OPINION: Ken Dunkin is no rebel

March 03--If only state Rep. Ken Dunkin were the man of principle he claims to be, bravely standing up for his constituents and his deeply held beliefs against a political dark lord.

Then we could cheer him on in his current primary battle, the doughty independent trying to hang on to his seat and serve as the voice of reason and moderation in the profoundly polarized state government.

If only.

In actuality, Dunkin, who represents the long, narrow 5th District that runs north to south in Chicago, is a flake and an opportunist -- a formerly obscure veteran Democratic backbencher who, evidently weary of his obscurity, broke from his party last year and joined forces with first-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

Dunkin either failed to show up for critical votes or voted with the GOP several times to help deny Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan the supermajority necessary to break the partisan stalemate in Springfield and defend key party interests.

His stated reasons were preposterous. In November, for example, the Democrats were poised to take control from Rauner in the critical area of child care subsidies for low-income families and assistance to the elderly and disabled.

Rauner had been using his executive authority to hack away at such human services funding as he tried to run the state without a formal budget, so the Democrats countered with a bill that both restored the funding and took away Rauner's unilateral authority to impose reductions.

Dunkin cast the critical "no" vote that killed the initiative, which he called "vindictive." He announced that he'd cut a deal with Rauner in which the governor would restore most of the cuts immediately in exchange for getting to keep the power to make future cuts. Dunkin explained that he'd gotten money right away in order to avoid the possibility that Rauner would refuse to restore any funding at all for the 60 days a governor is allowed to hold a bill before issuing a veto.

Flabbergasted human services providers noted that Dunkin's unnecessary "compromise" was nothing to brag about because it didn't cover an estimated 48,000 children who would have received assistance had the Democratic bill passed.