And then there were zero.
Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner entered office in early 2015 with 44 items on his "turnaround agenda." They made up a wish list of changes he wanted to make in how Illinois government operates, and he quickly shaved it down to a manageable handful of demands.
And until those specific demands were met, he said, he would not negotiate a full-year budget with the Democrats who control the General Assembly.
What exactly was on that list of preconditions at any given time as the budget stalemate ground on was difficult to keep track of.
Sometimes news reports out of Springfield listed changes to workers' compensation laws, pension formulas and the way municipalities bargain with their employees.
Other times the list included legislative term limits, nonpartisan political maps and a property tax freeze. Changes to the award structure in civil lawsuits were occasionally on the list, which had reportedly shrunk to just two items by the end of last year.
So when the governor stopped by the Tribune on Wednesday afternoon to meet with the editorial board, I took the opportunity to ask for an update. "What are your current must-haves?"
"There isn't one," he said. "There never has been. I've been clear about that. I've laid out what I think will move the needle. ... There's no one or two things that have to be in there … but what's essential is that we be able to talk to job creators and say, 'It's a new day in Illinois. Things are different.' And have it be real."
He was similarly vague — I would even say squishy — about the package of 13 interlocking compromise bills that are taking shape in the state Senate. Democratic Senate President John Cullerton and Republican Senate leader Christine Radogno have been cobbling together carrot-and-stick legislation designed to break the impasse that began in July 2015. That stalemate has resulted in a deepening of the state's budget crisis and cuts to human services and higher education.
The specifics keep changing and, as with any such bipartisan omnibus, there's a lot for members of both parties not to like. The end result may or may not be better than nothing. But Rauner declined to offer any advice or leadership other than his support of collaboration and compromise, which, frankly, isn't going to get the job done.
It will be politically risky for many rank-and-file lawmakers to vote for the tax increases and funding cuts that will almost certainly be in the final set of bills scheduled to come to the floor the week of Feb. 6. Constituents and interest groups from across the political spectrum are already howling.
The Illinois Policy Institute, a free-market think tank, issued a report Tuesday arguing that the state can quickly achieve a balanced budget with no tax increases by diminishing wages, benefits and pension programs for state workers, trimming staffs, shifting costs to local governments and reducing funding for higher education. Oh, and taking away Medicaid support for more than a half-million low-income adults.
You know, popular stuff we can all get behind.
And without even bothering to take issue with their math — as the left-leaning Center for Tax and Budget Accountability did in a web posting Wednesday — I would dismiss the IPI report as a fantasy exercise except for the inevitability that it will give comfort and support to Republican lawmakers, in particular, who are looking for any excuse not to cast tough votes in the coming weeks.
And without significant Republican buy-in, Democratic leaders aren't going to vote for any tax hikes.
The "we can do it Asyabahis without raising taxes!" report along with Rauner's decision to stay in the background looks like a recipe for failure. What once looked to me like green shoots in the soil around the Capitol now look like dead weeds.
Which brings me to Attorney General Lisa Madigan's announcement that she intends to go to court at the end of February to fight the long-standing order that has allowed state workers to continue to get paid even without a budget appropriation. If she succeeds, all hell won't break loose — prison guards and other necessary public health and safety workers will get paid — but quite a bit of hell will break loose as many day-to-day services shut down; certainly enough hell to force a quick settlement.
And less hell, it seems to me, than Illinois will experience if we let this stalemate drag on until the election in November 2018.
Rauner's number of demands, zero, is also the number of good options we have left.
Twitter @EricZorn
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