Institue in Chicago Tribune: Illinois needs its own Scott Walker. Where is he?

Read John Kass's column about Illinois's own budget problems, featuring the Institute's John Tillman.

The Institute’s John Tillman was quoted in the following column by the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass:

Illinois needs its own Scott Walker. Where is he?

John Kass
June 7, 2012

As you sit here in Madiganistan, the wind-swept and debt-ridden wasteland once known to foreign travelers as Illinois, and look northward to the free lands of Wisconsin, the question arises:

Where is Illinois’ Scott Walker?

Are there any Scott Walker types among our Republican politicians? Or have they been prudently squirreled away in a cave or woodland hut for safekeeping?

“If there are indeed Scott Walker types here, maybe Republican political leaders have them locked in a room somewhere and refuse to let them out, so they won’t push for bold reform,” said John Tillman, executive director of the fiscally conservative Illinois Policy Institute.

I figure that if Walker had been born in Chicago, the Illinois Republican bosses of the time would have strangled him in his crib, and offered the remains to the Democratic machine as a token of their undying fealty.

Tillman is more optimistic than his quote lets on. He thinks that though the landscape of Madiganistan might seem dry and barren, it’s actually quite fertile, roiling with lush taxpayer anger, just waiting for the right seed to fall and then sprout.

“Illinois is as ripe for bold leadership today as was Wisconsin a few years ago,” Tillman said. “But the question is, ‘Who will rise?’ Do we know their name or will we learn it? My belief is that the name won’t come from the names we know, but from the back bench.”

For those of you who’ve been locked in Al Capone’s vault for the past couple of days, Walker is the Republican Wisconsin governor who just withstood a recall election pushed by the Democrats. Backed by the tea party and conservatives, Walker imposed pension reform, demanding that public workers contribute more to their taxpayer-funded pensions. This was anathema to the Democrats and the public-sector unions who fund them. So the Democrats and the unions and President Barack Obama pushed back. And they lost on Tuesday.

Now the postelection spin has gone national, and everyone with a navel has been analyzing what it all means for Obama and Republican Mitt Romney in the fall election. That’s for another column, as I have a navel too. But the question for today: Since Illinois is swamped with billions upon billions of dollars of public-worker pension debt, where is Illinois’ Scott Walker?

While Tillman may be somewhat optimistic, I’m not. For decades, GOP politics has either been complicit or cowardly or just plain not talented enough to carry a real fight to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan and his union allies. I’m not talking about a Republican who’d scream with veins popping out of his or her neck and a wild angry look in the eye. If you want someone in your face, you’ve got Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh, and you can have him. What was compelling about Walker wasn’t an in-your-face personality. It was his ideas.

And the idea that it is fiscally unsustainable to larder the public employee unions with big pensions and benefits was the idea that won out.

The problem in Illinois is that for years the old GOP bosses ran things with an idea of filling their pockets, not protecting the taxpayers. Big Bill Cellini, the Republican boss awaiting federal sentencing for his corruption conviction stemming from the case of imprisoned Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is a case in point.

And Illinois Republicans — and by this I mean the senior elected officials — don’t seem to have the talent to take on Boss Madigan. House Minority Leader Tom Cross and Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno seem like nice folks. I’ve spent a few afternoons with Cross on the sidelines of youth soccer fields, and he’s quite pleasant.

But does anyone think they have it in them to truly challenge the Lord of Madiganistan? No. And because they don’t challenge him, they can’t possibly offer an alternative for voters.

Still, some think that Walker’s victory changes things here.

“The beauty of Scott Walker is that he said what he was going to do, and he did it,” said Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois GOP. “Scott Walker is moving Wisconsin forward and Barack Obama is going to another fundraiser. Going into November, it’s 1979 all over again, with a rotten economy and tired leadership in the White House.”

I agree. Yes, Obama is as beleaguered as Jimmy Carter. I still think the president will win re-election, but yes, the economy is indeed rotten, and the unemployment numbers are terrible.

But where is the Scott Walker of Illinois?

“We’ve got a whole crew of Scott Walkers in the Illinois congressional delegation,” said Brady. “They’re hard-core fiscal conservatives, like Peter Roskam and Adam Kinzinger and Bobby Schilling.”

So I called Roskam and Kinzinger and Schilling, hoping they’d tell me if they knew where the brave Illinois Scott Walker could be found. But Roskam and Kinzinger and Schilling didn’t call back. You’d think they’d jump at the chance.

Perhaps they were too busy talking about Obama’s future or trying to act like Scott Walker rather than actually entertaining the question of challenging Madigan and the public unions in Illinois.

Or maybe they’re locked in a room someplace, waiting until it’s safe to come out.