Automatic was a nice improvement on car transmissions, on bank cash machines and on cat litter boxes, but it’s not so great when government tries to automate.
Illinois state government likes making laws with automatic features. They require no additional responsibility or thought. But they come at a high cost.
For example, the state gasoline tax: Gov. J.B. Pritzker and state lawmakers doubled it and then built in automatic increases scheduled for every July 1, which means state lawmakers never again must vote for the unpopular tax hikes. Pritzker may have earned extra bonus points for the campaign trail when he delayed this year’s tax for six months, but that means two increases in 2023 when the tax is expected to hit 45.2 cents per gallon when it was 19 cents pre-Pritzker.
Illinois on automatic example No. 2: Pritzker’s emergency declarations, which he’s imposed 32 times. He’s cried “pandemic” for nearly 2.5 years to circumvent the messy legislative process, and instead used disaster declarations intended to last 30 days to impose 116 executive mandates. At some point the emergency becomes “situation normal” and state lawmakers should resume manual control to debate and vote on those 116 orders.
But the biggest potential for automatic governance is headed for voters Nov. 8 in the form of Amendment 1. It’s being portrayed innocuously as a “Workers’ Rights Amendment,” when in reality it is a way to keep the corrupt Mike Madigan-era government union preferences in place without state lawmakers getting their hands dirty.
Amendment 1 does a lot more than stop Illinois from becoming a right-to-work state. It uses the same constitutional tactic that has stopped Illinois from fixing its nation-leading $313 billion pension debt by declaring state lawmakers can pass no law that “interferes with, negates, or diminishes” government union powers. Hands off, at the same time government unions’ negotiation topics are vastly broadened past wages and benefits.
Once negotiations are automatic and elected leaders’ roles are restricted by the state constitution, expect the demands to get more militant. The Chicago Teachers Union has been in the lead of activism, trying to impose a political and social agenda through its contracts that included housing issues, “restorative justice,” wealth redistribution and even defunding the police.
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