Rauner called the measures pro-business and necessary to address decades of financial mismanagement.īut Madigan, who has served as speaker under governors from both political parties, was loath to condition the passage of a budget on the governor’s political agenda. Democrats considered the agenda an attack on unions, which the governor had vilified, saying they had too much power in Illinois politics. ![]() Rauner wanted changes to laws affecting workers’ compensation, collective bargaining and state property taxes, among others. Upon taking office, Rauner, a multimillionaire businessman, laid out a list of policy demands that initially included right to work elements as a condition of signing a budget into law. Rauner was elected in 2014 as the first Republican governor in Illinois in more than a decade, vowing to “shake up Springfield” in a campaign that demonized Madigan - the longest serving House speaker in state history - and targeted “corrupt union bosses.” What does the crisis all boil down to? It began with an ego-laden brawl between two powerful men: Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Mike Madigan. “Illinois has had a very large negative balance both in absolute terms and relative to its budget for many years.” The sheer size of the state’s unfunded pension liabilities … just looking at the state’s finances, its habit of deferring payments from one year to the next, has created a vicious circle,” said Ted Hampton, vice president with Moody’s Investment Services. “Illinois is a real outlier in the most striking way. To troll Rauner about the budget, Pritzker’s campaign created “Tick Tock the Budget Clock,” a character dressed as a clock, who follows Rauner at his public events carrying a sign that displays the number of days the state has gone without a budget.Īs of Friday, it stood at 709 days, an unprecedented amount of time for a state to go without an operating budget. One of just five blue-state Republican governors, Rauner is widely viewed as the most vulnerable incumbent in the nation. In March, 58 percent of those polled reported having an unfavorable view of the Republican, according to a poll conducted by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, up from 32 percent in 2015. The devastation of the state’s finances has taken its toll on Rauner politically, despite his investing heavily on TV, digital and robocall messaging - in 2016 alone, Rauner contributed more than $50 million to his upcoming campaign. ![]() “There is permanent damage that is being done that will take decades to repair.” “Illinois is operating in a way 49 other states would never try to operate,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group. ![]() Pritzker has already poured $14 million into his campaign for a general election that’s still 15 months away. Democrats have flooded the primary to challenge GOP Gov.
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