When
last we heard from state Sen. James Meeks he had dropped out of the governor's
race and endorsed Gov. Rod Blagojevich's much hyped education/lottery plan.
With the proposal currently under fire from almost all corners, I thought it
might be a good time to check back in with him.
"Nobody
is discussing the education reform plan," Meeks sighed when asked what
most surprised him about the reaction. "Everybody is discussing the
funding source."
That's
true. Most editorials, columnists and critics have lauded the proposed
education reforms, but they've all blasted away at the idea of selling or
leasing the lottery to pay for it.
Still,
I suggested to Meeks, there's a growing sense that the education reforms he
pressured the governor into accepting in exchange for bowing out of the race
will benefit Chicago at the expense of downstate.
Meeks
was undaunted, pointing out that well over $200 million would be spent
statewide the first year. Plus, he said, "Everybody will get new
textbooks, all schools will get new libraries... and new technology."
Sen.
Meeks refused to directly criticize the governor's universally panned rollout
of the proposal, but he is clearly not happy with the way it was done. When
asked about House Speaker Michael Madigan's letter to legislators which
demanded several answers about the proposal, including about the funding
source, Meeks said, "A mistake that any leader makes is when that
individual's entire leadership team is not on board and forced to ask public
questions. Speaker Madigan is now asking public questions... But before I would
make a big announcement like that, I would make sure that my leadership team is
completely on board."
Meeks
is also taking Madigan's belated criticisms with a grain of salt. Madigan
pointed out in his letter that he worked with Gov. Jim Edgar on a tax swap
plan, so Meeks claims Madigan is now inferring that the tax swap is the way to
proceed. "But when i was trying to do that [tax swap] deal," Meeks
said, Speaker Madigan was "nowhere to be found. He was
silent. But now all of a sudden he writes letters about that. And i'm
saying what in the world is going on?"
Meeks
dismissed much of the harsh criticism in the media and in the political sphere
of the lottery-based funding mechanism. "The same people who are saying
this is a bad idea... these are the same people who were against what I was
trying to do before," he said, adding it doesn't make a difference what is
proposed, the level of criticism will be the same.
What
about the criticism that he was looking for a graceful way out of the race and
fell for a Blagojevich bluff? Meeks insisted he was serious about the campaign,
and reminded me of all the conversations we had about the legwork and
preparations he had done.
And
Meeks had harsh words for those who suggest he agreed to a bad idea. When he
was contemplating a run for governor as a way to force a deal on education
reform, "none of the school funding groups, not one, called me and
said this is the right thing to do," Meeks claimed. "They were not
backing me. And now all of a sudden they have a lot of opinions. If they were
around to give me some advice, maybe I would have made the choices that they
wanted."
The
governor has taken some well-deserved hits for his claims that the threatened
Meeks candidacy had nothing at all to do with the new education plan or the
timing of the announcement. Meeks wouldn't directly counter the governor's
statements, but did note that he met with the governor's education people twice
to discuss his plan, and that much of what he proposed on the reform side
"showed up as [the governor's] plan" three weeks later.
Another
criticism leveled at Meeks is that he trusted Blagojevich to implement a plan
even though almost nobody in state government trusts the guv. Meeks said he
hopes that the Legislative Black Caucus, which he chairs, will back him up next
spring. "If they don't see what the governor has promised in next year's
budget, they don't have to vote on it," Meeks said. "We could be
there until Christmas."
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Rich
Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be
reached at thecapitolfaxblog.com.