A fight ‘to the death’ for Illinois General Assembly’s tuition waiver perk?

It seems that the Illinois Legislature’s perk allowing its members to grant full tuition waivers to college students as it sees fit will go the way of 0.10 – a concept whose time to disappear finally came after years of seeing lawmakers fighting fiercely to preserve it.

The Statehouse remains as secretive a place -- despite the vote to do away with tuition waiver perks -- as it was in the days of this early 20th /Century postcard image.

I still recall back to 1997 when the General Assembly gave its approval for a measure reducing the legal standard for intoxication from a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 to 0.08.

THERE WERE POLITICAL people who fought for it for years, believing that it imposed too harsh of a standard and would wind up criminalizing people who had just stopped at a bar after work for a couple of drinks.

Yet year after year of continually coming up for a vote wore down the opposition, ultimately resulting in its approval. Outspoken critic (and then-Senate President) James “Pate” Philip even wound up backing it in the end – infamously telling reporter-types, “Sometimes, you have to do what the people want.”

Gee, thanks Pate!

Somehow, I can’t help but think the mood is the same these days in the Illinois state Senate, which this week gave final approval to a bill that will eliminate the perk that has existed for more than a century – allowing legislators to give tuition waivers that they insisted on calling “scholarships” even though no money actually changed hands (recipients receive letters telling the university officials they cannot charge that particular student any tuition).

THE STATE SENATE gave an overwhelming vote of support for the measure, although it seems there are some hard-liners who are feeling like they are being forced to go along with this.

In fact, I’m curious to see if those hard-liners will remain stubborn to the end when the concept comes up before the Illinois House of Representatives.

The House has passed the idea before. But now they are going to consider the Senate’s version of a waiver elimination bill. So that vote has yet to come up before Gov. Pat Quinn can show us whether he intends to fulfill his own promises to eliminate the waivers.

I suspect the Illinois House will ultimately vote to eliminate the perk – going along with the mood that doing so will be perceived as a vote for good government.

EVEN THOUGH I’D wonder if giving up this perk is a mere pitiance compared to some of the truly sordid things that have been done by legislators to enrich themselves while performing what they refer, sometimes mockingly, to as, “the people’s business.”

Perhaps letting up to eight people have a free year of tuition at a public university is one of the least corrupt things they do!

I’m being somewhat sarcastic here, but not really.

Because a part of me wonders if perhaps the Black Caucuses in the Senate and House are on to something when they argue against these bans by saying they will deprive some people of a chance to attend college.

BECAUSE THEY COME at a time when financial aid is less and less available – while the cost of college tuition continues to go up and up.

That is what current Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, is getting at when he says that eliminating the tuition waiver perks is something, “you wouldn’t think we’d take relish in eliminating… “

I write these sentences knowing of all the stories that have cropped up in recent years about legislators who gave the perks to college students who were related to people with political connections.

I also realize that the truly sad part of these stories is that they aren’t really new. Such antics have been taking place for decades.

IN LARGE PARK because this was a perk that was created at the very beginning of the 20^th Century with next to no rules about how it was to be administered.

Which means that the legislators who gave out such questionable perks aren’t really in trouble. They can’t have broken a rule if there are next to no rules to be followed!

Does this mean that taking the time to create rules and ensure they would be followed would have been too difficult? That’s the impression I really get from the Illinois Legislature this week.

So I’m not about to question the motives of the five senators who this week voted “no,” or the five others who couldn’t bring themselves to vote “yes” and wound up punching the “present” button instead when the vote was cast.

I’M JUST CURIOUS to see how many more members of the Illinois House will express similar sentiments when this matter comes up for a final vote there sometime in the coming weeks.

Because it will pass. Gov. Pat Quinn will hold an elaborate ceremony to sign the bill into law. People will make grand pronouncements about how they have “cleaned up” Illinois government.

While all they really will have done is wiped away the stain caused by swatting one fly against the Statehouse wall while termites continue to eat away at the foundation of state government.

We’re far from having a “clean” government.

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Legislature to give up college tuition waiver perk? Who’s kidding whom?

It seems that an increasing number of state legislators are going out of their way to distance themselves from a perk that has been a part of their job for more than a century – the ability to send someone to college tuition-free.

Some state legislators are so eager to avoid the headaches that have come to be associated with the measure that they go out of their way to avoid using it.

SENATE MINORITY LEADER Christine Radogno, R-Lemont, has even concocted a bill that would do away with it – and the appearance of bipartisanship could be provided because of the fact that Gov. Pat Quinn has said he would sign it into law if it were ever approved by the General Assembly and sent to him for consideration.

Yet nobody thinks this perk is in any serious danger of disappearing, because too many legislators (including the ones who are actually in control at the ‘Statehouse in Springpatch’) think they are doing a public good with their perk.

That, and they like the ability to ‘play God,’ so to speak, with the ability to help someone who might be in need to be able to attend a public university and work toward a college degree of some sort.

That is the reason why the Legislature’s black caucus members are particularly big fans of the perk – which has been in place since 1905.

SO PEOPLE LIKE state Sen. A.J. Wilhelmi, D-Joliet, and state Rep. Jason Barickman, R-Champaign, can rant all they want about misuse of the perk for political purposes, or how it deprives the state of money that can desperately be used right about now.

The only people who are going to be listening are their hometown reporter-type people who will latch onto the related quotes because it gives the impression that their local official is someone relevant on statewide issues – rather than just a local politico who is asked to vote on issues (usually in accordance with how their leader tells them to).

What motivates me to write this latest commentary on the issue is that I have noticed several reports in places like the Joliet Herald-News or WJBC-AM radio of Bloomington with these legislators shouting and screaming for the need to do away with the tuition waiver perk.

But I don’t sense any movement from the people who might be able to push the measure through. Which means this will be nothing but a lot of ‘hot air.’ Cheap rhetoric fills space, and I have written my share of stories throughout the years that were based on nothing but some political person’s ‘hot air’ talk.

BUT THAT DOESN’T mean we should get our hopes up that any action will occur. We have a better chance of a Chicago Cubs World Series appearance this year than we do of seeing the tuition waiver perk disappearing.

Note that I keep using the phrase “tuition waiver” to describe this action – rather than the politician-preferred phrase of “legislative scholarship.”

The people who back this seem to like the image being created that what they’re doing is controlling a pool of money that is distributed to the public universities across Illinois to pay for the tuition of those students who receive the waivers.

The problem is that there never was, never has been and never will be, any real money associated with this perk. It is a tuition waiver. The people who get chosen by individual legislators to receive the perk get nothing more than an official letter on the legislator’s state stationery.

THE LETTER IS addressed to the bursar of whichever state college the recipient attends, and it informs them that the student in question is NOT to be charged any tuition for the courses they take during that academic year.

Since the colleges in question already realize that they are going to have a certain number of people not paying tuition for political purposes, they react in the obvious manner. Every year when tuition rates are set for the following year, they are boosted ever so slightly higher than otherwise necessary to cover the costs of the freebies they’re forced to give out.

In short, the rest of the student bodies are paying just a little bit higher in tuition rates to cover the costs of the people who get to pay no tuition for the year because it suited the political needs of a state legislator.

To me, the part of this perk that is troublesome is not that it exists. But it is that each legislator is allowed to set his (or her) own terms for who gets it – and for what qualifications.

SO WHILE SOME legislators go out of their ways to create committees that judge students on their academic merits or financial need, others literally are giving them to the children of their political allies.

The way the law is now written, there’s nothing wrong with that. Except that there really is.

As for the people who just want to do a knee-jerk elimination of the perk, I’m not sure what to think. Because as much as I’m sure they want to think they’re being heroic and noble, a part of me believes they, too, are looking for an easy way out by wanting to do nothing at all.

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