(dynamic instrumental music) - Welcome to "Capitol View", where we discuss the latest in state, government, and politics.

I'm Hannah Meisel with NPR, Illinois.

Joining us this week is Charlie Wheeler, Director Emeritus of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois, Springfield, and a long time state house reporter and observer.

Thanks for being here, Charlie.

- I always enjoy being with you guys.

- And also here is Amanda Vinicky of Chicago Public Television Station, WTTW.

Glad you're here, Amanda.

- I'm glad to be with you, and hey, public media love in all of its forms.

- Exactly.

Well, it turned into kind of a busy weekend Springfield after a sleepy stretch of summer.

Let's start here.

Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope, this week, says she's resigning from her post.

'Course, That's a role that's supposed to be the watchdog that oversees the general assembly, investigates claims of wrongdoing by lawmakers and legislative staff.

What did the Inspector General say in her resignation letter?

- [Amanda] Her resignation letter is really damning, I would say, for the legislature.

It says, straight out, what is evident by what was passed during the spring session is that the Illinois general assembly does not take ethics seriously, and that is a sentence that I would pull out from the letter that she wrote when she resigned and use it in any and every campaign ad, given, of course, that many instances of corruption, general assembly members who've been indicted and had to be removed from office, those that haven't, but nonetheless, it really is, I think, just a very striking sentence, particularly considering that you have members of the legislature really patting themselves on the back for the legislation that they passed, and saying, you know, "Hey, this is evident!

We did take ethics seriously!

We talked about it!

We had a commission!"

Oh, wait, they had a committee that never actually even produced a report with recommendations, so this is something that I think had taken the frustrations and criticisms from a lot of the quote, unquote, good government reform groups that had said, "Hey, what the general assembly did isn't enough, didn't go far enough," and when you have the Legislative Inspector General saying that instead of outside groups, that certainly makes the case much stronger.

- Right.

And you know, the Legislative Inspector General and I have had a lot of conversations over the last two years, especially during the time of pre-COVID last winter, like you alluded to, there was this mission that was set up that was supposed to address ethics and take in a lot of suggestions to eventually, you know, do larger ethics reform, and that report, once COVID hit, was all but forgotten about.

You know, the Inspector General and her predecessor have been pretty outspoken about the lack of power that the LIG has, but Charlie, you know, reasonable people can disagree about the reasonableness of, you know, some of the explicit things that Carol Pope had wanted, like subpoena power, you know?

Some people feel like that would be inappropriate.

That's only, you know, shouldn't be in the purview of like, law enforcement, and, as a former judge, you know, she's probably used to having a lot of other things that, you know, latitude in her own courtroom, so, you know, Charlie, you have been around the legislature for many years, and, for most of that time, there wasn't even a Legislative Inspector General.

How much of a difference do you think it's made to actually have one in the last 20 or so years?

Is it just a title, do you feel like?

- Well, I would approach it from a different angle, I guess.

Carol Pope complained, among other things, that the way the law is now written, if Governor Pritzker signs this new bill, inspector general will not be able to look at stuff outside legislative employment or actual public service, and she cited the example of, well, I wouldn't be able to investigate somebody who didn't pay their income taxes.

I wouldn't be able to investigate somebody who used revenge porn, and I'm thinking to myself, yeah, and, in both of those cases, the lawmaker who didn't pay his income tax, at least, is what the feds say, has been indicted.

The guy who did the revenge porn, at least, what the feds say, I believe, is facing, what?

Half a dozen or a dozen felony counts.

So actual criminal wrongdoing, I don't think, is in the purview of the inspector general.

That's better left up to state's attorneys, U.S. district attorney, that it would be an appointee of the general assembly.

I think the progress that's made is incremental.

It's never gonna be enough to satisfy the, what would you say?

The good government reform groups, and it's always gonna be further than what people who don't wanna do anything want to go, but I look at a couple of things they did that I think are positive within this ethics legislation.

One is there will be a ban on fundraisers being held on session days or the night before a session day.

So all of the interest groups that hold their fundraisers and the lawmakers who do it on Monday when the general assembly comes in session on Tuesday, that won't happen anymore.

There's also gonna be a requirement that lobbyists and their consultants have to register.

You may recall, in the ComEd scandal, part of the allegation was that lobbyists were hiring consultants who did not show up on the official disclosure forms who would be then involved in trying to influence the speaker, Michael Madigan, to get stuff that ComEd and Exelon wanted.

So I think there's been improvement, in terms of what's gonna be on the economic interest forms, I don't think it's as far as they should go, and, in my mind, the important thing is disclosure, because we already have a ton of laws on the books and all the lawmakers who get indicted, all the lawmakers who've gone to jail, it's because they've already done something that's against the law as it is, and I think, in my mind, the important thing is disclosure.

There should be more economic disclosure revealing what their interests are, what the potential conflicts of interest are, and then it's up to the voting public.

If they look and says, "Well, Wheeler has an interest in this firm and he's voting to help them out," well, let the public decide whether that's okay or not.

In my case, I am a senior citizen.

If I vote for property tax relief for seniors, is that a conflict of interest?

Probably not.

If I give myself, if I'm a Chicago alderman, and I give myself a zoning break on property that I own secretly, is that a conflict?

Yeah, probably so.

As a matter of fact, the Chicago alderman who did it went to jail.

So I think that, again, is the glass half full or is it half empty?

And looking back, historically, we've never had a full glass.

We always go halfway, and then, as public demand, the media, buildup, we keep getting further and further towards the top.

- [Amanda] You Know, I'll be interested to see what difference the fundraising makes.

To me, I'm not sure that I think that's going to change a lot.

If somebody's slipping a check, we're in the modern age.

You can Venmo somebody anytime, anywhere.

I actually will be curious about what that does to the Springfield economy, which I think is already hurting from much of state government having moved out and what all the difference it'll make.

You'll just have, instead, presumably, lobbyists and legislators either going up the night before, or just arriving in Springfield the next day and jetting in, jetting out.

I am particularly intrigued, Charlie, as you noted, for the economic disclosure forms.

That is something that has been so woefully inadequate, and we will see how far this helps, because, certainly, it is going to, in terms of that sunshine, when there are potential conflicts of interests, and I'm really intrigued by that.

And also, as you noted, the lobbyist and consultant registry, that will be really helpful when we're trying to figure out who stands where on an issue.

As you noted, not as far, in Chicago, for example, you also have to list, and, how interesting is this, how much they're paid.

That is something that this ethics measure does not do.

And by the way, Charlie, as you noted, Governor J.B. Pritzker has not yet taken action on it, signed it into law.

Is this a place where he might use his amendatory veto power?

He has been, I think, thus far, reluctant to pick fights with the general assembly in that regard.

This is what the legislature passed.

And so, I don't know, will he feel, particularly, with the resignation of Pope, any sort of pressure to try and make changes, or what good government reform groups would say would strengthen the proposal or not?

We'll wait and see.

- Yeah, I would suspect that, were he to use the amendatory veto, whatever he would do would not be good enough to satisfy some of them good government groups, and it will honk off some of the lawmakers.

I think, probably the most monumental mandatory veto he issued was just a couple weeks ago when he fixed the budget bill, because lawmakers screwed up the effective dates, and so, he had issued an amendatory veto that was accepted without much opposition.

- [Amanda] Right, that was helping the legislature, not picking a fight.

- Exactly.

He was basically cleaning up their mess.

- I mean, he was criticized, at the same time, for, you know, he had the opportunity, he has this extraordinary power that not many governors in the U.S. have, and yet, he only used it to clean up the legislation and not, you know, asserts much else, so it'd be interesting to see.

He, early in June, after the legislation passed, which we should also mention, Republicans railed against, but most ended up voting for anyway, because they don't wanna be on the record as voting against anything that's labeled as ethics reform.

You know, he wanted a true revolving door law, meaning, you know, a lawmaker can't just resign, and then, the next day, go lobby their former colleagues.

This new law, which we'll see what he'll do with, would enact a six month revolving door ban, but, you know, it has a lot of loopholes, it's only in the same two-year general assembly, and so, if I resign, you know, if I wait till December, resign my posts that would have ended, you know, two weeks later anyway, I could just, you know, hop on a lobbying firm.

There's lots of other ways that you could get around that, so it'll be interesting, but you know, it's hard to change a culture.

You know, the narratives are strong, and we'll see if this does indeed open the door to more ethics reform in the future.

But, you know, definitely, as Amanda said, definitely a lot of fodder for, especially people who wanna go to Springfield as a, quote, unquote, reformer.

You know, of course it's sometimes often a very different story when people actually get there in terms of how much they're actually able to do, but it'll determine what comes of that letter.

She told me yesterday, in a phone call, you know, I'll read you a quote.

Instead of expanding the role and the power of the Legislative Inspector General, it's been restricted, and, as a result, I just don't feel like I can be effective in this job anymore.

It's very interesting.

Anyway, moving on.

Pritzker went to Washington this week to meet with President Biden, fighting for a federal infrastructure package right now, and, sensibly, the governors are there to, you know, talk about, I guess, you could say, like, cross pollination with, you know, matching dollars, so Amanda, what was better?

- [Amanda] The governor went to Washington DC at the invitation of President Biden, and so, as you noted, Hannah, infrastructure was the stated intent of this meeting, and, of course, that wasn't just with the governor.

You also had a handful of other governors, mayors from both parties present.

And so, this was advocating, saying, "Hey, look," I think the governor tried to say, "We did it in Illinois.

This is how, this is how it's helped us," and then said, "But we need to do more," and this is sort of a rare area, by the way, that Illinois is ahead of the game, as we've been talking about ethics and sort of the legislature having to wait for a crisis, be pushed to do something, that crisis, I suppose, some would say, already hit when it comes to infrastructure, hence, in 2019, you had passage of the Rebuild Illinois Job, which means, really, that there is a funding source so that, should the federal government pass this, Illinois is in a position to be able to have projects ready and funding available to get back federal matching dollars.

And so, that's really a big deal, but it wasn't just that, as you termed it, cross pollination.

I mean, I think you can't have an audience with the president and bring up some of the other major issues hitting Illinois, and, you know, ask for help, when you constantly hear from federal officials, "Let us know what you need," Well, you better take that opportunity when you are given it, and from what Crain's Chicago businesses reported, the governor had a private audience, as well, with Biden, and maybe did a little bit of arm twisting, begging, polite asking.

I'm not sure how that goes.

For example, federal help propping up a unemployment insurance fund that has been severely depleted.

I mean, everywhere, but particularly in Illinois, where we have seen longer and higher unemployment rates throughout the pandemic.

And then, also, again, we had the superintendent of Chicago's police department in DC, actually, earlier this week as well, having a meeting with President Biden to talk about all of the gun violence that is hitting cities, Chicago, elsewhere in the nation, elsewhere, frankly, unfortunately in Illinois, so the Governor also talking about making some asks for help with gun violence.

- Right, and, you know, the gun violence, that's, you know, another narrative that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is having to deal with, and Governor Pritzker, too, to some extent, and, like you say, it's happening everywhere, but there is this very powerful narrative of Chicago being, you know, dangerous and crime ridden, and, you know, a gubernatorial nominee this morning, Gary Rabine, he's kind of a billionaire in the mold of Bruce Rauner, although more pro-Trump, I should say, issued a second press release in probably a week, you know, calling the Chicago violence an impediment to Illinois' growth, and et cetera, et cetera.

So it's definitely, you know, gonna be used against Pritzker.

We'll see how much it sticks, but you know, Charlie, I also wanna talk about this , the governor's second ask in help with the unemployment trust fund.

It's approaching $5 billion, which is twice as much as the depths that we saw in the great recession, and it's, you know, it's something that we've maybe thought about before, you know, but honestly, until COVID hit, I had no idea it existed.

Like, I didn't really understand, honestly, how unemployment worked.

That's a confession from me to this public television audience, but you know, this is a major fiscal issue that we have to deal with.

I think a lot of Democrats, especially Senate President, Don Harmon, he's told me a couple of times that he's kind of depending on another federal bailout for that.

Others aren't so sure that we're gonna get that lucky again.

So Charlie, how big of a deal is it that we have this massive, you know, deficit in the trust fund, and we've borrowed from the federal government to kind of keep it afloat?

- I would say that's probably, at the moment, that's the biggest fiscal problem that the state faces.

The way unemployment insurance works, it's sort of a protection program for workers, and it's funded almost exclusively through taxes or fees paid by employers.

If you're a worker, you don't pay anything towards unemployment insurance directly.

If you're the employer, you pay, and it's based on a number of factors.

It's based on what's happening within the state, in terms of unemployment, what's happening in your particular industry, what your particular track record is.

So if you're somebody who has a record of laying people off, you're gonna pay a higher fee than someone who's had a pretty stable workforce.

The problem is the way it's structured.

If we have to make up the $4.2 billion, it's not gonna come out of state taxes unless the state chooses to do so.

Instead, it's gonna come out of higher taxes on employers and reduced benefits for employees.

So, and I think what governor Pritzker would like, since this money is borrowed from the federal government, would be for the federal government to say, "Okay, these were extraordinarily rare times, so we're just gonna forgive that debt.

You don't have to worry about it at all."

That's probably not gonna happen.

I think what is possible is that the federal government could say, "Well, you know, all that money was sent you through the relief acts that we passed?

We're gonna tweak the rules and say that you can use some of that money to repay borrowing from the Federal Unemployment Trust Fund."

Now, the rules were structured, as the feds told the states, you can't use 'em for pension payments, you can't use them to cut taxes, and, as things stand now, you can't use it to pay off what you borrowed from us to keep your unemployment insurance program going.

So I'm thinking, maybe the most likely or the best outcome for Illinois would be for the feds to say, "You know that money we sent you to help you out with the pandemic?

You can use some of it to pay off your, maybe half or three quarters of whatever it is you owe us, what you borrowed to keep your unemployment trust fund going during this crisis."

- It's sort of a smart political way, by the way, to do it.

It would give Illinois the help, the boost that it needs without a particularly tough vote in Congress, or frankly, the sting of bail out, bail out, bail out for Illinois, even though I, if somebody offers money, you take it, (laughs) no matter what, but none the less.

A quick political solution there.

Sorry.

- No, no, that's a good point.

It's already money that's been authorized.

It's just a rule changed.

But you know, if I could be briefly self promotional, I wrote a story last week on how, you know, Illinois missed multiple opportunities for this program.

It's called Workshare or short time compensation, otherwise.

Basically, it allows employers to avoid mass layoffs by, instead, just reducing their workforces' hours and allowing those folks to collect partial unemployment.

What the federal government did last spring, when COVID hit, with their CARES act, was allow those folks to, not only collect that unemployment insurance money, but also the enhanced COVID unemployment insurance, and even though this law, Illinois had this law in the books since 2014, other administration never implemented it, the Pritzker administration never implemented it, the federal government gave us another chance to implement a temporary program that would have allowed us to set it up, and then, also, you know, have that unemployment insurance debt be reimbursed by the federal government when it comes to those folks who are affected by this program, we didn't take it.

So that's really unfortunate.

Another missed opportunity there that would have, you know, some economists feel like it could have prevented this long scourge of unemployment, because we do have higher unemployment rates, still, at this point in our recovery than other states.

But I would like to move on, briefly, you know, since we filmed the show last week, Thursday morning, Charlie, Standard & Poor's gave Illinois another credit rating upgrade that follows Moody's the previous week, and you know, we're still, we should say, the worst in the nation.

Now we're slightly less than the worst.

We're hovering above junk status by, not one notch, but two notches, according to two of the three major bond rating houses.

So Charlie, in the three minutes that we have left, you know, what does that mean for Illinois?

I know that you have long thought that the bond houses are a little bit, you know, they're paid attention to too much, but what would it mean for the narrative of Illinois' finances?

- Well, I think what it means is that the state will maybe get slightly more favorable interest rates the next time it goes out to sell bonds.

As I've said on this program and elsewhere, the whole ratings stuff, I think, is malarkey.

If I go to buy a car, they'll look at my credit rating, and if I have a good rating, I'll get a better deal, and it's predicated on how likely is Wheeler to repay this loan?

Well, the fact of the matter is, the likelihood of the state defaulting on a general obligation bond is about as likely as me being the starting third baseman for the Chicago Cubs, and I'm left-handed.

The last time Illinois defaulted was 179 years ago, and the then governor got the legislature to pass a statewide property tax to make good to the bond holders, so it's not gonna happen, and the actual people, the investors realize that.

Whenever we go to market, there's more people wanting to buy our bonds, to lend us money, than what we're trying to borrow, so I think it's good.

It'll maybe help us get a little better interest rates, but it's not gonna make a whole heck of a lot of difference.

I thought it was interesting, too.

You hear about how Illinois has a lousy business climate.

Some editorial boards have hammered, for years, about what a rotten place Illinois is to live.

That was one of Bruce Rauner's big things, how horrible Illinois is.

As a matter of fact, CNBC did a rating, they do this annually, or every couple of years, they did one, came out this week, found out that Illinois ranks number 15 among the states, the top states for doing business.

We were number one in infrastructure, but interestingly, we rated higher on this analysis by CNBC than our neighboring states.

Higher than Indiana, higher than Iowa, higher than Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky.

As a matter of fact, there were only three midwest states that rated higher than us, Minnesota, Ohio, and Michigan, so I think maybe this narrative about how terrible Illinois is, maybe that's kind of passe in this day and age.

- All right.

Well, that is all the time we have left here on "Capitol View".

I wanna thank my guests, Amanda Vinicky, Charlie Wheeler.

I'm Hannah Meisel, and we'll catch you next week.

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