Illinois’ highest court ruled Thursday that the state’s tollway agency does not have to clear spending decisions with the General Assembly, an action that sets back efforts to halt toll collections and block new suburban toll roads.
The Illinois Supreme Court decision allows the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority to continue spending as it sees fit the $330 million it collects annually from drivers. But the ruling also prompted the tollway’s critics, as well as the two major candidates for governor, to renew calls for legislative oversight.
Joshua Silverman, campaign manager for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Glenn Poshard, said, “The representatives of the people ought to have the ability to oversee the appropriations of those public monies to see that they are being spent wisely and in the best interests of the state.”
John Torre, a spokesman for Republican candidate George Ryan, said the GOP nominee “believes the legislature and the governor should have approval over the tollway’s operating and capital budgets.”
Mike Truppa, a policy analyst with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, which has fought the tollway’s suburban expansion plans, said the agency “dodged a bullet, but they’re going to remain under fire.”
Yet it remains unclear whether any push for greater tollway oversight stands a chance of success in the politically divided General Assembly. Last year, a bill requiring the legislature to approve tollway spending passed out of the Democratic-controlled Illinois House, only to die in the Republican-dominated Senate.
Senate President James “Pate” Philip (R-Wood Dale) “may simply say we’re not going to consider any bills that have to do with appropriations at the toll road,” said Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of Chicago, who sponsored last year’s bill.
Some Republicans fear that talk of tollway oversight and reforms is little more than a veiled Democratic attack on what has been a GOP patronage haven during 21 years of Republican control of the governor’s office. The governor appoints the tollway board as well as its top officials.
Some tollway critics had hoped that political pressure brought to bear in the legislature’s annual appropriations process might force the tollway to pay off bonds and turn the tollways into freeways instead of using the money for new roads.
In particular, critics of the tollway’s expansion plans into Lake and Will Counties had hoped that pressure from lawmakers might cancel the two proposed extensions.
In its 25-page decision, the Supreme Court rejected arguments by lawyers for three tollway motorists who filed a class-action lawsuit in 1995. The lawyers said the 1970 Illinois Constitution requires that spending by all state agencies, including the tollway, be approved by the legislature.
Since it was created in 1953, the tollway has spent as it saw fit the millions it collected from motorists who use what is now a 275-mile system throughout northern Illinois.
Last year, Cook County Circuit Judge Stephen Schiller sided with lawyers for the three tollway motorists and threatened to prohibit any spending by the tollway if the legislature didn’t establish budgetary oversight. Gov. Jim Edgar warned that Schiller’s ruling threatened to shut down the tollway system, creating a transportation crisis.
But the Supreme Court blocked Schiller’s order from taking effect while the justices considered the case. Their Thursday ruling was cheered by tollway officials and Edgar.
The Republican governor, who decided not to run for re-election, opposed giving the legislature control over the tollway’s budget. He predicted Thursday that the Supreme Court’s decision “puts this issue behind us.”
Tollway Chairman Julian D’Esposito Jr. said, “If the court had ruled otherwise, it would have had a very serious impact on the state’s ability to finance all kinds of things.”
Some investment firms have said legislative oversight would reduce the ratings on bonds that the tollway sells to finance road construction. Lower ratings would reflect the uncertainty that legislative politics would introduce to the tollway’s operations, the firms said.
With lower ratings, the tollway would have to pay higher interest on its bonds to attract investors, driving up the cost of road projects.
The justices noted that the law creating the tollway exempted the agency from having to return to Springfield annually to win approval for spending toll collections. Rather, the justices said, the law classified toll collections as “always appropriated.”
But the court also noted that “if it should choose to do so, the General Assembly could amend the Toll Highway Act to require that all spending be made pursuant to annual legislative appropriation.”
“In fact,” the opinion continued, “the . . . legislature has the power to impose whatever fiscal or other restrictions on the authority’s operations it chooses, subject to constitutional limitations.”
The wording was interpreted by some Democratic legislators as an invitation to introduce a new tollway accountability bill.
“The court’s decision explicitly points to the General Assembly as the place where accountability reforms must start,” said state Rep. Jeffrey Schoenberg (D-Evanston).
State Rep. Lauren Beth Gash (D-Highland Park) said, “No longer can some politicians say, `Well, we don’t want to do anything now because we’re waiting for the decision by the Supreme Court.’ “
