Experience: Voice of the People Not Heard

By Jim Broadway, Chairman

Illinois Democracy Project

For years, school funding reform advocates have done everything they were told to "get your message" to the legislators. They have organized letter writing campaigns, delivered their message by email and snail mail. They have rallied at the Capitol in Springfield.

In 1992, voters favored the goal of 50% state funding for public schools by a vote of 58% to 42%, a landslide, an election mandate. But the vote fell short of the 60% approval required to amend the Constitution, so the expectation was that the General Assembly, after hearing the clear will of an overwhelming majority of Illinois voters, would accomplish the goal by statute.

But no bill to codify what the Constitution seems to say about school funding has even been given a hearing on the floor of the House and Senate of Illinois.

When it became clear that the legislature would ignore its responsibility to match state policy with the clear will of the people, education advocates took their cause to the courts. There they learned that the language of the Illinois Constitution - "The State has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education." - is virtually meaningless. "Financing" does not mean generating the revenue and paying it. It only means making sure someone pays.

That "someone," of course, is mainly the property taxpayers of Illinois. While we have the lowest state income tax in the nation, we burden the owners of property heavily, compared to other states. Consequently, since property values vary dramatically, so do the educational resources of our children. It has become an embarrassing fact in Illinois that the quality of a child's educational opportunity depends almost entirely on his family's zip code.

What recourse remains for advocates of Illinois school funding reform?

Alternative: Bring Voice of the People into the Capitol

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

Although the core definition of democracy is "government by the informed consent of the governed," it is clear that, with respect to the education funding issue, the dynamics of democracy have broken down. The will of the people is crystal clear, but consistently ignored.

As we examined this idea, we found it applies to other high-impact policy as well.

We get policy the people didn't ask for: Utility bailouts resulting in electric rate increases of unimagined proportions; massive public funds spent on questionable pork projects; pension "holidays"; debts that our children and grandchildren will be decades paying off.

We are denied policy that we have demanded: In addition to school funding reform, we want ethical government, the kind that doesn't include "pay to play" and would not result in legislators who engineered a utility bailout in 1997 being on the contractual payroll of Commonwealth Edison today.

We would like for our legislative elections to be decided by the voters at the district level instead of having them financed by millions of dollars, shaken down from the interest groups and co-mingled to conceal the sources and distributed to lawmakers who have been "loyal" to the caucus leaders who distribute the spoils.

These are two sides of the same coin. They are a result of the same illness. The pulse of democracy is a weak force in the Illinois legislature. The voice of the people does not penetrate into the chambers of the House and Senate when the high-impact policy is being enacted. There is only one remedy to this tragic degeneration of the democratic principle.

The people of Illinois must force their way into the policy arena.

Solution: Show Us Amendment to Illinois Constitution

The Show Us Amendment proposed by the Illinois Democracy Project would address the most basic flaw in the Illinois policy process - the fact that the citizens are not invited into it - through the simple device of requiring a 21-day period of public review of all non-emergency legislation, in its final form, before legislators take a "final action" vote to enact any bill.

The Illinois Democracy Project evolved from discussions that began in the late 1990s and a series of seminars that began in July of 2003. It took its name as an ad hoc citizens' committee on November 29, 2006. I tell you this so you will know that our proposal is not the first option we considered. It is not even the most effective notion that we scrutinized in our meetings.

But it is the only proposal that met these criteria:

• It does not need the lawmakers' permission to be implemented.

• Its effects cannot be circumvented or gamed by the policymakers.

Once ratified, its effects will benefit democracy in Illinois in many ways and for many years to come. We are certain the effect of putting citizens back into the policymaking loop will:

• Bring an end to the "drive-by" enactment of smoke and mirrors deficit budgets that have piled up $106 billion in debts for our children to pay.

• End as well the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of unjustified pork, the political payoffs and favors to major campaign contributors.

• Force policy acceptable to the people to be enacted in the void.

• Give the news media an opportunity to play the role Thomas Jefferson envisioned for them in a democracy, thereby reengaging the citizens at the end of every spring session.

• Remove the legislators' main excuse for votes on bad policy ("I didn't know the bill did that. We had no time to read it."), making legislators more accountable to their own constituents, forcing them to be more honest.

• That increased legislator accountability will commensurately increase the meaning and the value of citizens' votes in legislative elections. More voters will go to the polls.

• Since legislators will no longer be able to elevate their own ignorance to the level of justification for bad votes, they will have to be leaders, to meet with constituents and inform them of the options and help them to understand the challenges of the policy process.

• Many legislators will fail in this new relationship with their constituents. Many of them will be defeated by candidates who are more honest and effective communicators. That will improve the quality of the legislature over time.

To believe these things requires faith in the collective participation of citizens, faith in the core principle of democracy itself. We have that faith.

Any Citizen Can Participate in the Illinois Democracy Project

The Illinois Democracy Project is an all-volunteer citizens committee. Anyone can participate simply by signing in at our web site, www.showus.org. There you will find all the details, our history, our mission, our leadership, our project.

We are circulating petitions. We seek a minimum of 350,000 signatures of Illinois registered voters to put our amendment on the November 4, 2008 ballot. Any citizen over the age of 18 is qualified to circulate our petitions. You can download them from our web site, along with the simple instructions for how they are to be circulated and delivered to the Project.

I repeat: Any citizen over the age of 18 is eligible to play this vital role.

Nothing else is required. Although we accept small donations for the project, no one is ever pressured to give. And we have a role for everyone. We plan to hold circulator-training programs around the state; you can help arrange them and participate in them. We do statewide and regional media relations activities, such as the distribution of news releases and holding news conferences. If you would like to be a part of these activities, we want you there.

Bottom Line: There is nothing of more lasting and profound benefit to democracy in Illinois that any of us can do between now and the elections of 2008. Until we restore legislator accountability to the voters, neither that election nor any in the future will have much meaning. The Illinois Democracy Project is our chance to revive the democracy we hope our children will thrive under.

As a personal note, I deeply appreciate Sharon Voliva and the Better Funding for Better Schools Coalition for allowing me to post this message. I wish I could express more optimism that school funding reform could be achieved without amending the Constitution. But the fact is, with our government increasingly influenced by those who purchase their access, we have even more at stake in this venture than just adequate and equitable school funding.

Sincerely,

Jim Broadway

[Note: Jim Broadway is owner and publisher of State School News Service, a newsletter delivered to education community interests since 1995. He was formerly media liaison for U.S. Sen. Paul Simon.]

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