A Young Active's Thoughts on Rauner's Win: Letter from the Inside

Letter From the Inside: A Young Active’s Insights on Rauner’s Win

I received this quick, thoughtful note from a young high school teacher in the early hours of Wednesday, after the election for Governor in Illinois was over.  It’s well worth a read:

“I woke up at 1am and read the election news. I then spent the hours from 1am-3am last night in the depths of despair, plotting my family's move to Finland.

And then, out of sleep deprivation and despair came enlightenment, in the form of 7 bullet points that made me feel slightly better:

#1: IEA/IFT had kid gloves on with Quinn these past few years because he thought they would need to have solid relationships and not burnt bridges if he got reelected and we needed to work with him. There is no such need for making nice with Rauner, so maybe now they can really come out swinging and be as aggressive as they should have been fighting against corporate reform and pension theft.

#2: Democrats are no friends of public education or teachers, but maybe now that they have a common enemy they will get back to their blue-collar, union-supporting, common-good roots.

Rauner's economic recovery plan?

#3: Gridlock with Rauner and Illinois legislature - what can he really get done in terms of sweeping changes? It'll be like Obama and the Republicans.

#4: Rauner and the local politicians who were reelected yesterday are anti SB16.

#5: Rauner is socially moderate, so at least there's no indication that there will be a wingnut religious social agenda accompanying his fiscal agenda.

#6:Illinois is not Wisconsin, so is there really a chance that collective bargaining will be eliminated here?  We don't have the judges or legislators to pull a Walker-style stunt off. At least, I hope that's the case.

#7: The pension clause in the Constitution protects our benefits unless the Illinois Supreme Court rules otherwise OR they have a constitutional convention to reopen it for amendment. So Rauner can't just gut or 401k-convert our pensions by executive order - there's a legal process that has to be followed and that could take years.

I say all this to convince myself that the sky is not, in fact, falling.

Also, I read this comment on Klonsky's blog this morning and thought it was a good outlook: 

“’Let me simply point out that resistance to someone diametrically opposed to your position is often done better than resistance to someone who pretends to be your friend. Rauner may finally unify and organize his own opposition.’

Interested to hear your thoughts.”