by Charles Ray

Created on: May 15, 2009

Apparently impatient with Governor Pat Quinn's pace of clean up in the state work force, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has introduced legislation to help him speed things up.

House Bill 4450, if passed, would require that some 3,000 state workers and board chairmen appointed by Quinn's disgraced predecessors, George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich, be dismissed unless Quinn takes action to reappoint them. Quinn has himself expressed no objection to the proposed legislation.

At first glance, this would seem a logical move. After all, Illinois has had two successive administrations that have brought nothing but discredit upon the state.

It is not, however, fair to blame all appointed officials for the sins of their patrons. At the same time, is fair to expect that the new executive be allowed to have his own appointed leadership in place. Not only does this provide him greater assurance that his political platform will be faithfully implemented, but it sends a clear message to the population that there is a clean break with the past. So, there should be no problem with the proposed law.

The devil, though, is always in the details. It is true that appointees don't actually do the work. They interpret the executive's policies for the permanent work force, who then actually implement them. One should not, however, underestimate the turmoil caused in executive agencies by a turnover in leadership. This is true during any change in administrations, but when that turnover is massive, and comes out of a scandal-ridden period, the devastation and morale-dampening effects are magnified geometrically. Such "putsches" create rumors that operate in hyper drive, and the one thing on earth that is known to move faster than the speed of light is rumor. The more negative the rumor, the faster it moves through the universe of the work force, growing at each transfer. Projects that were moving at a bureaucratic pace (somewhere between the speed of a snail and a three-toed tree sloth) can grind to a halt and end up in stasis. Once they lose momentum, it is extremely to get them started again.

Another devilish detail is the simple fact that legislative solutions to administrative problems have a lousy track record. It might seem simple sitting in the legislative chambers or in front of a computer to come up with the 'perfect' solution. What those on the outside of the executive branch often fail to consider, however, are the hundreds of brush fires the harried

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