Published in the Springfield, Ill., State Journal-Register, Oct. 19, 2009

Gov. Pat Quinn likes to say he speaks truth to power.

But our award for speaking truth to power thus far in the Illinois General Assembly's fall veto session goes to Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline. Jacobs on Thursday was the only member of the Illinois Senate brave enough to vote against a measure that will let voters decide whether to allow Illinois citizens to recall a governor from office.

In the most superficial way, this sounds like a great idea. After all, our last two governors have ended up in big trouble with federal authorities. If you're after pure populist appeal, what could be better than letting the people throw the bums out?

From our perspective, however, this effort represents the worst kind of lip service to public ire. Masquerading as lawmakers' gift to the average citizen, the recall amendment actually sets up a system so convoluted that only an experienced insider could ever hope to make it work. Who in Illinois, after all, could ever hope to obtain, in a 150-day period, the more than 523,000 registered voters' signatures (that's 15 percent of the 3,487,989 total votes cast for governor in the last election) required to initiate a recall effort? Who would be able to get 30 lawmakers' signatures — 15 from each party — onto a petition?

We have a pretty good idea who could navigate and benefit from such a system: special interests and their lobbyists.

That's why we give Jacobs credit on this.

"I think we have to be very careful here," Jacobs said. "We should make the right vote and not the political vote."

Jacobs noted that a governor aware of a threat of recall would lose a measure of independence in making decisions. He wasn't alone in recognizing this, but he was the only one with sufficient backbone to put his principles before politics when it came time to cast his vote.

Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, was among the senators who voted for the measure while expressing strong reservations.

"I think if we go down this path, we're just teeing the ball up for special interests," Raoul said.

We could not agree more. While this recall measure is particularly egregious because of its limited nature (only the governor is vulnerable) and its extreme complexity, we believe all recall measures are invitations to heavily bankrolled special interests to custom-build state government to their liking.

We also believe it must be noted that the person who inspired recall-mania in Illinois government was removed from office by impeachment this year. Though it took an arrest by the FBI to get the process into gear, the impeachment and removal of Rod Blagojevich was remarkably swift and efficient — far more so than this recall system would be.

And while we don't want to blame the victims, we believe it is worth noting that Blagojevich had been re-elected by a 10-point margin just two years before his arrest. Voters in Illinois should have been fully aware in 2006 that there was big trouble in the Blagojevich administration, yet they elected him again anyway. There's only so much protection the state constitution can give us from our own bad judgment at the polls. If our mistake is sufficiently severe, however, the impeachment process has proven itself effective.

We urge voters next year to resist the appealing yet deceptive façade of this measure. It won't empower voters. It will empower big-money interests to manipulate them.



Copyright 2009 State Journal-Register