Paul Jacob - Introduction of John Tillman, winner of the Roe Award
At the Thomas Roe Dinner
State Policy Network's 19th Annual Meeting
Bellevue, Washington
August 25, 2011
It is a great honor for me to introduce the man we honor tonight with the prestigious Thomas Roe Award.
I must say that John Tillman has done very well - at least, for someone who doesn't know anything about politics. That's an inside joke, and I guess I'll let you in on it. When John made the jump from the business world to the world of politics, sometimes his ideas or thoughts didn't quite coincide with the ideas of some of the folks we were working with, people who in many cases had spent decades in politics. To counter John's ideas, the hit against him was that he just didn't "know politics."
Granted, John certainly didn't have as much political experience as some, but what made John a success in business is precisely what has made him so successful in the non-profit political world. The attributes that create a successful business entrepreneur are also those same character traits that make a successful political entrepreneur.
And, my goodness, John Tillman and the Illinois Policy Institute have run up some mighty impressive stats. Since 2007, when John took over the helm at the Institute:
* The staff has increased from two people to 18 people.
* Fundraising has increased 26-fold. Not two-fold or five-fold or even 10-fold, but 26-fold. In fact, just the grants the Illinois Policy Institute has made to other organizations it works with total eight times the amount of the old Institute budget.
* In just the last six months, the Illinois Policy Institute has garnered over 300 media appearances, being featured in the Wall street Journal, the New York Times and on Chicago TV, where John debated the governor.
But those are merely statistics and don't truly represent what John and the Illinois Policy Institute have accomplished.
Or HOW what they've accomplished has been accomplished.
Anyone can hire more people - if they have the money (and increasing revenue 26 times over sure helps.) But John hired great people. Did I mention I once worked for John?
In one of the hallmarks of success, John has surrounded himself with talented, high-quality people. This is possible because John is a team player dedicated to advancing liberty, not stroking his own ego, so great people want to work for him.
The money raised and the attention the Institute gained are also not an end in themselves, but a means to advance free market principles and freedom.
* The Illinois Policy Institute can take credit for stopping income tax increases in 2009 and 2010 - saving Illinois taxpayers $8 billion.
* A school voucher bill supported by the Institute's research and publicity passed one chamber of the legislature and fell a few votes short in the other.
* More Illinois school kids are able to go to charter schools and gain a better education because of legislation the Institute championed.
* The Illinois Policy Institute helped popularize the idea of Health Savings Accounts for state employees, which has now been enacted into law.
* And due to the Institute's aggressive campaign for greater government transparency, Illinois citizens now have laws mandating searchable online databases for information on government, including public employee pay.
How did they do it?
Well, there's an old saying: "Whether you believe you can do it or you believe you can't, you're right!"
John Tillman believes that liberty can advance, that free market principles can win in the marketplace of ideas. I remember talking to John a number of times in the first months after he began leading the Illinois Policy Institute and hearing his genuine puzzlement at the pessimism he encountered. People would claim it was hopeless, that Illinois was not a place willing to trade their big government gambits for policies providing greater freedom and independence.
John Tillman listened intently to those people, but he was never swayed by their defeatist attitudes. He kept pushing ahead with confidence. That's true leadership.
John is also the consummate happy warrior. It's important to be a happy warrior, to have fun and to make the creation of political change fun. People flock to fun and not so much to dreary drudgery.
Emma Goldman, the famous radical, once quipped, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." Now, I don't know how much dancing they do at the Illinois Policy Institute. And I don't know if we even want Emma Goldman to be part of our revolution. Actually, she long ago passed away. So, now she only occasionally votes in Illinois . . . and perhaps from time to time in Wisconsin.
Illinois being the ‘Land of Lincoln,' we should remember that Mr. Lincoln once observed, "We are as happy as we decide to be." And I'll take that further to say that we are also as free as we decide to be.
John Tillman has made that unequivocal decision to be free and to make it happen through his work and leadership at the Illinois Policy Institute. I'm happy to call John my friend. And I'm happy that freedom has a champion and we have an example to emulate like John.
Not bad at all . . . for someone who doesn't know anything about politics.
John, please come up and accept the Thomas Roe Award.
