Multiple writers have noted that the Democratic field for Attorney General of Illinois, a race that opened up wide after Lisa Madigan's summer 2017 that she would not seek re-election, is relatively strong. I know several of the candidates, and sat in on one entire forum where I got to watch them up close, and agree. At this point the most see the race as between the Cook County party-endorsed candidate Sen. Kwame Raoul, and former Gov. Pat Quinn, to whom several outlets have given relatively short shrift in their analyses. Newspaper favorite Sharon Fairley and Rep. Scott Drury, both capable former prosecutors, have an outside chance, but each competes with the other for “independent new face” votes and for differing reasons were late getting campaigns into full gear; the other four candidates will be also-rans altho each has fans. This post is to make the case for Pat Quinn. The chief difference between Quinn and the field comes in answer to the question of whether they’d do a good job as AG: I think that several others could, but I know that Quinn would. Here’s why.
First, understand the job. The Attorney General is not a legislator or prosecutor. He or she is a constitutional officer who is essentially the managing partner of a very large public not-for-profit general practice law firm, the bulk of which consists of unionized employees rather than dollar-driven partners and associates. The main business of that agency is to be the attorney for state government and simultaneously the People in, primarily, non-criminal matters.
The Attorney General is not meant to be a cheerleader, a bully pulpit for political egos, a quasi-legislator, or a second-guesser of executive initiative. While, because the office is independent, it performs some check and balance functions, its default job is to defend what the legislature passes, what the executive branch does, and what other constitutional officers do. Taking a position contrary to that creates a confound by leaving a statute or officer without AG defense, requiring the appointment of a special attorney general.
While civil litigation against wrongdoers gets the most publicity, the Attorney General is not primarily a prosecutor’s office, and in particular is not primarily a criminal prosecutor; that work in Illinois is primarily up to the county-level state’s attorney. The AG does a lot of unglamorous transactional work, especially since the AG weighs in on state real estate deals. It also does an enormous amount of defense work.
Some other aspects are that cases may be complex and last many years; that the AG’s office pays low relative to even other state agencies; that the Legislature passes the agency’s budget and defines its powers; and that historically the Attorney General often hasn’t been given the resources and political freedom to combat, or hasn’t prioritized, certain matters that greatly concern Illinoisans, such as identity theft, cybercrime, consumer fraud, and political corruption.
Given what the job really entails, and both the limitations and capacities of the office, Pat Quinn is uniquely qualified to be the next Attorney General. He combines the most relevant experience, and the deepest relevant track record, with a career fighting for the consumer and taxpayer.
Experience is Quinn’s unmistakable advantage. Quinn has more experience working in state government than all the other candidates combined. He is the only candidate to have served as a constitutional officer – 12 years – while most of the other candidates, despite some impressive resumés, have not even worked in a state agency before. Quinn is the only one who has put together a constitutional office’s agency budget, or who has negotiated one with the legislature, or who has dealt with the institutional inertia and even resistance that can confront any newly elected agency head. Since it can take a year or more, an entire cycle of budget and legislation, to understand the dynamics and political seasonality of Illinois agency budgeting, the difference between a newbie and someone who can hit the ground running will make a significant difference in the productivity of whoever succeeds Lisa Madigan.
Supervisory experience over attorneys who work for the people and State of Illinois is another area where the Quinn resumé stands out. The AG doesn’t do it alone: he or she has to assemble a team, both lawyers and administrators. Quinn had numerous state attorneys report to him as treasurer and many more as Governor, including not only the governor’s counsel but also 20 agency general counsel who in turn supervised the work of nearly a hundred general attorneys, filtering a massive number of legal matters and advising the governor’s office as well as their own agencies. None of the rest of the field has comparable experience managing other attorneys, let alone State legal units.
Quinn also has the deepest understanding of the work of the AG. Because of his work in three separate constitutional offices, he already has firsthand knowledge of what the AG can or can’t do, and the interrelationship between the AG and other branches of state government: when it can and should operate as a partner, when it operates as a check or balance, and the considerable mechanics of coordinating the AG’s work with other state offices.
To those concerned with the politics, there is the realistic plus that Quinn, at 69, won’t be using the job as a stepping-stone to anything else, sharpening his knife for higher office. We can count on job performance independent of the need to build a war chest.
Finally, while many of the candidates express similar positions on numerous issues, there is Pat Quinn’s record of environmental leadership. Among the powers that Illinois gives to its Attorney General, environmental enforcement is one of the strongest. Quinn was dubbed the “green governor” by the Sierra Club for his understanding and support of numerous issues relating to not just our clean air and water, but the sustainability of the state and its need to transform its energy and transportation economy to prepare for the next century. Yet public environmental issues are an area where the Attorney General could do still more. Much of the office’s environmental work consists of handling referrals from IEPA and IDNR, but the AG can also take initiative. The office was absent from the Lucas Museum case and could be more engaged on fundamental questions of land that belongs to the people of Illinois. Quinn is most publicly known as a consumer advocate and reformer, all good things for an AG, but his environmental track record on small things from dam removal to regulation of fossil fuel extraction deserves more mention in his biography and constitutes an important consideration in this attorney general’s race.
Concededly, Quinn’s record includes some compromises that he, as governor, had to make – as any governor needs to – with the legislature, plus some excesses that occurred in, primarily, one grant program and one agency where actors not associated with Quinn are primarily to blame. No one seriously contends that those were typical of the administration as a whole or that Quinn in any way either profited or was directly involved. Any reasonable observer still sees Quinn as more outsider than “machine,” which is why, along with regret for the outcome of the 2014 election, he still has a statewide constituency.
A second category of grousing is the meme that Quinn has been around too long or is old. Let’s call this what it is: discriminatory ageism. Quinn has energy levels that would be daunting for many half his age. No one has questioned his sharpness. The next four years will see either a repeat of a Republican governor feuding with a Democratic legislature, or a brand new governor who may never have been employed in Illinois government. At the same time, with Lisa Madigan's departure, the state is losing its longest-serving AG ever. Wisdom is something to be cherished and leveraged, not sneered at. The Democrats would be wise to nominate, and the people of Illinois could do worse than to elect, an independent Attorney General with the gravitas and know-how to improve the mix of state government going forward.
In Pat Quinn, the people of Illinois have a committed public servant with fundamentally sound values and ideals, and a track record of standing up for the people against more powerful special interests. He has shown many times resistance to pressure to be more politically expedient. Like all the candidates, he is not perfect, nor will we agree with everything he might do. However, he brings to this race a record of trying to do the right thing coupled with the demonstrated experience to get things done. It’s a compelling case, and a principal reason that Pat Quinn, in a field with numerous smart and idealistic contenders, is likely to be the next Democratic nominee for attorney general of Illinois.