Widespread interest in little-used state office
SPRINGFIELD - Rarely have so many candidates vied for a statewide office that has so few official responsibilities - other than to wait for the governor to resign, get kicked out of office or, worst-case, to die.
But as the Feb. 2 primary nears, six Democrats and six Republicans have made it clear they want the lieutenant governor's post, which has sat vacant since Pat Quinn's sudden rise from the office to the governor's mansion after Rod Blagojevich's ouster.
Four Democratic lawmakers are vying for their party's nomination - state Reps. Art Turner of Chicago and Mike Boland of East Moline and state Sens. Terry Link of Waukegan and Rickey Hendon of Chicago. Electrical worker Thomas Castillo of Elmhurst and Chicago businessman Scott Lee Cohen are also seeking the Democratic nomination.
The Republican field includes state Sen. Matt Murphy of Palatine, Carbondale Mayor Brad Cole, former Madison County Republican Party Chairman Jason Plummer, Springfield attorney Don Tracy, Hamilton pastor Randy A. White Sr. and Orland Park's Dennis Cook, president of the Consolidated District 230 Board of Education.
Green party candidate Don Crawford of St. Elmo is running unopposed.
Although they run their own campaigns in the primary, the lieutenant governor and governor are elected on a joint ticket in the General Election.
Paul Green, director of the School of Policy Studies at Roosevelt University in Chicago, said the race is full of "mostly unknowns," and it's somewhat rare to have so many candidates poised for the office, but the job has become more desirable given what happened last year amid Blagojevich's arrest and subsequent impeachment.
"I doubt any of the people in either party running for lieutenant governor need a security detail going down Michigan Avenue," Green said.
Most of the candidates have campaigned on issues largely out of the lieutenant governor's hands and rather focused on expanding the role of the office to help boost the economy, create jobs and bring accountability to state government.
The Illinois Constitution requires that the lieutenant governor perform duties delegated by the governor and others required by statute. By law, the lieutenant governor chairs the governor's Rural Affairs Council, River Coordinating Council, Rural Bond Bank of Illinois and the Illinois Main Street Program.
Most importantly, Green said, the lieutenant governor is simply the governor's cheerleader.
"What you have, in effect, is someone whose job it is to find something to do unless something dramatic happens, like it did last year," Green said.
It's a position some have said shouldn't even exist and could be eliminated as a way to help deflate the ballooning costs of state government. Eliminating the position would barely make a dent in the states's mammoth $12 billion deficit, but the lieutenant governor, paid $135,669 a year, has had a budget of roughly $2.5 million dollars with 29 staff members.
Although the lieutenant governor is supposed to be the second-in-command post in state government, there's not even a procedure to name a replacement if the officeholder quits or dies.
In 1981, Republican Dave O'Neal resigned from the office, saying he was bored with the job. Similarly, Bob Kustra was prepared to leave Gov. Jim Edgar's administration in the 1990s to take a job as a talk show radio host only to stay on when Edgar suffered health problems. Kustra later left before his term was up to take a university job in Kentucky, and the office was vacant until Corinne Wood was elected to it in 1999 as George Ryan's lieutenant governor.