(The Center Square) – Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar is being remembered for his bipartisanship.
Edgar was a Republican governor from 1991 to 1999. He served as Illinois Secretary of State from 1981 to 1991. Edgar passed away Sunday in Springfield from complications related to treatment for pancreatic cancer at the age of 79.
The Edgar Fellows Program at the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs said as governor, he made hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts, reduced the state government workforce and eliminated bill backlogs.
In May at the Jim Edgar Reading Room dedication at the Illinois State Library he helped get built at the end of being Illinois Secretary of State, he reminisced on the state’s finances during that time.
“We were broke most of the time I was governor, we didn’t have much money,” Edgar said on May 28. “This was one I got to do at the end of my secretary of state.”
Edgar encouraged the space in Springfield to be widely open to the public.
“We need to have people in this library all the time,” Edgar said. “There should be lectures here, there should be gatherings, there’s some, but there should be a lot more.”
Monday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he had a dear fondness for Edgar.
“He’s somebody who carried with him a dignity, an honor and an honesty that is worthy of praise and worthy of emulation,” Pritzker said at an unrelated event in Chicago.
Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias praised Edgar as a great friend and an advisor, and someone who reinforced the importance of civility, compromise and compassion.
Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie said Edgar’s distinguished career included building bridges across party lines, earning respect from Republicans and Democrats.
Funeral arrangements for Edgar have not yet been announced.
