Why Second-Order Effects Matter (local politics edition)

Last updated on: June 25, 2025 at 10:07 pm by Jane the Actuary

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Why Second-Order Effects Matter (local politics edition) 2025-06-25T22:07:45-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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Several years ago, it was my suburb’s turn to debate the question of flying the “pride flag” during the month of June. As these things go, opponents didn’t explicitly oppose the “pride flag” per se but rather raised the prospect of the slippery slope; having signed on to flying a flag of one interest group, how can you say no to others? Supporters suggested the ordinance limit flag-flying to flags flown on the Illinois state capitol, which, conveniently, numbered two at the time (and probably still do): the “pride flag” and a flag for Juneteenth (which means that, without looking it up, I’m guessing these discussions occurred prior to June of 2021). They anticipated the matter would be resolved neatly: in the manner of Winnetou in my husband’s childhood’s Karl May books/movies, they would say, “Huc, ich habe gesprochen” (“I have said it”/”it is decided” – so far as I know) and the matter would be decided and resolved. Their intentions were pure and simple, to express their support and welcome to the LGBT community. They had no intention for other groups to feel slighted, to wish to have flags representing their own groups to fly as well; they merely wanted to do this one thing and really seemed incapable of acknowledging that the outcome could in any way be different than what they intended.

As it happens, at the time, the “pro pride flag” lost to a slightly larger “no special flags” majority; though now that progressives have taken control of the village board, the issue is headed toward being revisited. But in the meantime, two members of the board of trustees have now made their way to the State House (the suburb has two representatives, one from the north half and another from the south have of a very rectangular/oval town), and they have taken with them their mindset that what counts are intentions, not the actual effects, let alone the second-order effects. At least, that’s what I think is the most charitable interpretation of their words in their recent Town Hall event, which consisted of their touting their legislative activity (including the pork they brought home to the district — ugh! I hate that grants are allocated by political power rather than need), followed by carefully screened questions written on notecards submitted to a moderator.

Of the topics addressed, I want to talk about just three: the Homeschool Act, the Transit bill, and the Asssisted Suicide bill, because its their responses to these questions that fall into the “can’t recognize unintended consequences” category.

The Homeschool Act I’ve written about before. The bill was never brought up for a vote because of the opposition but it would have imposed regulations on homeschooling for the first time. When asked to address opposition to it, and whether they would make changes to the bill to garner more support, each of the two representatives repeated their support, based on a certain number of instances (whether in Illinois or elsewhere) where individuals were pulled from school and never actually provided education, or, worse, were victims of abuse. In other words, they repeatedly emphasized the noble intention of the bill. Rep. Canty claimed that the bill merely required a “simple form” (not true; it also required an ill-defined “portfolio” entirely at the discretion of the local school district) and Rep. Grasse claimed that virtually none of the opponents of the bill who contacted her actually lived in her district (that’s doubtful, because there’s a substantial homeschool community in town, and extensive lobbying efforts). Neither of them was willing to address the question of possible changes to make the bill more acceptable to homeschooling families except for a single offhand almost unaware comment that another bill sponsor was “talking to stakeholders” about changes.

Regarding the transit bill, well, the question I submitted was not asked — not because of time constraints (the event ended early) but (at least as far as the moderator claimed to be the case) because it was “too political.” But the question was a simple one: in the bill currently being discussed behind closed doors, but with the proposal as currently outlined to create a new regional transit board with members split into four groups, appointed by Chicago, Cook County, the Collar Counties, and the Governor, what protections would there be that we suburbanites don’t get steamrolled by the city? That’s a real concern and in fact a group of suburban mayors (excluding our own, likely because he just took office and is getting settled in) just released a letter in which they objected (among other concerns) that

The proposed structure of the NITA Board lacks the necessary safeguards to ensure balanced regional representation. We urge you to consider models like the CMAP Board, which requires a 4/5 majority vote to pass all major decisions. Without similar protections, there is a real risk of disenfranchising any one subregion and discouraging collaboration.

On paper, Cook County is supposed to be standing up for the interests of suburban Cook County residents in this new structure – but that’s absurd, given that over half of Cook County’s population is from the city of Chicago, and the city is where the power base of county government is found. What’s more, the very construction of the county, with a “panhandle” to the northwest as well as towns encircling the city to the south, east, and north, means there is no governmental entity representing the interests of suburban Cook County in any way.

Yet, despite this concern, Canty touted the great work that her working group had achieved in terms of a governance structure — and, once again, because she intends for the new structure to work, she’s just not willing to address the question of the risk that it won’t.

And last, and most distressingly, the assisted suicide bill that both Canty and Grasse were sponsors of, a bill which seemed to have been stopped in its tracks until it reappeared in the form of a “gut-and-replace” bill at the last moment and was passed by the House but not the Senate, with the risk that it comes up again for a vote in the fall. The question that was asked was, essentially, “how will you prevent the eligible conditions from being expanded to include mental health as in Canada?” To their credit, they recognized the meaning of the question even though (at least as read by the moderator) it was a bit confused: in Canada, the government has moved from permitting assisted suicide/euthanasia for terminal conditions to permitting it for pain and suffering and now for cases where, due to a mental illness, an individual is suicidal. Grasse even acknowledged (based on my notes), “I understand how scary it is that this could be abused.” But despite recognizing the risk of a slippery slope, she continued by insisting there are proper safeguards.

But here are my notes on Rep. Canty’s comments: she supports assisted suicide based on a principle of “people being able to make their own medical decisions.” She then repeated, “I do not believe we should be making decisions for other people.”

That mindset is exactly what results in the safeguards failing.

Fundamentally, it is just not enough to have written a set of safeguards. Once the bill passes, a process is set into motion, and the end result is not going to be driven by the intentions of the original supporters. For that matter, research which I admittedly don’t have at my fingertips right now has shown that the development of a process for assisted suicide in a given state or country invariably increases the “regular” suicide rate. It’s not possible to control the message by means of good intentions. It’s not possible to tell a certain group of people, “yes, you’re right, your lives are too full of suffering to continue living,” and simultaneously preserve a message to others of “keep on fighting.” It just doesn’t work that way.

So, again, it’s the actuary in me, in the end, but, yes, weighing the long-term impact of decisions matters much more than having good intentions and wishes for favorable outcomes.

Illinois state capitol; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illinoiscapitol2.jpg

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