Legislators speak out on leadership, economics and smoking

Area legislators say they're ready to get to work to improve the state's image and promote job growth when they start a new session Wednesday, Jan. 14.

Sen. Linda Holmes, an Aurora Democrat, Michael Connelly, a Lisle Republican, and Darlene Senger, a Naperville Republican, all won legislative terms in the November election.

Holmes will be starting her second term representing the 42nd Senate District while Connelly replaces retiring state Rep. Jim Meyer in the 48th House District and Senger takes the seat of retiring state Rep. Joe Dunn in the 96th House District.

Senger will bring her background as a Naperville city councilman while Connelly has served on the Lisle village board and DuPage County Board.

The three recently sat down with the Daily Herald to discuss the issues they'll face while representing their districts. Here is an edited version of part of that conversation.

Q. These days, every comedian on TV is making fun of Illinois' corruption - three former governors have landed in prison and pay-to play continues relatively unabated. How do you as legislators change that image? Why should we believe it's going to happen this time?

Holmes: There isn't an option. We are fiscally in such dire straits, not just in the state but nationally, that I don't think we have any other options. I think things have to change now. And maybe that's the only way it can happen, when you're literally forced to the brink.

Connelly: It's a fiscal crisis. It's an ethics crisis. It's an image crisis for the state and if (Louisiana Governor Piyush) "Bobby" Jindal could change that state in 30 days after being sworn in, we on a bipartisan basis can do the same thing on Jan. 14.

There are unfunded pension liabilities out there. We need to reform pensions, government pensions. Going forward, we need to look at real pension reform because it's a huge line item and frankly we have to pay it.

Senger: On that note, there's some of the way we do business (that we can change) ... like the budget. We talk about a budget yearly. Why are we only talking about doing a budget yearly? In Naperville we have a five-year plan. At the state we're not setting priorities. That's a lot of what needs to be done, getting that vision set of where we need to go and working on that.

Holmes: Illinois has always been so leadership-driven that we as legislators are lucky to see the budget. If we get it a day before we're supposed to vote on it, that's wow, exciting. And that's been one of our huge problems and that's why I was such a supporter of (new Senate President) John Cullerton.

He has always said he wants to make sure legislators have input. Once you get X number of sponsors signing on a bill, regardless of how a leader feels about that bill, that bill is going to be called. We need to get back to giving our rank-and-file legislators more of a voice again and that's going to have a huge effect. We're the ones out in the district. Let us weigh in.

Senger: We can turn things around. The thing about Illinois is we have a lot of very good assets and resources here. I'm a believer that if we really quantify that and then get out and show this is what we have here and this is why you want to be in Illinois, we can do that.

Holmes: There's a huge environmental push right now that I think we in Illinois have to take advantage of because we are an agricultural state. There's a lot we can doing as proponents there to build up Illinois.

Senger: We've got a huge intellectual base here that we need to start promoting and you don't even hear about that stuff. We need to start promoting that. All we hear about is infighting and dysfunctionality. We don't hear that here's what we have here: this is what the state is really about.

Holmes: But it's not sexy. That doesn't make stories. But there's an awful lot of good being done. It's going to be our responsibility, after such a black eye has been put on Illinois politics, to make sure we're out there dealing with the public so they realize this is a case that happened here. That it is not (representative of the) 59 of us in the Senate and 118 of us in the House and we again need to work together because the problems and challenges that confront us are not party driven.

Q: Is there any legislation any of you are looking to push once you arrive in Springfield?

Connelly: I'd like to propose some economic development legislation. I think we need to look at what other states are doing to drive down the cost of government.

For example, some states use online auctioning for public contracts. What they do is pre-qualify firms, they go online and bid against each other anonymously for 48 hours and at the end of 48 hours whoever is the lowest bid gets the contract. Talk about getting rid of pay-to-play. I think we should get incredible prices because so many companies are looking for business.

Also, when investors look around the world and say we need a Midwest presence, it'd be great for them to come right to a Web site portal where they can get immediate information and be sent to the right places to bring investment to Illinois.

Holmes: I think we need to continue to look at a lot of our energy options, so that's something I want to explore. Obviously my top priority is and will continue to be the capital bill as always. I think we need to take a harder look right now because of the economic climate, the mortgage industry and we've got a lot of people who were harmed in the housing industry and taking a look to see if there are things we can do to bring back our housing industry.

Senger: You don't want to make it more difficult for jobs and the economy to work, so you really don't want to legislate things that are going to make it hard for businesses in Illinois. When you're new on the block, you won't be tackling anything huge, but you grow and get some things done.

The good thing for us as a group, particularly Mike and I, is that we bring a lot of local experience already - so we can hit the ground running.

Q: Sen. Holmes, you have said the smoking ban has harmed casinos in your district. Would you be in favor of lifting the smoking ban for casinos?

Holmes: Absolutely. I'd also like to see it lifted at veteran's clubs.

Senger: I lived through hell going through the Naperville experience trying to get a smoking ban passed. The ban is black and white, and any time you try to create a shade of gray, you just turn everything black. So it's very hard to make one exception because the whole thing falls down.

Connelly: I'm a private property person. Government buildings, hospitals, nursing homes, yes, because there's a health concern. But if an individual wants to spend $2 million on a build-out for a restaurant, that's their property. I don't smoke and we used to not go to places where they allowed smoking because then you go home and literally have to shower. Casinos can articulate real revenue loss where restaurateurs and bar owners told me it's the same business or that business has actually gone up a little bit.