I bumped into Edgar on election night when we both were providing election analysis for Chicago Public Radio and we arranged to have a longer follow-up chat. We talked about all of the top looming crises facing Illinois: budgets, taxes, pensions, school funding, as well as the advice he’s giving Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner about dealing with master political maneuverer, House Speaker Mike Madigan.

We’ll get into pensions, taxes and more in part 2 of our chat. Here’s an edited transcript of part 1 of our conversation:

Q: You’ve been out there talking a lot lately about Gov. Rauner’s election and you’re serving on the transition committee. You told the story about how, after your election, Mike Madigan wouldn’t talk to you for four months after you won the first time. Looks like Rauner’s off to a better start.

A: I told him, “You’re lucky.” Plus, they talked for an hour and a half, which is an hour longer than I thought they’d talk, so that’s good.

Q: What do you think that portends for the future for all of us?

A: I think it’s good. I think it’s very important that the leaders of the Legislature and the governor have a good working relationship. It doesn’t mean they have to agree. They’re not going to agree on everything, but it’s very important that there’s a relationship, a communication there that’s ongoing, that you know they can’t wait four months before you get to talk to somebody so I think it’s a good first step. A lot more has to happen, but I was very encouraged after I heard about the length and kind of the atmosphere of the meeting.

Q: If my memory serves, when you first won, Illinois was in a bit of a fiscal crisis and some difficult cuts had to be made and you were working with Democrats, right?

A: Right. We had a Democratic-controlled Legislature, we had the biggest financial crisis up to that point the state had ever faced, which meant we had to get a temporary tax made permanent, plus we had to make cuts, which is the most unpopular, both, things to do. And I had to work with a Democratic Legislature which, to start with, wasn’t in a mood to do anything I wanted them to do.

Q: Are we going to face that same scenario again here on a much bigger scale and what’s your advice for the governor-elect about handling all of that?

A: Well, I think you’re not going to get it done in the first week of his term as governor. Probably a lot of these things won’t come together until the end of the session because they’re going to be difficult things to do and there’s going to be some horse trading and there’s going to be some posturing but the numbers don’t lie and I think, the Democrats, they can count as well as the Republicans and they know that something has to happen budgetarily. I’m optimistic they’ll start this year. It’s not going to happen in one year. It’s going to take probably several years of being on a fiscal diet to get the financial house in order and it’s going to take both Republicans and Democrats so, you know, my experience was after everybody kind of vented their feelings and everybody started to trust everybody, you got down to kind of finding common ground and I think that’s going to have to occur this next year and I’m hopeful that it will.

You don’t know what might happen. Rauner’s never been in state government. He’s never been governor, so we can’t be 100 percent sure, but I think from that meeting (with Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton) and from some of the things he’s said since the election, I’m optimistic we’re going to have more progress coming up in the next six months than we’ve seen in five, six years.

Q: Speaking of Rauner never having run a government before and lots of us saying often that running a business is not at all like running a government, what advice have you given him?

A: I think he needs to try to have some people around him who have some experience, particularly in the governor’s office, you know, both in his personal staff and in his Cabinet positions, the directors who know something about those departments so you don’t have to spend a year trying to learn by mistakes. He’s a smart guy. I don’t think business is necessarily the same as government, but I think a smart person can adapt and he’s obviously a smart person and I think he’ll be a pretty quick study. His style is to listen a lot and then he kind of takes what he wants to from all of those people he’s talked to, so I guess my major advice I’ve given him is you don’t want to rush into any decisions you don’t have to make right now.

He has a luxury. I told him he got through this campaign for governor without kind of saying a lot about where he was on a whole lot of specific issues and, governmentally, that’s great because now he can take positions based off of what he finds as governor, not what he promised in a campaign and I think that’s a great plus for him. As I told him, until you’re ready to make a decision, until you have to make a decision, I would hold off just so you really feel comfortable with whatever that decision is.

Q: You think he’s a listener? Because the story I heard was that the first time you met him, he didn’t listen very much, that he did most of the talking and that the meeting was a little bit tense.

A: I think I expressed that. I told him the next time we met – we met after the primary– told him, “You’re a quick study. You listened a lot more today.” And my experience with him since, we’ve had probably three conversations and we spent the day flying around Monday before the election and he spent most of it listening to me. Now, how much of it he thought was worthwhile listening to I don’t know, but he’s a much better listener now.

One thing I found is, I thought I had a pretty good resume going into the governorship, and I have to say I had a lot to learn after I got there. I think he understands that. He’s not just listening to me. He’s listening to a lot of people and in the end he has to make the final call, but I think if he can get as much information and have time to think about it. … You don’t really have a chance in a campaign to think about some of those things as well as you should. Now, he has this two-month window, almost, where he can really think things over.

Q: What from his work in private equity will serve him well as governor? I’ve heard people say in private equity you’re bringing people together to make deals and that’s exactly what we need in a governor?

A: Yeah. I think you’ve got to get people together. You’ve got to negotiate. You’ve got to know when to be firm and when you’ve got to give and, you know, when you’ve got to compromise and that’s a very important ingredient, I think, in being an effective governor. The bottom line of business is to make money and the bottom line of government’s to provide service. Those are two different bottom lines, but I think his experience in business as far as negotiating and working with a variety of people—they took over a lot of different companies with different backgrounds—I think they’ll be things from his private experience.

The most important thing is we know he was successful in that and he was successful in running for governor for somebody who’s never been in politics, so he’s a smart guy and I’d much rather have a smart guy without a whole lot of experience as governor than a person who’s not very smart who’s been in government his whole life.

Q: Have you told him anything about dealing with Speaker Madigan and President Cullerton?

A: I don’ t really want to go into everything specific I’ve told him, but I’ve said this publicly, my experience with both of them is you can work with them. I expect with Speaker Madigan … he kind of wanted to test me. He wasn’t ready right away to kind of sit down and work everything out. After he did that, then we were able to move. I’ve told him, and I’ve said this publicly, I really think by the end of the session the three of them can be communicating and working far better than those two worked with Pat Quinn.

 

NEXT ARTICLE: Rauner shares his thoughts on pensions, state budget and public service

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