CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Illinois residents share the blame for a state government dogged by a legacy of corruption and paralyzed by a deep, festering budget hole, according to a co-author of a new book on state politics.
Citizens feed an entrenched Statehouse culture of shady ethics and unresolved problems by failing to demand better, said Jim Nowlan, a former state lawmaker and now a senior fellow with the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.
"I don't think you change it by simply saying 'Let's elect good people and let them fix it,' " he said. "Citizens need to change their own cultural attitudes about right and wrong in government and what they expect of their elected officials."
Grassroots change requires soul-searching by voters, who likely cross some of the same ethical boundaries as lawmakers in their own lives, said Nowlan, who co-wrote "Illinois Politics: A Citizens Guide," with IGPA colleagues Samuel Gove, former director of the university think tank, and Rick Winkel, a former state legislator.
Nowlan cites an ethics quiz he gives to students, laying out a scenario where a relative fresh out college faces a drunken-driving charge that threatens his new job. For an extra $1,000, his lawyer says he can pull strings and make the charge disappear. In every class, two-thirds of students say they would support the under-the-table move.
"The culture runs deeper than politics," he said. "Rare is the person who goes into politics planning to be corrupt. It happens because elected officials weren't thinking or saw an opportunity that looked good and wouldn't hurt anyone, but ended up being personal gain at public expense."
The new book, published by the University of Illinois Press, provides an in-depth, historical look at how government works in Illinois, providing a guide to help people understand the political process and to work through it if they seek to affect change.
"It's a tough, uphill struggle to achieve significant change in the game of Illinois politics," Nowlan said. "You have to be willing to hit your head against the door of government repeatedly in order to open it."
He says the competing interests of Chicago, its suburbs and downstate are among the obstacles to broad, fundamental change. With common ground hard to come by, lawmakers historically skirt big-picture problems in favor of protecting their own turf.
"Our government is one in which frustration over the inability to affect change ultimately causes elected officials to focus on their own objectives rather than the objectives of society as whole," Nowlan said.
A record-breaking $13 billion budget deficit and a $6 billion stack of unpaid bills are a case in point, he said, sparking lots of saber rattling and hand wringing, but no solutions.
The budget impasse also has steep political consequences because any tax increase would likely be toxic for incumbents when voters go to the polls in November, said Nowlan, a former president of the Taxpayers Federation of Illinois.
"So I think the legislature will adopt a six-month budget and kick the ball down the road to whoever is elected governor," he said. "Then next year, I think there will be tax increases because there's just no way to cut government enough to resolve the gap between spending and revenue and reduce the accumulated deficit."
Beyond closing the budget gap, the state needs to invest more in its education system through longer school days, longer academic years and other initiatives, Nowlan said.
"The future lies in the quality of our educational system, both K-12 and higher education," he said. "The challenge for Illinois voters and elected officials is whether we can look to that larger good rather than simply focusing on our individual needs."
Nowlan fears Illinois is settling to be average, a label pinned on the state by a 2007 Associated Press analysis that named Illinois the nation's most average state based on indicators such as demographics, wealth and government spending.
"We as an Illinois society seem to be comfortable in our average-ness," he said. "We aren't a state that likes to lay claim that our education system or roads are the best in the nation. I'm surprised that we don't take more pride in saying we're No. 1 in something."
Nowlan, a state representative when Illinois first enacted an income tax in 1969, gives the state even lower marks.
"I think you'd have to give the state a D-minus for its failure to address the budget problem and for lack of a longer-term vision of what we want to accomplish for its citizens," he said. "I don't think we can give the state any credit right now because of the situation we're in."