schools with their large and growing property-tax bases. Some districts in the collar counties receive less than 10 percent of their budget from the state.
