(upbeat music) (dramatic music) - Thanks for joining us on "Capitol View."

I'm Fred Martino.

It is a busy time in Springfield with the Illinois General Assembly meeting to discuss the budget and a variety of important issues in the state.

We have two of the best to help us make sense of it all, Amanda Vinicky of WTTW in Chicago, and Jason Piscia, he is director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Amanda and Jason, thank you both for being here today.

- Happy to.

- Good to be here.

- Jason, let's start with this.

I really enjoyed this article, a wide-ranging article in the "Chicago Tribune" detailing the challenges for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker right now.

They say his, quote, "Pragmatic progressive approach is being put to the test."

- Definitely, yeah, this was a great article in the "Chicago Tribune."

Olivia Olander, Dan Petrella, and Jeremy Gorner did a great job doing an overview of sort of where the place where Governor Pritzker is sort of in at the moment trying to maintain his progressive credentials, but at the same time, not letting the spending get out of control to throw Illinois back into a budget crisis like it has been in previous years.

The article points out, you know, when Governor Pritzker came into office in 2019, he sort of came in with a bang.

He, you know, right away got a minimum wage increase passed, legalized recreational use of marijuana, raised some taxes and fees to fund a big construction program around the state.

And that, you know, sort of established some of his progressive credentials, you know, where we're trying to reduce some inequality, economically speaking and discrimination speaking as well.

And those first few years of terms, once we got out of COVID, he had some pretty healthy budgets to deal with, with some good funding to fund these measures.

As a result, he is coming into a year now where the budget situation is going to be a little tighter for him.

So he's figuring out a way to, you know, keep those progressive credentials intact and at the same time keep the budget under control.

You know, he is getting some pushback already.

You know, people are thinking he could be doing more for public schools in Illinois, where in 2017, there was the Revised School Funding Formula that helped, you know, redirect dollars to some of the poorer schools in the state to help more adequately fund them.

We're still working under that plan to try to get those schools to full funding, and he's getting a little bit of pushback from those who are saying, you know, he needs to be putting more into that school funding formula to help get those less affluent schools, you know, up to snuff with the rest of them.

And, you know, progressives are also wanting, you know, to see the governor do more just to grow the overall revenue of the state.

There's been talk of, remember back in 2020, the governor attempted to get his progressive income tax passed.

That failed.

He seems to have resisted any additional attempts to try to do that again, but there's some progressives out there that would like him to do more, to tax higher income people at higher rates to sort of even out that economic inequality.

- Yeah, and I think probably everyone is watching to see if one of the things that the governor proposed in his "State of the State" will happen, which is his proposal to get rid of the 1% tax on groceries, an ideas supported by some Republicans.

- Yeah, And that's a big one.

That affects everybody.

Everyone buys groceries.

But one criticism, you know, everyone's happy to have less taxes, the governor is getting some pushback on that also from local governments because that 1% sales tax on groceries are funneled toward local governments to help them pay for local police departments and local road fixes and things along those nature.

So that's, again, it's a pragmatic way to lower taxes.

It's really not affecting the state's bottom line in a direct way.

It's affecting those local governments and you're hearing it from them.

- Yeah, we will be watching.

That's gonna be very interesting to see what happens.

Amanda, a major effort for the governor and Democrats in Illinois, of course, is the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this summer.

And we've talked about this before.

There are big concerns about protests.

I know earlier this month you reported on security measures being taken for the convention.

Tell us about it.

- Well, yeah, so the convention will be here, and this is something that Governor Pritzker really tried for.

He rallied.

He did all he could to bring the DNC here.

And yet we've had issues already with some protests, not necessarily regarding the DNC, but I think it draws attention.

You're having a lot of really almost daily actions in the city of Chicago as well as other major cities from individuals that are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

And they just the other day blocked the entrance to O'Hare Airport.

So of course, that causes a lot of headaches, a lot of problems, not sure how many people missed their flights, but that is just the sort of thing that, of course, visitors to a city don't want to contend with, particularly those who've got places to go, like attending a political convention to renominate the president of their party for another run at the White House.

So this I think really did put a particular lens on security, and you're seeing talk and promises from, for example, the local police department that will be inside of, that will be in charge of security outside the actual perimeters of the conventions.

But then it's the feds that really take control.

So you're talking FBI, Secret Service that are going to be dealing with the convention centers themselves.

And the perimeter, we don't know quite what those perimeters will be.

The issue being protestors want to get as close to possible as that action.

That's the intent of a demonstration, right, to kind of cause a fuss, to make sure that people know what you're talking about, maybe, yeah, mess up their day a little bit so that they have to pay attention to what you're asking.

And they're particularly wanting the eyes and the ears and therefore the votes of many of the attendees of the DNC because they're the political power players.

Right now we don't know exactly what the map is going to be, but there's actually court action expected soon, as hearings are ongoing, to sort of figure that out.

You heard Pritzker when asked, for example, about the O'Hare protest, say, "I support the right of people to exercise their First Amendment to protest, to speak."

But he said he draws somewhat a line when it does a disturbance, such as these O'Hare Airport blockages.

And he said that, at that point, it does call for law enforcement action.

All of this, of course, taking place as Chicago has some pretty bad stains on its reputation from back in '68 when police were too heavy-handed.

So I think that, and in light of just many of the forms of civil disobedience and sort of protests that we have seen in the light of the George Floyd's murder, there's very much a lens on how the CPD is going to handle both protecting, the safety and the functions of convention-goers as well as protesters who are going to go out of their way to, again, make their voices known.

That is the entire point - That I think you're right on the mark.

We can expect that for sure.

And I know those of us interested in politics just can't wait to see all of the news from the convention, including your great reporting, Amanda.

Jason, a bill in the Illinois General Assembly would give the Secretary of State more power to enforce ethics laws through disclosure of lobbyist contracts.

Tell us more.

- Yeah, there's a bill that was recently introduced dealing with lobbyists at the State House.

Lobbyists, as you know, are people who are hired by corporations, associations, organizations to meet with legislators and meet with the governor's office and meet with decision makers to try to influence their vote, to vote in the way that the people that they're working for want them to vote.

If you've ever been to the Capitol, if you, you know, go up to the third floor, the brass rail is there where the exit to the House and the Senate are, and you'll see a lot of lobbyists just hanging around waiting for lawmakers to come out of the chamber so they can corner them and tell them about the latest and greatest bill that the lawmaker should be voting yes on.

There's been rules for years in place that when lobbyists spend money on lawmakers, whether it's taking them out to dinner or for drinks or entertaining them in some way, that all of that spending has to be disclosed.

And that's happening.

This bill takes it one step further.

It wants corporations to disclose how much they're spending on lobbyists, like what the contract is between the lobbyist and the corporation.

Supporters say that this will add another layer of, you know, openness to the whole process, let people know how much money is changing hands when people are trying to influence votes at the Capitol.

18 states do this already is what the proponents say as well.

So it's not like we're breaking new ground here in Illinois.

Lobbyists, as you might imagine, don't feel great about this bill, and the corporations that hire them as well, you know, they maintain that a contract between a private company and a private lobbyist is a private business dealing and shouldn't be subject to public scrutiny.

So we'll see where this bill goes.

It's currently stuck in the Rules Committee.

We're under a deadline this week in the House to get bills out through the process in the third reading.

I'm not sure if this bill's gonna make it.

But with any of these deadlines, they don't really matter.

If it's important enough, they can shove the language of the bill into something that happens at the end of the session and plow it through at the end if they really need to.

And the bill sponsor, Maurice West, a democrat from Rockford, mentions if the bill were to move, that's probably the way it would happen.

- I'm skeptical that it will.

This is something that has continued to come up at the Capitol and we haven't really seen any movement.

Generally, when you watch legislators move on ethics, it's because their hand is forced because of some sort of scandal.

So unless we have a new lobbyist scandal pop up, and of course, we do still have ongoing trials related to ComEd, we're waiting for the Madigan trial to begin, but still, it seems as if there isn't the momentum for something like this to happen.

I'll add that Chicago already does it and it certainly is information that is used every once in a while, again, when a scandal pops.

But it has not been, I think, this vast sea change that many of the lobbyists fear that it would be.

I wonder how much of it is that they want to keep the private contracts amongst themselves and how much of this is, you know, a matter of competition, and that guy makes how much?

(laughing) It would certainly be fodder for a whole lot of stories if this measure were to ever to become law.

- Good reason to do it, right?

Very interesting.

(Amanda laughing) Thank you for that context, Amanda.

Believe it or not, we have only about 13 minutes left.

About half the show has passed.

And speaking of ethics, Amanda, the "Chicago Sun-Times" reports that the Illinois Inspector General's Office found workers paid kickbacks to brokers who processed fraudulent federal COVID relief loans.

Tell us about this.

- Yeah, I mean, we're just seeing, if anybody can remember when the Paycheck Protection Program was introduced and you really had the federal government trying to do anything that it could to keep the economy moving as things were sputtering because so much was shut down at the height of the COVID pandemic.

And so really rushed out funding that was meant to prop up small businesses.

We've seen a lot of abuses, and if you're a public employee, that's the sort of information that can be made public.

I'm assuming private employees as well, if this ever came to light, would get you fired if you abused those situations.

So that's what we had here.

We have seen various agencies, various inspectors general, looking into whether employees abused this.

In other words, got loans for businesses that they didn't actually have, or in this case, sort of kickbacks.

In this case, we're looking at individuals.

There are, I believe, a couple hundred who have since lost their jobs.

- Okay, we will be watching.

Jason, we move now to an important story about utilities.

Regulators are weighing the future of the natural gas industry in Illinois.

I know other states are looking at this, too.

Tell us more.

- Yeah, a lot of factors in play with this one.

There's ongoing concern about the future of the use of natural gas in Illinois and all over the country.

You know, producing it and distributing it, it's a large carbon footprint, a lot of many carbon emissions, and there's concern for the environment over its use.

We're at a point to where we need to figure out what's gonna be the future of natural gas.

Chicago is already considering an ordinance to put a ban on natural gas, using natural gas in new construction projects.

And meanwhile, the state is under that goal with the Clean Energy Act to sort of be 100% reliant on renewable energy in about 25 years.

So all these factors are coming into play, and in the meantime, the Illinois Commerce Commission, a few months ago, the natural gas utilities came in asking for a rate increase.

They put sort of a halt or kind of the brakes on that a little bit.

So we've reached a point to where the ICC wants to set up this, quote/unquote, "future of gas."

I guess it's a research phase, a research process over the next year or so just to figure out where we're going to go with natural gas.

- Yeah, a lot of people will be watching this including Republicans who often use this as a talking point against regulation and as a powerful weapon perhaps in campaigning.

Amanda, we do have another story with about 10 minutes left now on utilities.

We move to water, and Illinois is continuing to build an inventory of lead pipes.

"Capitol News Illinois" reports that full replacement deadlines, though, are decades away.

- Yeah, and Illinois is out of all states in the nation, unfortunately, has more lead pipes to deal with.

So this is something that is unfortunate because, of course, lead causes all sorts of harmful issues, particularly to children.

It can lead to developmental delays and other health concerns.

So replacing those lead pipes, I mean, it's money and it is also just a sheer inconvenience from a practical perspective, something that has to be done, but is going to take a long time.

Because as you noted, we're fighting over plenty in the budget in terms of how much money should go to schools, for tax credits, for migrants.

There are so many needs and we're talking billions of dollars, literal billions.

This is something that the federal government has recognized, so there are grants that have been made available.

And Illinois is one of the top states to receive this funding.

And yet millions of dollars, even at this point, hundreds of million dollars barely make a dent because there is so much work to be done.

- Very important reporting, and thanks for bringing us up-to-date on that.

Jason, lawmakers and the cannabis industry are calling for a ban on Delta-8 and some other hemp products.

Bring us up-to-date.

- Yeah, a bill introduced last week, the State House, Kimberly Lightford is the main sponsor on it, would put some regulations in on a substance called Delta-8 THC.

It's derived from hemp.

And as you know, THC is the psychoactive element.

It makes cannabis a good thing to use, some people would say.

So the Delta-8 is sort of a...

Some people call it a marijuana light or a diet cannabis or something along those lines as well.

There's concerns about Delta-8 products 'cause they're not regulated like the recreational cannabis industry is.

There's concern that a lot of these Delta-8 products, you can find them, they're available in convenience stores and gas stations right off the shelf.

Minors can buy these things.

And there's also concern about how these products are marketed.

You'll go into stores and you'll see that these products are baked into cookies and candy and snacks, and a lot of the packaging is very recognizable.

It's like, you know, famous brands of snacks, candy, and cookies.

So this bill would sort of get regulation into this, and maybe more importantly make the makers and buyers of the stuff pay taxes on it, which the higher tax rates that the cannabis industry faces now.

So that's one of the main things that they're looking at as well.

You know, critics of these products say, you know, it's undermining the recreational cannabis industry.

You think about all of the rules and regulations and taxes that went into effect when people were legally able to buy marijuana.

There's rules on how it can be advertised and how the stores operate and how products can be displayed.

None of those things are in place with these Delta-8 products and it's a little bit of a free-for-all out there.

This bill attempts to get it under control.

Again, we'll see what happens with it.

And the bill also sets up some specific fines and punishments if you're found selling the unregulated version of these products.

- There's also such heavy regulation.

- Go ahead.

- Oh, I was just gonna say, there's also such heavy regulation currently of cannabis products.

You know what you're getting, you know the amounts, and it has been tested.

It's literally tracked from the time that it is grown, how it is transported, even the security, and there are cameras required.

So in addition to everything that Jason mentioned, there have also been studies including by universities in Illinois that show some of the products contain multifold the active ingredient in Delta-8 versions of products that it says on the packaging.

And that is something that has been seen to be very dangerous.

- Yeah.

So I think the issue is not, is something going to happen or should it?

Even those in the Delta eight industry recognize I think, at least many, that there needs to be something.

It's how far does Illinois go?

And if Illinois goes as far as Lightford's measure has proposed, is that going to knock out basically this industry completely and move it over to the cannabis one where there have been all these dollars spent.

- Yeah, we'll be watching.

Of course, many of the same concerns with supplements and high profile stories about testing showing that the labels don't match the amounts.

And of course, sadly, high profile reporting on sometimes terrible consequences when people are taking unregulated products.

Amanda, about four minutes left for our last story.

The Illinois Senate is working on changes to the state's Biometric Privacy Law.

We should note we are taping this on Wednesday in case there are developments after this recording.

- Yeah, Illinois has been on the forefront and particularly aggressive in terms of protecting individual's biometric identity.

So we're talking about things like, once upon a time might have seemed out of "Star Trek" and instead is very much just every day now, whether it is a scan of your face or of your fingerprint, that's something that got White Castle in a whole lot of trouble.

There was a lawsuit in which in employees' fingerprints were scanned and the individuals succeeded.

White Castle on the hook for paying billions of dollars because per Illinois law, every single time a finger was scanned, it counted against the company.

And that's something that the business community in Illinois has said will not work as you're trying to have the governor, for example, go out and bring companies and corporations to the state.

If they're looking at anything like those sort of fines for a violation of biometric identity, they're not going to come to Illinois.

So you're seeing the business community say that we need a fix.

That's what the Senate legislation attempts to do.

Some believe, however, it still does not go far enough.

What really the main thrust of legislation in this example of the fingerprint scans is that instead of it counting as a violation of the law every single time every fingerprint is scanned, it would instead be that first violation, sort of the act of a company doing it and that that would still, the thought is by backers, be enough to put companies on notice that if you are going to take a measure like that, you need to have permission from employees.

It can't be something that is required if people want to make sure that their fingerprint is their own and is not shared with their employer.

And at the same time, it wouldn't be quite this really heavy onus.

This comes, by the way, after really the State Supreme Court had taken up a case regarding White Castle in specific, and said, "Legislature, you need to do something."

So this is really not that you can have one branch of government instruct the other what to do, but they can influence.

And so that's where legislators really are, I think, again, very much aware that this is an area that needs attention, the difficulty being in what that compromise is.

- It's gonna be so fascinating to see where all this goes, Amanda.

I got a notification this week, and I'm sure many people watching this show have gotten these, where one of the services that I use was telling me, "If you wish, you can use your fingerprint or your face to get a purchase approved.

We're gonna be sending you more information on this."

And it just put a chill down my spine to say, "No, I don't think so.

Not for me, but."

- Yeah, you only get one set of hands, one set of eyes.

You don't wanna necessarily share that wildly.

- Not interested, you know, and maybe some people watching are really interested.

But it's a reminder that we need regulation of that, that if people are going to use it, that they know how it's gonna be used and perhaps there's legislation that says that you can't be forced to opt into this kind of thing.

That is another issue this raises.

It's always fascinating.

Amanda, wonderful to have you on the show.

Jason, great to have you as well.

- Thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- Thank you both for being here, and thank you at home as well.

For everyone at WSIU, I'm Fred Martino, have a great week.

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