Why you should care about veto override thresholds (even though they don’t sound very sexy)

Hint: This has a lot to do with it.

Compared with all the issues to get worked up about in Illinois politics — often sexy lil’ buzzwords like “Blagogate,” “clout,” or “parking meter scandal” — the concept of the “veto override threshold”  seems a little … well, boring. And dry and dusty and technical. But trust me, the truth is that if you’ve purchased ANYTHING in Cook County, Illinois in the past 400 or so days (or even lived in Cook County after the year1870), the seriously important issue of the veto override threshold has intimately affected both you and your pocketbook virtually every day. Here’s how:

Before Gov. Quinn signed a bill this afternoon overhauling the veto system (more on that in a bit), the Cook County Board had been operating under a real headache of a requirement since 1870: a virtually impossible four-fifths majority of county commissioners were required in over to overturn the veto of the board president. To give some perspective, requiring a four-fifths majority to override anything is among the highest anywhere in democratic systems today. Even President Obama himself can see his veto overturned if two-thirds of Congress vote to do so (and for you non-math kids, that’s a lot less than four-fifths).

According to the Chicago Civic Federation, the four-fifths law in Cook County made sense waaaay back, once upon a time in 1870, when the procedures for electing the commissioners led to imbalances between suburban and city pols. But since the board restructured in the 1970’s in a way that negated this imbalance, the four-fifths rule has become “meaningless.” Critics have even called it a threat to democracy as we know it, since 13 out of 17 commissioners on the board (a full 76%) could vote one together and still get smacked down. Yet, the pesky law stayed on the books. In my view, it’s probably stayed because, as Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin points out, it’s the perfect prop for the Machine, and “the time-honored Chicago tradition of one-man rule.”

Flash forward to 2008, and County Board President Todd Stroger has managed to pass a very unpopular penny-on-the-dollar sales tax increase. (Because God forbid we save a little money by slashing bloated government and patronage hires instead.) As a result, Chicago is crowned with the inglorious title of the metropolitan area with the highest sales tax (10.25%) in the entire country. Not such a great title, huh? And like many city-dwellers, I start to save up my shopping trips for when I’m in the ‘burbs. Opponents launch efforts over the next year to repeal the increase, but with Stroger’s certain veto and a daunting four-fifths override threshold set against them, the tax stays in place to many peoples’ dismay. Like these legislators, who launched an effort to change it this past September:

Today, these legislators won their battle today when Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill requiring that the veto override threshold be lowered to a much more reasonable three-fifths. In other words: the Cook County Board just got way more democratic, and far less susceptible to one-man rule.

The Clout St. article says that “commissioners have vowed to move quickly under the law to roll back the tax increase,” and I challenge them to keep that promise. Yes, taxes support a whole host of vital services to society, but we all know that there’s more than a little room in Chicago government to trim some fat (patronage hires, anyone?) without making hospitals, schools, etc. burden the cuts. Because when it comes to the subject of veto overrides, it’s all about making government more accountable to its citizens and more representative of their votes – in a word, more democratic.