OPINION: Rauner has his finger to the political winds on abortion

April 21--Three years ago this month, private equity investor Bruce Rauner, then running for governor as a socially liberal Republican, underscored his commitment to abortion rights when filling out a candidate questionnaire.

"I dislike the Illinois law that restricts abortion coverage under the state Medicaid plan and state employees' health insurance because I believe it unfairly restricts access based on income," he wrote when submitting answers to Personal PAC, a leading abortion rights organization. "I would support a legislative effort to reverse that law."

Rauner, who was elected governor that fall, is now under fire for doing a complete 180 on this point. He announced recently that he now opposes a legislative effort to reverse the very law he once pledged to reverse.

The explanation, offered by his press office in the form of a quote from a Rauner supporter: The governor "start(ed) listening to the people of Illinois on this issue."

Tut-tuts and ho-hums duly noted. A politician flipping on an issue! Outrageous! Routine! Outrageously routine!

But just for fun, let's unpack this particular inversion.

Rauner and his surrogates regularly insisted during the 2014 primary and during his general election race against incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn that he didn't have a social agenda. He was out to balance the budget, streamline government and improve the state's business climate, not to impose a conservative moral vision on gay people, unbelievers, pregnant women and so on.

I didn't vote for him, but I believed him. And I still believe him. Nothing I've seen from Rauner in his 27 months in office suggests that he's a closet social conservative or that he's particularly animated either way by the "values" issues that tend to excite the GOP base.

He's worried about public-sector unions, not same-sex unions. The choice that concerns him is the choice he wants municipalities to have to opt out of prevailing wage laws, not the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

Still, his views on abortion weren't liberally orthodox enough to get the endorsement of Personal PAC -- he answered an unfriendly "No" on 4 of the 30 yes-no questions on the group's questionnaire, notably indicating he would not support the repeal of a state law that mandates parental involvement in a minor's decision to obtain an abortion.

So why did he bother to fill out the group's form, laying out for posterity stark and generally positive views on abortion rights that he might someday want to walk back?

Well, it may have been the warning next to the asterisk on the last page: "Failure to return this completed questionnaire will result in our assuming your opposition to ALL our positions on reproductive matters."

Personal PAC is not kidding about this. Candidates who blow them off for any reason are likely to find themselves clobbered by attack mailers portraying them as opponents of abortion even in cases of rape and incest; extremists who would like to see women who seek abortions thrown in jail and to severely limit access to contraception.

I've previously criticized the group for this tactic and renew my objection. It's dishonest and unfair.

But whether Rauner feared its members or not, placating Personal PAC was part of his strategy to win in a Democratic state by running as a non-scary Republican. He even doubled-down in the optional "additional comments" section, the space in which he offered the quote above in support of Medicaid abortions and wrote "I fundamentally believe that abortion should be a woman's private decision."

So why the change in 2017, just as Rauner is ramping up to run for re-election against whoever emerges from an already-crowded Democratic primary field? Surely not because he's been "listening to the people of Illinois on this issue."

Polls consistently show Illinois voters are more supportive of abortion rights than the national average. And the people here haven't been talking much about whether Medicaid and state-worker insurance plans should be expanded to provide abortion coverage, since the issue has just recently hit the news in light of the kerfuffle over Rauner's announcement that he'll block such an expansion in a bill now before the House.

I could find no statewide polling on that particular issue, but an October 2016 nationwide poll sponsored by Politico and Harvard University found 58 percent of likely voters, and 77 percent of self-identified Republican voters, oppose the use of taxpayer funds for abortion procedures.

Rauner has disappointed many of the moderate Democrats who decided to take a chance on him in 2014, thinking he had an actual plan to get the state back on its feet. So this time around he's going to need to generate a bit more enthusiasm in the Republican base.

His flip is a hedge against a flop.

___

(c)2017 the Chicago Tribune

Visit the Chicago Tribune at www.chicagotribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.