A
fter two terms, Gov. Jim Edgar will leave the Executive Mansion in January.Illinois Issues interviewed him on October 28, shortly before the election to select his replacement. We asked him to look back over 30 years in public life, and the following is an edited version of that interview.
Q. What do you think are some of the stumbling blocks to leadership today?
An awful lot of folks are here to get re-elected. Now people always want to get re-elected. But the feeling that you want to get something done, too-unfortunately, I don't think it's as dominant as it should be. So when you go in and talk to the people about trying to get them to do things they don't want to do, you've got to recognize what motivates them. Re-election. Which party's going to control the House and the Senate. Those are the major things. Reapportionment. I can't say that 30 years ago those weren't concerns. But they were more involved back in their communities. They had a life back home. So it's tougher today to get them to make the tough decisions. Even if Dick Ogilvie and Richard J. Daley were still in power, and even if they still had patronage and all the things they had that we don't have to use as leverage, I'm not sure they could get legislators to bite the bullet. I don't think they'd get an income tax hike. People are so afraid.
Q. I was going to ask what your greatest frustration has been, but it sounds like that's it.
Just trying to get them to solve it. If you look into my style-to me the most important thing a governor does-he's a manager. It's not a real exciting issue, not one the media writes much about. They like to talk about the word vision. Now if you have vision and you can't manage, there isn't going to be anything around to have vision for. The most important part of management is the budget. So you've got to make sure that is in place. Again, they might want to take money here and move it there. But if they move it, that's one thing. They just can't spend it both places. There aren't many real true fiscal conservatives. True fiscal conservatives would be people that don't want to spend it, and they don't want to raise it. We've got an awful lot of folks that want to spend it, but they don't want to raise it.
36 / December 1998 Illinois Issues
36 / December 1998 Illinois Issues