When last we heard from state Senator James Meeks, he had dropped out of the governor's race and endorsed Governor Rod Blagojevich's much hyped education/lottery plan. With the proposal currently under fire from almost all corners, I thought it might be a good time to check back in with him.
"Nobody is discussing the education-reform plan," Meeks sighed when asked what most surprised him about the reaction. "Everybody is discussing the funding source."
That's true. Most editorials, columnists and critics have lauded the proposed education reforms, but they've all blasted away at the idea of selling or leasing the lottery to pay for it.
Still, I suggested to Meeks, there's a growing sense that the education reforms he pressured the governor into accepting in exchange for bowing out of the race will benefit Chicago at the expense of Downstate.
Meeks was undaunted, pointing out that well over $200 million would be spent statewide the first year. Plus, he said, "Everybody will get new textbooks, all schools will get new libraries ... and new technology."
Senator Meeks refused to directly criticize the governor's universally panned rollout of the proposal, but he is clearly not happy with the way it was done. When asked about House Speaker Michael Madigan's letter to legislators that demanded several answers about the proposal, including about the funding source, Meeks said, "A mistake that any leader makes is when that individual's entire leadership team is not on-board and forced to ask public questions. Speaker Madigan is now asking public questions. ... But before I would make a big announcement like that, I would make sure that my leadership team is completely on-board."
Meeks is also taking Madigan's belated criticisms with a grain of salt. Madigan pointed out in his letter that he worked with Governor Jim Edgar on a tax-swap plan, so Meeks claims Madigan is now implying that the tax swap is the way to proceed. "But when I was trying to do that [tax swap] deal," Meeks said, Speaker Madigan was "nowhere to be found. He was silent. But now all of a sudden he writes letters about that. And I'm saying: What in the world is going on?"
Meeks dismissed much of the harsh criticism in the media and in the political sphere of the lottery-based funding mechanism. "The same people who are saying this is a bad idea ... these are the same people who were against what I was trying to do before," he said, adding that it doesn't make a difference what is proposed, because the level of criticism will be the same.
What about the criticism that he was looking for a graceful way out of the race and fell for a Blagojevich bluff? Meeks insisted he was serious about the campaign, and reminded me of all the conversations we had about the legwork and preparations he had done.
And Meeks had harsh words for those who suggest he agreed to a bad idea. When he was contemplating a run for governor as a way to force a deal on education reform, "none of the school-funding groups, not one, called me and said this is the right thing to do," Meeks claimed. "They were not backing me. And now all of a sudden they have a lot of opinions. If they were around to give me some advice, maybe I would have made the choices that they wanted."
The governor has taken some well-deserved hits for his claims that the threatened Meeks candidacy had nothing at all to do with the new education plan or the timing of the announcement. Meeks wouldn't directly counter the governor's statements, but did note that he met with the governor's education people twice to discuss his plan, and that much of what he proposed on the reform side "showed up as [the governor's] plan" three weeks later.
Another criticism leveled at Meeks is that he trusted Blagojevich to implement a plan even though almost nobody in state government trusts the guv. Meeks said he hopes that the Legislative Black Caucus, which he chairs, will back him up next spring. "If they don't see what the governor has promised in next year's budget, they don't have to vote on it," Meeks said. "We could be there until Christmas."
Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter. He can be reached at (http://www.thecapitolfaxblog.com).
