Nov. 08--Bruce Rauner long has spoken of the need to demand more from teachers and students alike. But before a conservative audience in Lake County last fall, the then-Republican candidate for governor lashed out at new Common Core education standards aimed at doing just that.
"From what I can tell, Common Core should not be enforced because it looks like the federal government is trying to control the curriculum," said Rauner, embracing a belief popular with the political right. The standards were developed by the National Governors Association and do not mandate what, and how, to teach.
When the freshly elected Rauner assumes the Illinois governorship in January, he will gain control of the education bureaucracy of a state that, like most others in the nation, has set Common Core as a benchmark to gauge student achievement.
If Rauner tries to pull the plug, as he appeared to suggest, he could anger education reformers who think the program is a solid way to improve education. If he doesn't, he risks the wrath of a conservative political base that expected him to do otherwise.
The Common Core case illustrates the political dynamic Rauner faces as he transitions from campaign trail promise-maker to Illinois' 42nd governor. Rauner, a successful equity investor, has never held public office, and now he has to reconcile campaign words with governing deeds.
In the days since defeating Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, Rauner has sought to strike a softer, conciliatory pose, casting a bipartisan net for help.
In quick order, Rauner will be confronted by a plunge in state revenues tied to a scheduled Jan. 1 cut in the income tax rate that he has endorsed. He must renegotiate expiring contracts for unionized state workers he claimed during the campaign were broadly overpaid, adding a warning that he would be hard-nosed in those talks, possibly provoking a strike.
As homeowners receive another round of local property tax bills, they will be watching to see if, and how, Rauner makes good on a campaign promise he outlined in only vague terms to freeze rates. And Rauner, like several governors before him, could find himself dealing with a crushing pension debt problem. Rauner had vowed to resolve the issue in a better, more comprehensive way than Quinn, whose law is pending in the courts.
Achieving progress on those goals and many more could be simplified if only Rauner enjoyed the kind of Republican-dominated legislature that one of his self-declared mentors, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, has relied on to impose a conservative-friendly agenda in that state.
But that situation doesn't exist in Illinois, where the House and Senate remain controlled by commanding majorities of Democrats whose leadership Rauner openly disparaged as "corrupt" during his campaign.
Now, as governor-elect, Rauner is promising to seek conciliation with lawmakers so he can get things done. It is a goal, sounded often by political leaders from President Barack Obama on down, that is proving increasingly elusive in an era of gridlock and hyper-partisanship where compromise gets attacked as betrayal by many on the right and left.
"There's a big difference between campaigning and governing. They're related, but they're very different things," Rauner said Friday in Springfield as he toured the state thanking voters. "... I just want to get solutions."
David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, said it won't be easy for Rauner to pivot from attack dog to pragmatist.
"It's a sensitive time right now. People are tired. Emotions are still running high," Yepsen said. "People have to be very careful about what they're saying and doing right now, because they're going to have to work together to produce some results. Nobody can be spitting in the soup right now. Let's get going on some negotiations."
From the earliest days of his campaign, Rauner spoke of staff work underway in developing detailed action plans for an array of problems facing the state. "We are doing a lot of research on that topic, and we have some good ideas coming," Rauner said of pension reform plans during a public television interview in February 2013.
While Rauner unveiled a series of conceptual goals following the primary election, they lacked specifics. At his first post-election news conference Thursday, Rauner sounded as if they were still on the drawing board.
"I will be holding meetings with members of the General Assembly very intensely between now and January to begin to lay the groundwork to come up with real solutions, bipartisan solutions to solve our problems," he said.
Asked to outline elements of the property tax freeze he promised, Rauner said only that he would be delegating that responsibility to a yet-to-be-named bipartisan task force to work on the matter with lawmakers and local officials.
Of most immediate consequence to Rauner will be a $4 billion a year drop in state revenues from a 25 percent reduction in state income tax rates scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, less than two weeks before his inauguration.
During the campaign, Rauner ripped Quinn for seeking to block the rate reduction, with the Republican arguing he could still make ends meet with lower taxes and even hike spending for schools and other vital programs. Left unexplained, however, was how he planned to accomplish that.
Democrats argued that Rauner's claim was mathematically impossible and would force significant, near-term cuts in state education spending while also shifting more of the financial burden for school revenues to the local property taxes Rauner says he wants to freeze.
The final state budget approved under Quinn to carry the state through June likely will run out of day-to-day operating cash by February if the tax cut stands.
"The first thought in trying to flesh out proposals is, what are we going to do for the next six months?" said state Rep. Frank Mautino of Spring Valley, a Democrat who plays a lead role on state budget matters. "We're going to be running out of money very quickly. You're going to have some short-term things happening, and that's the first test."
Despite his advocacy of tax cuts, Rauner has declined to directly answer when asked if he would be open to renewing the current 5 percent personal income tax rate at least temporarily. At the same time, he has said financial planning for the state should not get hung up on short-term problems but focus on his long-term vision of comprehensive tax reform and eventual rate cuts.
Wooing Democrats in the legislature may be an important priority for Rauner, but getting Republicans to follow his lead could be even more critical. Democratic leaders are sure to demand that Rauner produce Republican votes on controversial compromises if they are to pass.
That would put most current Republican legislators in unfamiliar territory. It has been a dozen years since Illinois last had a GOP governor who could lean on members of his own party to take politically tough votes. Only seven House Republicans and five Senate GOP members next year have experience serving under a Republican governor.
"If (Rauner) doesn't want to crash (state government) ... he has to know the ideas he campaigned on won't financially work, and he'll have to put votes on uncomfortable bills that the Republicans have been shielded from," Mautino said.
That may be easier said than done. One tax proposal Rauner did offer in detail during the campaign was a call to broaden the state sales tax to include three dozen services not currently subject to the levy. Supporters of the concept, among them Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have argued that the current structure of the sales tax is archaic and ignores the explosive growth of the service economy.
Republicans in the legislature, however, have generally been opposed to expansion of any taxes. Underscoring GOP concerns about tax increases, House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs declined to discuss Rauner's sales tax proposal.
"We have a House and a Senate that are controlled by Democrats," Durkin said. "Everything is on the table, but when everything is on the table that means it's for the best interest of the taxpayers of Illinois."
With any attempt at political compromise comes political risk. Rauner campaigned on the strength of his business success, arguing that he had better skills and ideas for fixing Illinois than the entrenched political powers in Springfield.
Tea party activist Steve Balich, a Republican Will County Board member from Homer Glen, said he enthusiastically backed Rauner's election and now supports the governor-elect's efforts to forge a relationship with Democrats led by House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
Still, Balich said he wants to see Rauner stand up to those same Democratic leaders and call them out publicly if they won't go along with what he wants.
"You work to try to compromise with Cullerton and Madigan where you're not giving up your values, but at the same time in order to get the people to go in your favor you've got to work outside the system to expose what they're trying to do. Use the bully pulpit," said Balich.
"Bruce has got the means to really let everyone know what's going on, and if he does he can win every argument."
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