Little gained in OT session

SPRINGFIELD -- Talk about letdowns.

Back in January, lawmakers began their work with the grandest of expectations. Illinois was going to fix education funding, shore up its finances, offer everyone health care and, along the way, try to help Democrat Barack Obama become president.

More than eight months and $1 million of overtime costs later, Obama was among the few winners to emerge from a grueling legislative session that spilled over into the summer and threatened to shut down state government.

In the end, there was no vaunted solution to lingering school funding inequities across Illinois, nor did the state's long-term financial picture improve. And the pending health care expansion is nothing like first proposed.

"This session makes the Titanic look like a successful voyage," said Paul Green, director of the school of policy studies at Roosevelt University.

Rarely have political leaders set the stakes so high.

During swearing-in ceremonies at the start of the year, the state's top Democrats all took aim at Illinois' biggest problem.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich called on Illinois to be a national leader in providing health care. "Let it be Illinois, the Land of Lincoln, that leads the nation out of our national health care crisis," the Chicago Democrat said after being sworn in for a second term.

A few days later, House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Chicago Democrat, warned the incoming class of state representatives that the state's debt was jeopardizing everything else in state government and it was time for serious action.

"I'm prepared to engage in doing things which today may not be viewed so favorably, but down the road they'll be an acknowledgment that it was the right thing to do," Madigan said.

And Senate President Emil Jones Jr., a Chicago Democrat, told the newly sworn in Senate members that it was time to fix school funding.

"We can do things that the people expect us to do. We must bring about real change to the outrageous, inequitable system that funds our schools," Jones said.

But despite the grand goals, there was little to no agreement among the three leaders on how to address any of the problems, let alone all three.

Over the next eight months, the General Assembly's spring session would devolve into name-calling and political deadlocks.

Punctuating the battle of political egos was an early May vote on a massive business tax increase Blagojevich proposed to pay for his health care plan. Not a single House member voted for it and a test vote designed to gauge support was rejected 107-0.

Having been given complete control of state government by voters, some Democrats were left apologizing for the lack of results and paralyzing political turmoil.

"We've let you down, and there is no excuse for this," state Comptroller Dan Hynes, a Chicago Democrat, told party faithful earlier this month.

On the other hand, Republicans -- written off as irrelevant throughout the spring -- were left declaring a modicum of victory simply because they ended up mattering by the time all was said and done.

"It's a shame that the Democratic in-fighting and inability to get a budget done has cost taxpayers $1 million," said David Dring, spokesman for House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego. "However, because of us being at the table, we passed a budget out of the House that was $7 billion less of a tax increase than what the governor wanted and $8 billion less of a tax increase than what many of the House Democrats wanted with the income tax."

Steve Brown, Madigan's spokesman, said there were accomplishments. He pointed to the earlier Illinois primary designed to boost Obama and give Illinois voters more say in the national nominations.

And, after months of contentious debate, lawmakers approved a billion-dollar electric rate relief plan designed to soften the blow of recent increases by Commonwealth Edison and other utilities.

"So I think in some ways we had some pretty good accomplishments," said Brown. "My view is the session really isn't over yet."

Indeed, expect lawmakers to return for an encore in the coming weeks during which they'll try to override Blagojevich's recent budget cuts.