Top Senate Republican calls for compromise on capital bill

Illinois Sen. Republican Leader Frank Watson (R-Greenville) has been meeting with Gov. Rod Blagojevich and other Senate and House leaders in hopes of passing a capital improvement bill to repair the state's weakening infrastructure. The bill would generate state and federal funds for road and bridge repairs, school construction projects and public transit.

Blagojevich proposed a scaled-down $25 billion plan to state leaders Thursday, removing a controversial bid to expand gambling in an attempt to compromise with House Democrats led by House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago), who has rejected multiple capital bills that have passed the Senate. The most recent proposal, which gained Senate approval in May but was rejected in the House, was for $34 billion.

Watson said he supports Blagojevich's proposal and that the need for compromise outweighs the present disagreements between the governor and the speaker.

Another proposed compromise involves the so-called "pay to play" ethics bill, which would limit campaign contributions from contractors to candidates who are responsible for awarding contracts. Blagojevich has been reluctant to sign the ethics bill but suggested in Thursday's meeting that he would be more likely to sign if Madigan agreed to the capital bill, Watson said.

Watson talked with Medill News Service about his ideas on compromise, infrastructure and ethics reform.

Q: Last week's proposal for a $25 billion capital improvement bill takes gambling off the table as a potential source of funding. Do you consider this to be a step in the right direction?

A: My attitude is that I will negotiate on anything that will get a capital bill done, because it's going to be good for the whole state, and it's important that we do it. It's been since 1999 since we've had a capital bill, so I will sit down and talk about anything that will be meaningful, and will negotiate on anything that will bring about some infrastructure legislation. So trying to satisfy the speaker's concerns, I have no problem with that.

Q: On Thursday you said that "nothing ever gets accomplished" in these meetings between senators, representatives and the governor. Is there any way to make them more productive?

A: I think everyone has to realize there's give and take. I wish the speaker would put a program on the table. I think if everybody's really sincerely interested in seeing a capital plan move forward, we'd see a lot more give and take. You'd see compromise. You'd see different proposals being put out there, and we're not seeing that from the speaker.

Q: With the proposal to lease out the Illinois Lottery still on the table, how do you evaluate this as a revenue source for paying for the capital bill?

A: I'm not necessarily enamored of that, but I supported it when it was in the bill in the Senate, and if that's the means by which we generate the revenue for a capital bill, then so be it. But there are a lot of negotiations that have to go on when we talk about leasing the lottery: protection of employees, and making sure that the $650 million a year that's generated from the lottery that goes to education remains. Somehow we have to have a clear understanding that that revenue is going to continue to come in.

Q: What do you think are the most important improvements that the capital bill would address?

A: Roads and bridges. There's an outcry and a tremendous need for road construction and maintenance. Our infrastructure is just deteriorated. And of course the federal dollars that are there. [$9 billion in federal funds could be lost if a compromise is not reached] It's criminal to leave this on the table. Whether it's mass transit, whether it's roads and bridges, or whether it's school construction, or airports, water, sewer-there's a lot of dollars that can be accessed for this program that doesn't necessarily come from the state. That was all part of what we were trying to do. If we have to do a scaled-down version, I'm willing to look at it, and be a part of trying to negotiate something through.

Q: How would you characterize the governor's leadership through the process of trying to get this bill passed?

A: Well, he's trying. I wish he wouldn't be so confrontational. That's the whole problem here. It's about the Democrats not being able to get anything done. The leadership of this state has been entrusted with one major party, and they're all from Chicago. No problem necessarily with that. They got what they needed with the RTA-CTA, and now there are other needs throughout the state. It's just alarming to me that I don't see them taking the lead on this in some sort of lockstep. He's the governor of the state and he should be providing that leadership.

Q: Do you think that the "pay to play" bill is an effective bargaining chip that could be included as part of the compromise to pass the capital bill?

A: There's been some misinterpretation of what I've said. There was an editorial in the Champaign News-Gazette saying that I was tying this to the capital bill. That's not what I said at the meeting at all. I said it's the ethics concern that [the Senate Republicans] have, and I said [Blagojevich] ought to sign House Bill 824, and that would end some of the ethics concerns that we in the Senate have. I'm not tying ethics to capital. That's what he said. He said he would sign the ethics bill if the capital bill passed. I said, 'You ought to sign it now and put that issue behind us.