Divided government.
That’s what voters wanted, Illinois Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner told us in his victory speech.
We’ll get it and then some in Illinois and we have it now nationally with President Obama in the White House and Republicans running everything soon in Congress.
Here in Illinois it will be back to the old days of a Republican governor and Democrat-dominated Legislature like we had for so many years with former governors Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar and George Ryan at the helm and Madigan and, often, various Democrats running the Illinois Senate.
Except this time, the preceding months before the vote for divided government featured the Republican bashing his opponent and the two top Democrats who hold super majority power to override any Rauner vetoes.
So, we’ll get divided government all right. We’ll probably get divisive government.
It’s actually tough to be sure what voters, individually, were saying with the collective results in Illinois. Were they even reading carefully when they got to those ballot questions toward the end? Rauner won by a strong, five-percentage point margin, but the Democrat-championed causes of increasing the minimum wage and adding a tax surcharge on millionaires passed by landslides.
Wonder what Rauner, Madigan and Cullerton do with all that?
Cullerton already signaled in comments to Crain’s columnist Greg Hinz that the Senate won’t be helping the new governor out with new revenue from an income tax increase any time soon.
Did newly re-elected U.S. Rep.-elect Bob Dold, of the North Shore 10th Congressional District, have it right when he said on WBEZ’s Chicago Public Radio after the election that what voters “absolutely” want is for an end to the stalemates and bickering and do-nothing-ness that have dominated politics here and nationally for the past several years?
Illinoisans have seen prices rise since the Great Recession for food, gas, textbooks and other items, Dold noted, but their wages have stalled and suffered as earning power shrank.
Rauner seemed to recognize that, as he recognized that he now has to somehow figure out a way to work with two powerful Democrats he portrayed as Enemies 1 and 2 for the past several months.
“This is a victory for our taxpayers who need to have a lower tax burden,” Rauner said in celebrating his win. “This is a victory for our workers who deserve to have a booming economy. This is a victory for our students, our children, who deserve the best schools in America.
“The voters have asked for divided government for the first time in many years,” he continued. “Not so we can fight, not so we can bicker, not so we can get angry with each other.”
But Madigan doesn’t so much get angry as get even. And he’s mostly about making sure his Democrats act in ways that ensure their re-election, and therefore, his re-election as Speaker.
Did we really want divided and divisive government or is that just what we’re going to get?
It’s not division or divisiveness we need. Or gridlock. Checks and balances, yes, with compromise and progress.
Now that’s change we all should welcome.
NEXT ARTICLE: All shook up, but what can we expect from a Gov. Bruce Rauner?
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Madeleine Doubek is Reboot’s chief operating officer. She previously managed the Daily Herald newsroom. An award-winning journalist, Doubek served as the Daily Herald’s political writer and editor and led the paper’s project and investigative work. She believes in more of us taking charge of our state government. Read Doubek’s personal take on why she’s rebooting. You can find Reboot on Facebook and on Twitter @rebootillinois.