Illinois legislators will only get a brief post-election respite from politics. They are scheduled to be back in Springfield next Tuesday to begin the veto session. The current makeup of the General Assembly will remain in place for that but, come the new year, the Capitol welcomes a new set of lawmakers elected Tuesday night and the balance of power will shift -- slightly.
Election Day is like the Super Bowl of politics.
While Gov. Bruce Rauner is the Republican Party’s standard-bearer, he had no public events Tuesday. He hasn’t for weeks, actually, save for going to a couple of Cubs games and handing out candy to trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
The Republican quietly cast his ballot Tuesday morning back home in Winnetka, then privately watched the results come in at the Executive Mansion in Springfield.
Despite his physical absence, Rauner made sure his presence was felt across Illinois -- and in a big way: He spent more than $30 million dollars bankrolling legislative races.
It’s part of his attempt to break the Democratic grip on the legislature, a grip that thus far has stifled Rauner’s agenda. That, in turn, has led to a partisan stalemate that’s left Illinois without a real budget, and with an all-too-real deficit.
Rauner has frequently put the onus on Democrats to break the stalemate, with comments like this one from last year: “If the Speaker and the General Assembly doesn’t want to take up reforms, doesn’t want to pass any real structural reforms, then they should go ahead and pass a tax hike," he said. "They have a supermajority. They’re fully capable of increasing the taxes.”
Rauner won’t be able to use that excuse anymore.
A brief primer: A supermajority means one party has at least 60 percent of the seats in a legislative chamber; that’s how many votes are needed to override a governor’s veto.
In the Illinois Senate, that takes 36 votes. And Democrats have (through 2016, anyway) 39 seats. A super-supermajority, if you will.
Republicans chipped at that some, but only a net gain of two seats.
Specifically:
- 23rd District: It appears that Democratic Sen. Tom Cullerton of Villa Park will go back to Springfield, though a challenge from Republican Seth Lewis is still too close to call as of Friday morning.
- 47th District: Former GOP State Rep. Jil Tracy will fill a western Illinois seat vacated by Democrat John Sullivan of Rushville.
- 59th District: Long-time Democratic Senator Gary Forby of Benton, in southern Illinois, was ousted by Dale Fowler, the Republican mayor of Harrisburg.
- 58th District: A seat left open by GOP Senator Dave Luechtefeld of Okawville will be filled by another Republican, Paul Schimpf, instead of former Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon.
Given all of that, Democrats in the Senate still have a supermajority, with an extra vote to spare. But it’s a different story in the Illinois House.
Unless you managed to stay away from a TV all campaign season, you surely heard a Republican ad like this one, which says: “Mike Madigan made a fortune on tax appeals, representing the powerful and politically-connected. Saving his friends millions. Forcing you to pay more. It’s an inside game…”
Ads and critiques of Michael Madigan often both denigrate the longtime Speaker of the Illinois House while at the same time exalting him as an all-powerful master of puppets.
Madigan has had a supermajority of 71 Democrats, though they’ve rarely been united enough to actually override Rauner vetoes.
That will soon end, meaning: No more supermajority. Come January, when the new legislators are sworn in, Rauner no longer will be able to say that Democrats have the votes to hike taxes against his will.
Imagine that they try (they haven’t, by the way). Rauner could reject the bill, and House Democrats wouldn’t have the votes to override him unilaterally.
Republicans gained a net of four seats in the Illinois House. One GOP incumbent, Rep. Dwight Kay of Glen Carbon, lost to Katie Stuart, in the 112th District.
But the GOP held onto a top-tier race in the 20th District, meaning the sole Republican representing parts of Chicago, Michael McAuliffe. The GOP also won five seats currently in Democratic hands:
- 63rd District: Democratic Rep. Jack Franks ran for local office instead; his seat will go to a Republican, Steven Reick.
- 71st District: Republican Tony McCombie beat first-term Democratic representative Mike Smiddy.
- 76th District: Rep. Andrew Skoog, who took over the 76th district when Spring Valley's Frank Mautino -- who is now under investigation for campaign spending -- became Auditor General, lost his first election, to Jerry Lee Long.
- 79th District: Another Democratic incumbent, Kate Cloonen, who lives near Kankakee, lost her seat to attorney Lindsay Parkhurst.
- 117th District: Voters tossed one of Madigan's top lieutenants, Rep. John Bradley, in favor of Benton businessman Dave Severin.
“This is about southern Illinois, this is about the state of Illinois," Severin said in his campaign speech. "And you know what it shows to me, that there’s hope, if you stay true to your dream, if you stay true to your Lord, then he’ll guide and direct you.
"It may take some time," he added. “We can get jobs back here. Stop people leaving here as far as businesses and people having to leave the area because there aren’t jobs. Fund education. Take care of senior citizens. All the different things that my opponent said … I’m not going to go there, sorry, you guys got TV cameras on, I’m not going to talk about that stuff.”
The race is a big win for Rauner, and for Republicans.
In a statement, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin says Illinois voters sent a message that Democrats should get on board with Rauner’s agenda.
"By handily breaking the supermajority, Illinois voters sent a strong message that it is time for Democrats to join Governor Rauner and legislative Republicans in enacting reforms to lower property taxes, create more jobs, address the pension crisis and place term limits on the career politicians alongside a balanced budget," Durkin said.
But Madigan and his fellow Democrats heard something different.
Democrats ended the night with statewide victories: U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth easily bested incumbent Republican Mark Kirk in the race for U.S. Senate, and Leslie Munger -- Gov. Rauner’s handpicked choice for Comptroller -- lost her job to Chicago City Clerk Susana Mendoza.
"I think what we saw tonight was a rejection of the extreme agenda, which is making so many people in the state of Illinois victims," Mendoza said in her victory speech. "Victims of political inefficiencies and inadequacies on the statewide level. The middle class and the working class, and the underclass ... have been under attack by the current administration."
In a statement, Speaker Madigan says voters showed they want to keep strong Democratic majorities in the legislature to serve as a check on the governor and his agenda.
Madigan says this cycle was a “difficult environment” for many Democratic candidates, thanks to Rauner’s unprecedented millions coupled with “the Trump headwind in downstate Illinois.”
Trump did well in those regions, even though Illinois as a whole went strongly for Clinton.
The changes coming in Springfield — combined with the economic uncertainty that has greeted Trump’s victory — mean the “difficult environment" will not be getting any easier very soon.
