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Editorial: State leaders must choose to govern or to campaign

Having at last produced a state budget, Illinois' leaders - regardless of where they came out in the budget battle - have a choice to make. They can govern, or they can campaign for the 2018 elections. Early indications appear to suggest it will be the latter, and that would be a grave disservice to the state.

Placing himself in the role of "loser" because he didn't get everything he wanted in the budget lawmakers passed over his veto last week, Gov. Rauner refers to the budget solely as the "Mike Madigan tax increase." This in spite of the fact that the document includes Bruce Rauner-inspired pension reforms and $3 billion in Republican-sponsored spending cuts - and, more to the point, in spite of the fact that the 1.2 percentage-point tax increase was originally negotiated by then-Republican Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno and Democratic Senate President John Cullerton, not House Speaker Michael Madigan.

If anyone should wear the mantle for the tax increase, it is the Senate leaders, but the already-demonized Madigan is the easier political target.

That's not to call for a pity party for the Democratic speaker. For the past six months or longer, Madigan unfailingly has referred to the state's financial situation as the "Rauner budget crisis." Even if one discounts the three decades of Madigan leadership that put Illinois in such a bind, the lack of a state budget these past two years is demonstrably due as much to Madigan's intransigence as to Rauner's.

All this rhetoric of name calling and confrontation is nothing more than political posturing. If the governor and the speaker truly want to govern, they'll dispense with visceral campaign language and turn instead to the vocabulary, and the practice, of cooperation and leadership.

Rauner certainly is capable of such an approach. He used it meaningfully during his January state of the state address when, referring to what became known as the grand bargain, he turned to President Cullerton and pleaded for Senate leaders to continue with "the very, very difficult" work of finding a budget compromise. The tax increase that was part of that "very, very difficult work" survived the legislative process. So did pension reforms that include a 401(k) option and those Republican spending cuts.

Cullerton reinforced these notions in a speech last week to the Chicago City Club laced with both conciliation and frustration. "I recognize that people are sick and tired of the political finger pointing. I get it. I want results, too," he said.

So, there is something here that Republicans can build on, and if they do, it's conceivable we could see property tax relief and workers' compensation reform, among other reforms Democrats acknowledge are needed, within the next year.

But if leaders on both sides wipe their hands and say, "We've got a budget now; let's campaign on whether we should have continued to govern by brinkmanship," nothing of any consequence will get done before January of 2019 - and there's at least an even chance that what gets done after that will offer less hope of significant reforms than can be seen on the horizon today.

So the options are clear. Campaigning and name calling will produce animosity, more brinkmanship and little or no reform. Governing offers the opportunity for cooperation and movement in directions with short- and long-term benefits for the state. And come to think of it, wouldn't that be a pretty good campaign strategy for either party?

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