Will Lightfoot make deferential gestures to Mr. Speaker to get along?

Just a thought about what the relations will be like in coming years between Mayor-elect Lori Lightfoot and the almighty and powerful Speaker of the Illinois House – Michael Madigan.

MADIGAN: Makes conciliatory remarks

It’s probably going to be up to Lightfoot on whether she desires an antagonistic relationship with “Mr. Speaker” himself!

IF SHE IS willing to show gestures indicating that he’s the guy of prominence within Illinois state government, it would be likely that Madigan would give support to the city’s needs and desires.

Of course, one possible key is that many of the people who were inclined to vote for Lightfoot and view her mayoral election as a moment of great historic significance likely are the same people who wish that Madigan somehow could be voted out of office.

I don’t doubt that at least a few of Lightfoot’s followers eagerly would want her to be hostile and do whatever she can to undermine his political influence.

If that happens, we’re going to see a political relationship that will sour quickly – and will make us think of the “good ol’ days” (heavy sarcasm intended) when people like Bruce Rauner and Rod Blagojevich were in positions of authority.

THIS ISSUE IS coming to the forefront because Lightfoot – although she won’t actually be mayor until mid-May, is making her first trip to the Statehouse Scene in Springfield.

LIGHTFOOT: Will she retort in kind?

She’s expected to be there until Thursday, although Madigan felt the need to issue a statement Tuesday welcoming her (sort of) to the capital city.

“I’m proud to welcome Mayor-elect Lightfoot to a Capitol where women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ community (Illinois House Majority leader Greg Harris is openly gay) are serving in critical leadership roles within the Illinois House Democratic caucus,” Madigan said.

I don’t doubt he’s being sincere, in that he wants all of those groups of people to not view him with hostility. As to whether or not he really believes in Lightfoot as mayor, that remains to be seen. But as long as he doesn’t view her as “the enemy,” perhaps she won’t view him that way either.

IT SHOULD BE noted that Madigan publicly always acknowledges the significance of Chicago’s interests in defining his job. I remember back to the days of Richard M. Daley as mayor when Madigan would always downplay talk of his own political power by saying that the mayor was the number one Democratic political official.

PRITZKER: Says he'll get along fine with Lightfoot

In theory, he’s giving Lightfoot the same treatment – respecting her new job title. Will Lightfoot return the gesture?

I couldn’t help but notice comments she made recently to WTTW-TV where she talked of “not wanting to be part of the (Democratic) party apparatus,” and also hinted that perhaps Madigan has held his dual role as Illinois Democratic chairman (since 1998) for too long.

“I respect the speaker, but I believe in term limits,” Lightfoot said – a line that likely will appease the North lakefront crowd that was the base of her voter support this month but had to have Madigan and his loyalists seething deep inside.

SO WE’LL HAVE to see just what kind of relationship Lightfoot is able to create with the state government officials. For what it’s worth, Lightfoot had dinner last week with Gov. J.B. Pritzker at his Gold Coast neighborhood residence, and he says he thinks he’ll get along just great with the new mayor.

Political amateur Lightfoot gets introduction to Statehouse Scene

But just as we’re still waiting to see how well Pritzker and Madigan manage to co-exist, it will be equally intriguing to see how the Lightfoot/Madigan ties play out.

As Madigan said on Tuesday, “I believe Illinois is strongest when Chicago succeeds and when all are heard.” Which certainly is true enough. But it seems we’ll have to see for ourselves just how sincere he is, and how much Lightfoot is willing to put aside her own ego for the betterment of the public good.

And we’ll have to see what kind of reaction she has the first time someone puts a “horseshoe” before her, that so-called sandwich concoction many Springpatchers try to portray as a culinary delight!

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Is Chicago 2/3rd of Illinois; or merely one of the state’s 13 metro areas?

Chicago’s share of Illinois’ population is just over 20 percent; although if one takes into account the entirety of Chicago metro it becomes about two-thirds of the state – with nearly half the state’s population living in a Chicago suburb.

All too absurd, but also accurate, a perception we have of our state

Yet I can remember my days as a Statehouse reporter-type person with officials from the “rest of Illinois” going out of their way to make references to the Chicago-area as “northeastern Illinois” (to make it sound no different than any other region) and making mention of the fact that the state technically has 13 metro areas.

WITH CHICAGO BEING merely one of them, and trying to act as though we don’t acknowledge the other “cities” that exist in Illinois.

That mentality is what largely is behind the measure signed into law this week by Gov. Bruce Rauner – one that says state agencies must regard Springfield as the default location for where employees on the state payroll are based.

Even though the trend of the past couple of decades is to recognize that the bulk of people who live in this state are up here along (or near) the shores of Lake Michigan.

Which causes griping amongst the people based in the Springfield offices of assorted state agencies because they want to be thought of as the home base – rather than just a distant outpost some 200 miles from the focal point of our state’s activity.

RAUNER: Gaining political points for self

THIS BECOMES A political tactic in that it is an act Rauner can point to in his efforts to gain enough votes from the partisans of central and Southern Illinois come the Nov. 6 elections that he can dream of overcoming the many Chicago-area voters who likely are determined to turn out to the polls to vote against Bruce (amongst others).

Rauner, who himself includes a Chicago city-based condominium among the several residences he owns (he’s that wealthy), is taking sides in the perpetual split between Chicago and rural Illinois.

Which actually is similar to the chasm that exists nationally between urban and rural – with those people who prefer the isolated lifestyle unable to comprehend that they’re in the minority of our society; largely because they don’t know many people different from themselves.

BLAGOJEVICH: Pot shots at former gov

The new law says every job title would have to have a location attached to it – and any position to be based in an office outside of Springfield would have to have a justification attached as to why it shouldn’t be a part of the Statehouse Scene.

A STUDY CONDUCTED for the Illinois Department of Central Management Services (essentially, the personnel department for state government) suggested that several hundred jobs currently based in Chicago ought to be relocated to Springfield.

Personally, I think it would be our state government’s loss if it were to carry this line of logic to an extreme. I suspect they’d find a loss in the quality of employees they’d find willing to take a state job if it meant having to endure “capital punishment” – which in political slang means to have to actually spend time in Springfield when the General Assembly itself isn’t in session.

The river IS why Chicago became what it is. Photo by Gregory Tejeda

Which means passing a law like this truly is a partisan act. Particularly since Rauner, in signing the bill into law, made a point of referring to many of the job location changes being made 15 years ago – as in the exact point when the always-despised Rod Blagojevich took office.

Blagojevich, of course, was the governor who was so unenthralled with showing up at state facilities that he eventually came to do the bulk of his work at an office in his Ravenswood neighborhood home – or at one set up in his ward, almost as though he were just a local political boss.

PERSONALLY, I THINK these regional spats have the potential to hold us back – since Illinois’ greatest advantage truly is that it has elements of all the parts of our society as a whole.

Would Abe have become a White Stockings fan

We ought to try to feed off our knowledge for the collective good.

Instead of thinking there’s something special about promoting the idea of our capital city – which itself is truly a product of 19^th Century mentality. After all, we are a state whose settlement originally began in Southern Illinois, with people presuming that a city like Cairo (where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers converge) would be our pride and joy. We evolved into a place that emphasized Chicago because of its Lake Michigan/Chicago River location (while Cairo has withered away to a town of merely 2,000 people).

There’s even the fact that the family of Springfield’s most famed resident (none other than Abraham Lincoln) eventually moved on to Chicago itself. Would “Honest Abe,” if he had lived long enough to be a retired president, have wound up praising the joys of life in what came to be known as the Second City?

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