Christopher Z. Mooney is the director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois and the W. Russell Arrington Professor of State Politics on the Springfield campus. Mooney studies comparative U.S. state politics, with a special focus on state legislatures. He spoke with News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about the results of the 2014 election in the state of Illinois.
Democrats still retain supermajorities in both the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. What can we take away from that result?
There were a handful of very close state Senate and House races, and the Democrats won every single one of them. That shows you that in addition to a lot of hard work, there's a certain amount of luck involved in politics.
Redistricting also undoubtedly had a lot to do with it. The Democrats were in the majority and controlled the governor's office in 2010. It was their prerogative and in their power to draw the legislative map as they saw fit, just as the Republicans would have done were they in that situation - and just as they did in the 1990s when they had the opportunity.
That means the Democrats drew the district lines to the advantage of their party as a whole in each chamber of the legislature. Gerrymandering can't change results dramatically across the state, but on the margins, it can have important effects.
In comparing voting for governor with voting for a state legislative candidate, it's important to understand that most people have no idea who their state legislator is, especially in urban areas, where the districts are small, sometimes confusingly drawn and don't correspond with ward or city districts. It's a little easier downstate, but there's still a lot of confusion between who is your state representative, who is you state senator, who is your congressperson, and so forth. When going to vote, people don't really have a lot of information about the candidates for the legislature. They might recognize a name, but they might just vote straight ticket. In some of the more competitive races, they'll be inundated with brochures, with people knocking on doors, and with phone calls, so they might have a little more information. That's where campaigning actually matters. But in 70 of the 118 Illinois House races, there was no competition in the general election. No challengers on the ticket, and sometimes the only competition they had was in the primary. So voters don't even have the opportunity to influence the outcome in these districts.
And in most of the other 48 Illinois House races on the ballot this year, there was nominal competition, most likely because one party dominates the district and people vote on name or party recognition.
So we've got the status quo in the legislature, which is a result of party identification, redistricting and campaign expertise, but then voters flipped the governor's office. Why is that?
I think you have to differentiate between the governor's race and legislative races. Sometimes the top of the ticket will have coattails and draw votes to a certain party, but that's not always the case. And I don't think it was the case for this election.
On the gubernatorial level, voters have a lot more information about the candidates, especially when it's a competitive and expensive race like the one we just had. Voters get more information the higher up the ticket you go. The presidential election is the extreme version of this, where you know a lot about each candidate. For the governor's race, there were more commercials than we've ever seen before. We had two candidates who were talking to us constantly, who were on the news constantly, so we have some information about who they are and what they would do if elected. Still, party affiliation drives most voting decisions, even at the top of the ticket. But it appears there were more people who were willing to cross party lines in this election.
What role did independent voters play?
Most political scientists will tell you that the so-called independent voter is a unicorn. People say they are independent, but research shows that they're really leaning one way or the other. The true independent who has absolutely no inclination is a rare creature.
How does governor-elect Rauner advance his agenda in a Democratic-controlled state legislature? Is this a recipe for gridlock, or is compromise the more likely path?
The state of Illinois has really bad fiscal problems - a gaping structural deficit and an enormous pension problem, to name the two major ones. The only way we're going to solve them is through painful actions: a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. Nobody likes that, including politicians.
But Rauner touted himself throughout the campaign as a moderate with no social agenda. So he's not an ideologue, and fiscal issues are an area where, almost by definition, compromise is possible. As a businessperson, he's well-versed in the practicalities of solving problems. And our problems are so huge that the only way we can solve them is through bipartisanship. So if they want to get something done, they're going to have to work together, which means compromise.
Are state legislative term limits necessary, or do we already have a pretty good mechanism for political accountability with the power of the ballot box?
Accountability through re-election is a good thing. It means that our elected officials have to think about their actions and what effects their policies will have. Sometimes it makes it tough to do certain things, like raising taxes and cutting spending. But it should be tough to do those things. Ours is government by the people, and people don't want higher taxes. They want more services. It's the job of the political system to resolve this natural dilemma. And it's hard to do, but that's what democracy is all about.