Illinois New Governor Bruce Rauner (R) -A Mandate to Clean Up Illinois By Allysia Finley
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner won election in November with a mandate to reinvent Illinois, and this week he teed up some of his plans.
Mr. Rauner took a warm-up swing at the unions with a speech in Decatur, which happens to be the home turf of AFL-CIO President Michael Corrigan. For starters, he wants to do away with project labor agreements (PLAs) “that are basically what the unions have worked out with the politicians” who “they influence with campaign cash and then impose those contracts on the businesses that contract with the state.” Mr. Rauner complained that PLAs, which usually require contractors to pay union wages and benefits on public construction projects, increase costs by about 18%.
Also on his agenda are “right to work zones” that allow local voters and governments to decide whether workers should be required to join a union and pay membership dues as a condition of employment. While the Republican doesn’t intend to make Illinois a right-to-work state—he wouldn’t have the votes in the heavily Democratic legislature—he fundamentally supports “employee empowerment,” which is his preferred term for right-to-work. So cities like Decatur could pass their own right-to-work ordinances without the state enacting legislation.
His other ideas to make Illinois more business friendly include cutting workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance costs. He also wants to curb “lawsuit abuse,” which he says is “pushing doctors and health care providers out of the state.” One problem is “we’re one of the few states that elect our judges” and “we have unlimited ability for trial lawyers to donate political campaign cash to judges in their elections, the same lawyers who argue cases in front of those judges.”
Mr. Rauner’s more urgent, and less glamorous, job will be closing a $5 billion deficit over the next two years without raising taxes. The personal income and corporate tax increases that Democrats passed in 2011 partially sunset this year, and the governor has suggested extending the sales tax to some services to fully phase out the income-tax hike and close the budget gap. That will be a heavy lift in the legislature. A source says Mr. Rauner will likely deal with the deficit by sharply cutting state agency budgets and farming out government contracts to private businesses.
The governor next month will flesh out his agenda in his budget, which judging by his sneak preview may rank among the boldest in the country. If Mr. Rauner’s goal is fixing the most ill-governed state in the union, nothing less will do.
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