(bright music) (lens beeps) - Welcome to another episode of "Capital View," your look at what's happening inside and outside the Illinois State Capital.

I'm your host, Jennifer Fuller.

With us this week are Charlie Wheeler, and Jerry Nowicki.

Charlie is the Emeritus Director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Jerry is the Statehouse Bureau Chief for Capital News, Illinois.

Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us.

- It's always a pleasure.

- Thanks for having us.

- We're glad to have you here.

It is as always a busy week in and around the state capital.

This is State Fair week in the city of Springfield, which really is a statewide event.

And one of the big things that happens throughout the week, is you have those rallies and those days where Democrats and Republicans have their own day during the week to come together and really kick off, or perhaps in this case, continue the campaign season leading up to the November election.

The Democrats had their day first this week and Charlie, what did you take away from Governor's Day or Democrat Day at the Illinois State Fair?

- Well, it occurred to me that they're in high campaign mode, and they're gonna focus very much on what they see as the radicalization of the Republican party.

The fact that the far right, seems to be in charge and I didn't keep an accurate count, but I'm pretty sure that they referred to Bruce Rauner almost as much as they referred to anybody else in their campaign speeches at their brunch yesterday, pointing out that from their perspective, Bruce Rauner was the worst governor that we've ever had.

But oh no, here comes Darren Bailey, the current GOP gubernatorial candidate, and he'll be even worse.

And so it's, it's pretty much, as I say, it's high campaign season.

They've been attacking Bailey from day one, and there's no indication that they're gonna let up, and so I suspect we're gonna see a lot more of that.

And today as we're taping, this is the Republican Day at the fair.

So we'll have to see what the Republicans say in response.

It'll probably be along the lines that Pritzker is the worst governor ever.

So we'll have to wait and see.

- Jerry, is that what voters are choosing this year, a choice between who is the worst governor?

- I don't know about that, but I think what we saw at the Democratic breakfast, they characterized the GOP as lunatic fringe, a cult of fear and all that.

But there was also a lot of discussion of what Democrats had passed, 'cause whether you agree with the agenda or not, Pritzker was very effective at passing a lot of the stuff he told you he was going to pass, when he ran in 2018.

There was the Climate Equitable Jobs Act, and infrastructure plan.

There's the minimum wage increase to $15 an hour, just all sorts of stuff like that.

And then there was the bipartisan budgets and the credit upgrades, and certainly the federal spending.

Federal dollars in the US economy made things easier for states in that regard, in balancing budgets over the years.

But over the last couple years, since COVID-19.

"Democrats deliver," was the easy two word talking point that they tried to convey in that regard.

And the Republicans, there's still a lot of talk about a lot of the social issues regarding the type of sexual education courses they say they'd like to repeal.

Those were tied to non-governmental standards in a bill last year, that the Republicans aren't happy with seeing.

There's just that type of focus on the COVID-19 response.

Darren Bailey today he said, we can't let the voters forget that this state essentially shut down a lot of the statewide economy, ruined businesses, is the talking point they're using.

So that's the type of dichotomy we're seeing.

- Certainly and the Democratic party is not without its challenges.

We saw lots of images and heard a lot about Democratic unity and working together.

But it's not even been a a month yet since there was this big shake up at the top of the Democratic party of Illinois.

And I'm reminded of that Will Rogers quote, "I'm not a member of any organized political party.

I'm a Democrat."

Charlie, when you look back at the history, of the Democratic party of Illinois, and you see such a long tenure with someone like Michael Madigan at the top of that party, how does this shake up, or these challenges really shake out, in terms of the party's success?

- Oh, I think, what would you say?

It's very much inside baseball and the overriding aim of the Democrats is gonna be to elect candidates.

And within the fraternity, within the family, they may disagree over things, but the bottom line is that they wanna win office.

And so they're gonna set aside whatever personal differences they might have to engage voters, try and convince them that the Democratic candidates have more to offer than the Republican opponents.

So I don't think the tension that existed over who was gonna be the chair of the Democratic party, I don't think that's going to have a major impact going forward on the outcome of the election.

As a matter of fact, the former chair, Congresswoman Robin Kelly from Madison, who lost the job to State Representative Lisa Hernandez, from Cicero, who was backed by Governor Pritzker, she wasn't at the brunch at the Governor's Day event at the State Fair.

But she issued a statement saying, quote, "She'd back Democrats up and down the ballot, whether or not we are united.

The stakes are too high.

This is the most important election of our lifetime."

She said in a statement, and I believe it was to you, Jerry, wasn't it?

- Yes.

They gave that statement upon request from reporters.

- Yeah and so in my mind, that's the history of the Democrats.

They may feud among themselves, but when it gets to November and it's D's versus R's, the D's tend to stick together.

- The Republicans are not without their own challenges at the top of the ticket.

We still haven't seen in all corners of the Republican party, a full-throated endorsement of Darren Bailey for governor, and Jerry, how big a deal is that?

That you still have some of these holdouts that are hesitant to say that they are the party of Darren Bailey, the party, in some cases, the party of Donald Trump?

- It's similar to the Democratic side in that Richard Irvin and House Minority Leader, Jim Durkin, they aren't saying, "Oh yeah, vote Bailey, vote Bailey."

They're saying, "We support the ticket.

We support the GOP ticket."

I think that's what leader Durkin said Thursday morning, when he was asked specifically, "Are you supporting Darren Bailey?"

'Cause it was during the primary when he was a Richard Irvin backer, the mayor of Aurora and I asked him, I said, "Why are you up here supporting Mayor Irvin, rather than your former house colleague, Darren Bailey?"

And he said with a smile on his face, "Richard Irvin is the only man who can beat J.B. Pritzker in 2022."

So there's pride in politics.

I don't think he wants to certainly walk back his support for Mayor Irvin, but also, Durkin's going to do what he can to elect Republicans.

- And it occurs to me from watching this stuff, for a very long time that the Republican party in the legislature in Illinois anyway, from my observations tended to have more people, who were willing to be right and stand by their principles and lose.

Whereas the Democrats had more people who were pragmatic, who would say, well, it's all about winning the election, and if we have to bend and flex, we're gonna do it.

And there were many more Republicans over the years who looked at it, it was more important to go down fighting than it was to actually compromise and reach a victory.

Now in the years that I covered the legislature, that was a small percentage of the Republicans in elected office at least at the state level.

Most of them were pragmatic people like Jim Edgar, Jim Thompson, or George Ryan, or Dick Oglebee, who were governors that I covered.

Nowadays that wing of the party seems to be almost, what would you say?

An endangered species?

Going the way of the dodo bird, and it's people who are, I think some punters refer to it as, "A part of the cult of Trump."

Whatever the dear leader says, that's what we'll believe, and that's what we'll do.

As opposed to Illinois, always being a very pragmatic state that yeah, we have all these talking points, but when push comes to shove, we wanna get something done.

- What about something that Jerry, I believe you mentioned earlier in terms of the strategy of the Democrats to really refer to the Republican candidates from top to bottom as a part of what they're calling, the lunatic fringe GOP, the lunatic fringe on the right?

Is that a campaign strategy that you think will be successful?

Or is it something that could potentially backfire?

- Well, I think it's hard to say because Darren Bailey is so different than J.B. Pritzker.

A lot of people might just view the chasm between the two candidates, and make their decision on that.

I don't know.

One of the interesting things about Darren Bailey that you might not have with a Richard Irvin or something else, is you have a voting record in the general assembly.

And if you look at almost everything the governor did, everything on the governor's agenda, you can look at those votes.

Bailey was a no, and he was a no forcefully.

He was a no, as Charlie said, with a speech, to say why his stance was in his opinion, the moral one or the necessary one to take in that circumstance.

Even the Rebuild Illinois Capital Infrastructure Plan, Bailey was a no.

And he's saying he would repeal the gas tax, and I've asked his team, "How do you fund the infrastructure projects that are ongoing throughout the state, without the gas tax?"

And his answer is, he doesn't really have a plan at this point, but he just says zero-based budgeting, which is an out to say, "We'll think about it when we're elected."

So I think there's such a big gap between the candidates, that you don't have to look very far, and you don't have to be very informed to see it.

So I don't know that whether Pritzker painting them as the lunatic fringe will matter.

But on the other side, you have guys like Tom Demmer and Dan Brady.

Dan Brady, Tom Demmer, running for treasurer, and Dan Brady for secretary of state.

And their speeches today were a little bit more on the pragmatic side.

And I think Dan Brady's statement was, I'm gonna make my speech as short as the lines at the driver services facilities will be, once you elect me as secretary of state.

So there is a focus in that regard on policy, but a lot of the stuff you see from the top of the ticket is some of the social issue, wedge issue stances, that maybe don't translate to policy.

- And speaking of that, and you brought this up a little bit earlier, the Bailey campaign and much of the Republican party, is really doubling down on repealing mandates that schools would teach critical race theory, for example, and some of the sex education requirements that have been put in place over the last couple of years.

Are these things that are truly important to voters, or are these things meant to just gin up the base and make sure that that pot is constantly stirring?

- I suspect they would like them to appeal to a broader group than just the base, but it's certainly intended to keep the base engaged, and to, as you say, gin them up, make them excited about voting.

I don't think they necessarily play that well with the average voter.

People who look at this critical race theory, for example, I guess the academic way to look at it, is this is a subject that generally grade school and high school kids don't deal with.

This is something for college, sometimes graduate school, looking if you will, scientifically, at the US's history in terms of race relations.

But what the right has expanded to include, is talking about things like slavery, talking about Jim Crow, talking about the endemic disadvantages that people of color face in terms of education, housing, healthcare, and other things, looking at the history of it.

And I think there are people on the right, who wanna sugarcoat American history.

It's all patriotism, it's all flags, and George Washington crossing the river and all that stuff.

I'm not sure the general public is so much into this notion of, we would like to go back to the days of "Ozzie and Harriet," "Leave it to Beaver," and all of that.

And if you look at the results in the last election here, in Illinois, Donald Trump got whomped big time.

He lost by more than a million votes, 17 percentage points.

And so to the extent that the Republicans are allowing themselves to be the party of Trump, I don't think that particularly helps 'em in Illinois.

In fact, I would look at it as a disadvantage for them, in this particular state.

Now, maybe it's great in Indiana or Iowa, but we are not those states.

We're totally different.

- Jerry, what about the average voter?

The person that typically maybe sits more in the middle, would consider themselves a moderate, for example?

We've talked about this for the last couple of weeks here on "Capital View."

Is there a moderation of either campaign that might attract some of those voters who are saying at this point, "I'm still not sure "A," whether I'm going to vote, or "B," who I'm going to vote for?"

- Yeah I think that's something that the Democrats were trying to say they had at their day yesterday, and the Republicans are trying to say they had.

But if we're looking at the type of CRT stuff that Charlie had mentioned, it's not something that's mandated in state curriculum.

There was a administrative rule that had addressed what teachers in teaching institutions in Illinois, would learn in terms of culturally responsive, teaching standards.

But there's no statewide curriculum, CRT mandate, but it's still a topic that gets some of the base going.

How much of the base it gets going at this point?

I don't know, because there was an event with Awake Illinois, which is a parental rights, some would say.

They've taken a lot of flack for anti-LGBTQ statements, and stuff like that.

And they had a rally that Darren Bailey spoke at earlier this week.

I think it was Tuesday and there were about 40 people there, and it wasn't raucous.

The people, they listened to the speech, it went on for a couple hours, but Bailey scurried away before taking questions at it.

So I don't even know how energized the base is on it.

I think what could be a challenge for Democrats, is inflation and Republicans talk about that.

Bailey has talked about that, but it's taken a backseat to some of the social issues, and gas prices are going down.

So yeah, I think both sides will make their pitch for moderates, but Bailey seems to be more interested in embracing some of the real social issue type things.

- Well one of the issues that will likely still be a part of the campaign through their next several months, and could potentially be a part of a special session, the veto session, or of course next spring's legislative session, is taking a closer look at gun violence in Illinois.

Less than six weeks after the mass shooting in Highland Park, we see another Chicago suburb, stand up and say, "We will ban certain types of rifles, certain types of magazines and ammunition."

Jerry, what does this decision in Naperville mean?

Do we see other communities looking at that as taking the lead?

Or is this something that they'll wait and let the state take control?

- Even at a statewide level, if all 50 states have their own gun reforms, anyone intent on destruction will be able to obtain such a weapon if it's legal somewhere in this country.

So I don't know that Naperville's will move the needle on gun violence.

In that regard, it could get the ball rolling, maybe as a symbolic thing, but as Governor Pritzker has said, if you want any level of actual gun control, or an actual policy that addresses the number of semi-automatic rifles, military style rifles out there, it's gonna have to come from the federal level.

- Charlie, are we seeing some community leaders, for example, standing up and saying, we can't wait for that federal action or even state action?

We're gonna make our own local rules in an attempt to try to prevent further mass shootings.

- Well, I think that's what Naperville did.

The Naperville City Council, they had a very long meeting.

I think it lasted more than four hours, into the wee hours of the morning.

And actually I'm checking my notes here.

It was five and a half hours.

The council voted eight to one to pass the ban.

And they had a lot of testimony from residents.

Some saying, this is just window dressing.

This is just for show.

It won't really have any impact.

Others saying, we still have to do something.

Excuse me.

And the Highland Park City Council also had a meeting where they unanimously called for state and national bans on semiautomatic weapons, high capacity magazines, and body armor.

And the Lake County board a week ago, voted in favor of advocating for an assault weapon ban.

So some local governments in the suburbs are acting.

Now outside the city and the suburbs, in rural Illinois, obviously we're not gonna see such calls.

And again, going back to my history, the argument in the legislature over gun control was always one that was not on partisan lines.

It was always based on geography.

And so if you represented a district in Western Illinois, your constituents, when they thought about firearms, they thought about deer hunting.

They thought about duck hunting.

If you were from Chicago, when you thought about firearms, your constituents thought about gang bangers, shooting each other and shooting little kids, as a side effect.

And so that was always the dichotomy, and I think it's still exists today.

So as I say, you'll probably see other city councils, in the suburban area urging something to occur, but you won't see downstate joining in on that call.

- Certainly.

Jerry, your own reporters have done some work on the criticism that's come up against the Illinois State Police in terms of whether or not the accused shooter at Highland Park should have been more prominent on the radar, so to speak.

What's been turned up there?

And do you expect that that pressure's going to remain on the state police?

- Well, there were some emergency rule changes, that maybe tightened up a little bit, the clear and present danger report process for the state police and the joint committee on administrative rules allowed those to remain in effect this week.

But they also said you probably could have met the preponderance of evidence needed to revoke a FOID card with the information that was available about the Highland Park shooter, when he was granted a FOID card, just a couple of months after someone in his home, had called the police and said, the alleged shooter had threatened to quote, unquote, "Kill everyone."

So the state police had said, though, because he didn't have an out outstanding application at the time, they threw away the clear and present danger report, because no FOID card, they don't keep the files, but there was some dispute there.

And there was another news release that said maybe the police had considered it, and it couldn't have met the preponderance of evidence anyway.

But Republicans just said, we need more clarity on this.

And along with seeking potential gun reforms, enforcing the ones that are on the books better could prevent some of this stuff, whether or not that's the case.

Seems to me someone intent on killing, as long as they can get a weapon like that, is going to carry out their... - Sure, Charlie, what about that thought, that instead of new laws targeting specific weapons, or things like that, there should be more responsibility in enforcing current laws?

Is that an argument that holds water?

- In my mind, that's an argument you always hear from the second amendment folks.

Well, we have plenty of laws on the books.

Let's just enforce the ones we have, and that's a point that's well taken.

But on the other hand, in my opinion, I don't see any reason for a civilian to be armed with the same military weapons that the armed forces use, these automatic weapons, the kind that are used on the battlefield.

And I think Senator Tammy Duckworth said it well.

She had a speech a couple weeks ago where she pointed out, and of course she's a military veteran, that there is no reason for civilians to be armed with weapons that are intended to kill people.

- Certainly.

This is just one of many issues we'll continue to cover throughout the campaign leading into November.

The Illinois State Fair runs through this weekend.

Then candidates get a bit of a break for a few days, in terms of statewide events.

Then another state fair, the Duquoin State Fair, kicks off on August 26th, then runs through Labor Day.

And we'll keep you up to date on what people are saying across the state, both in the election, as well as policy issues.

Until then Charlie Wheeler, Jerry Nowicki, thanks so much for taking the time this week on "Capital View."

- Glad that we could do it.

- Thanks for having us.

- And I'm Jennifer Fuller.

We'll catch you next time on your public media station.

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