There’s nothing worse than the politicians who are in it for the money. Unless it’s the politicians who say they’re in it for the morality.
Some of them have been chasing Gov. George Ryan for the last week. Ryan made a very difficult decision. He vetoed a bill that would have banned using Medicaid funds to pay for an abortion when a woman’s health is in danger.
Ryan made the decision that a doctor, not the government, should decide the best treatment when a pregnant woman who is poor has a serious health risk.
But anti-abortion activists and politicians say Ryan broke his word, that he turned his back on them, that he can’t claim to be an opponent of abortion if he doesn’t embrace this Medicaid ban.
Well, it’s not quite that black and white. This wasn’t a case of 33 profiles of courage in the Senate, and one weak-kneed governor.
The abortion bill had a curious history. It passed the House in February, but then it rattled around the Senate for more than a month. Why? Because there were a number of Republican senators who say they oppose abortion, but who didn’t want to have to vote on this bill.
At one point, the sponsors were ready to let this bill go away quietly.
The Senate had another measure coming up that would require Catholic hospitals to provide information about “morning-after” contraceptives to rape victims. That, too, made some abortion opponents nervous. They didn’t like that bill, but they didn’t want to have to vote, in effect, against rape victims.
So an offer was made. Both bills would be kept under wraps. No floor vote would be called on either one, and they’d all get together in the fall for a nice chat on how to work something out.
But as quickly as that went on the table, it was taken back. Anti-abortion activists were demanding a vote on the Medicaid bill, and the GOP leadership gave in. The bill passed the Senate, 33-23.
That little legislative history suggests there were plenty of abortion opponents in the legislature who were every bit as ambivalent about the Medicaid bill as George Ryan was. It just fell to Ryan to make the final decision, and he made the right one. He vetoed the bill.
But the doctrine of the Republican right wing now is that George Ryan is hopelessly out of step with his own party. Wrong on guns. Wrong on abortion. Wrong on the death penalty. Wrong on taxes.
Ryan has made some questionable decisions. And the public’s anger over the license-selling scandal has absolutely sapped his support.
But there’s a reason that Republicans have controlled the governor’s office for the last 24 years. They have been successful because they have had a string of pragmatic conservatives running the show. Ryan learned some lessons from the success of Jim Thompson and Jim Edgar.
Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald learned them, too. When he ran against Carol Moseley-Braun in 1998, Democrats ran a scare campaign. They said he was a conservative extremist.
But Fitzgerald is off to a very strong start in the Senate because he keeps his head down, he studies his issues and he has a conservative voting record, but he’s not afraid to break with his party.
So in many ways Ryan has been doing what has worked for GOP leaders for several years. He’s pro-business, he’s moderate on social issues.
Still, he’s in the doghouse with the right wing. That was never a fatal problem for Thompson or Edgar, because they were very popular with the state’s moderate voters.
But Ryan isn’t. The license scandal weighs him down. And his decision on the Medicaid bill only makes it more likely that if he runs for re-election, he will face a serious primary challenge from the right. All the more reason for Ryan to break with traditional political thinking and declare right now that he won’t run for governor in 2002. And, then, for two years, he can govern without having to worry about political consequences.
There’s a lot of speculation about political motivations for why Ryan did what he did on the Medicaid bill. It’s hard, though, to figure a real political advantage to that decision. He angered people in his own party and he pleased people who would never vote for him. So give him the benefit of the doubt: he just did what he thought was right.
But he won’t get credit for that, or for much else, as long as all his moves as governor are viewed as some bid to save his political career.
So he should declare that his political career isn’t an issue, because in 2002 he will walk out the door. That would change the whole game.
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E-mail: bdold@tribune.com
