(dramatic music) (beeping) - Thanks for joining us on Capitol View, I'm Fred Martino.

It's a whole new election.

We'll hear what President Biden's decision to drop out of the race could mean for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and much more.

Plus, Illinois delegates returning from the Republican National Convention say an economic message could help the GOP.

Those stories and more this week with Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune and Peter Hancock from Capitol News Illinois.

Jeremy, we'll start with you.

President Biden's decision to drop out creates big questions for the Chicago Convention and for Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

Tell us more about this.

- Well, Fred, since President Biden chose to not run for reelection as Vice President Kamala Harris has become the clear front runner, at least so far, top Democrats in the state have really, I mean, most of them it appears so far have come out in support of Vice President Harris to become the democratic presidential nominee, and so far we haven't really heard any other names of anyone else who could be a front runner, even as national delegates are starting to kind of get their heads together on the issue.

So far, you know, as far as like raising what's next, at least news wise, what we're all kind of waiting for is who is Kamala Harris' VP pick going to be?

There's been several names that have been mentioned obviously in the news.

Roy Cooper, the democratic governor of North Carolina.

He's the governor of a, you know, North Carolina obviously is a red state, no doubt that Harris Camp thinks that that would compliment her because he's the governor of a red state.

You got Senator Mark Kelly from Arizona who's a US Senator, he's an astronaut and Arizona is a swing state, something that the Harris Camp thinks could play well there.

You got Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, runs another swing state, Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, another swing state.

So that strategically it looks like what the Harris campaign's trying to do, and then the big question is what about our governor JB Pritzker?

That's, you know, kind of been, you know, an open question.

He has said that the Harris camp has not requested vetting materials from him at least yet to see if he could be a prospective VP nominee.

but we'll see.

But back to Biden, this all comes amid a lot of pressure from detractors and even some members of his own party suggesting that he should step aside because of a stumbling debate that he had last month against former President Trump, where he just had a very poor showing.

There were questions, I mean, I believe the phrasing we've heard is cognitive decline.

Questions about, you know, whether that's something that's really been affecting the president, and it all came to a head really last Sunday, so technically, I guess what that would mean is that going into the DNC, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, it could be an open convention as far as like, you know, we're less than a month away.

We'll have to see what happens.

Maybe there'll be another democratic nominee they have in mind, but so far the pendulum has swung, at least so far, for Vice President Harris - And certainly not expected to be an open convention.

I was going to ask you about that, that in an interesting way, state rules that force the parties to lock down their presidential and vice presidential candidates may have helped Democrats in this way to have a show of unity at the DNC because the first deadline that's being talked about the most is August 7th, Ohio requiring the information.

So there's a belief, you know, there will be that decision made August 7th so that Ohio has the presidential and vice presidential candidates for the Democrats for their ballot.

That is the deadline they've set.

- Yeah, I mean that's exactly right.

I mean, you know, I think that it's just that what history has shown is that usually by the time that any kind of political convention happens, Fred, whether it's the Democratic one or the Republican one, the public, the American public has a pretty clear idea who the nominee is, and a lot of that is contingent.

We kinda get a good idea about that as far as, you know, how did the candidates do during the past primaries in the previous months from each state.

That's where I think we could kind of gauge who the nominees would be, and in this case it would be Joe Biden obviously, but you know, it's not, obviously now it's not as predictable as it is because, you know, we're kind of in uncharted territory.

I believe that's what former President Obama said when Biden made that announcement as far as you know, just because of what you're saying happened in Ohio and everywhere else.

It isn't official yet, but usually when we go into a convention, it's more customary to pretty much know who the nominee is going to be.

But yes, in this case, at least from what we've seen in the last few days around the country, in Illinois and around the country, it indeed looks like it's gonna be Vice President Harris.

- Yes, and of course it was never believed that Illinois was going to be in play in terms of the presidential race.

However, there was a concern by some Democrats that there was a need to generate excitement and get people out to vote for all of the other races in the state, some of which may be closer.

I mean, this came out during the primary where in Chicago in particular a lot was written about the very low turnout when there was the primary race there.

So very interesting stuff.

Peter, I wanna move on to you now.

Governor Pritzker, of course, is not just thinking about the presidential race and the convention coming up.

There is a real controversy going on with the Chicago public schools with their budget, but the governor contends that the state does not owe the city more than $1 billion to help Chicago schools.

Columnist Rich Miller wrote about this recently and covered this very interesting story that, speaking of the presidential race, also does relate in a way back to federal policies because it was the Chicago schools using some federal money, apparently, on regular operating expenses rather than one time expenses, even though the federal money was one time.

- Yeah, I'm not sure there's ever been a time when there wasn't a controversy over Chicago public schools and its budget and its underfunded teacher pension plan, and so I don't know that Governor Pritzker is really spending all that much time on it.

It was heavily discussed during the legislative session.

What's going on right now, the federal government during the pandemic pumped billions upon billions of dollars into American public schools.

Most of it went directly to school districts.

A fairly sizable chunk went to states education departments like the Illinois State Board of Education.

That money runs out at the end of this federal fiscal year, which is coming up at the end of September.

That's the end of that federal money, and throughout the pandemic and throughout all of these federal aid packages that sent money to the states and to the school districts, school officials were told this is one-time money.

It is there to defray expenses that are related to the pandemic because districts did incur extraordinary expenses trying to stay open and to keep learning going all throughout the pandemic.

They were told this is going away at the end of fiscal year 2024, which is where we are right now, and I remember this, the Illinois State Board of Education having this discussion as they were putting their budget proposal together, saying, okay, what things have we been funding with federal money that we want to keep?

And what things are gonna go by the wayside?

The things that you want to keep, you have to request state money for.

So all districts are going through this.

Chicago, of course, is one of the largest school districts in the country, so the problem there gets magnified a little bit, but essentially this is happening everywhere.

Chicago can make an argument that it is underfunded.

I think the overwhelming majority of school districts in the state of Illinois can argue that they are underfunded.

There have been court cases that have gone to the Illinois Supreme Court.

The Illinois Supreme Court has essentially said the state of Illinois doesn't owe anybody anything.

It can appropriate whatever it wants for public education, and so I think Chicago is not likely to succeed with the argument that the state of Illinois somehow "owes" Chicago a billion dollars.

I think Chicago can make the case that they need additional money.

However, and I spoke with the governor about this occasionally at press conferences, and I think his feeling is that over the last 10 years, Chicago public schools have seen a decrease.

They've lost about 25% of their enrollment over the last 10 years, and they are getting much more state money than they used to get.

I think 10 years ago their enrollment was around 400,000, it's now a little more than 300,000, so it's a substantially smaller school district that is getting more state money, and I think the state of Illinois is saying, you get what you get just like all the other school districts, and I'm sorry we don't owe you a billion dollars.

- Yeah, very good context there.

Well, Jeremy, we're gonna move on now to the Republican National Convention.

You covered that last week, and I understand Illinois delegates say that an economic message could be powerful in the election.

Tell us about that.

- Well, I spoke with some Republican delegates at the conclusion of former President Trump's speech.

It was about a 90 minute speech last Thursday night, and you know, some of these delegates expressed some hope and optimism in some of what Trump said about the economy, about, you know, his economic policies.

You know, obviously they didn't get into some of his rhetoric about, you know, really other issues.

You know, it was really more about, you know, looking at, okay, where were we four years ago versus now in terms of gas prices, excuse me, in terms of inflation, in terms of taxes, and a lot of these talking points really are kind of what you hear from Republicans in general when criticizing democratic policies.

But nonetheless, they seem to appreciate hearing the former president bring some of that up in his, you know, lengthy acceptance speech for the Republican nomination.

The former president talking about lowering taxes, eliminating taxes on tipped wages, you know, which one delegate says that that is a proposal that who knows?

It could speak to everyone.

Decreased government regulation.

That was, you know, something else that one delegate was hopeful that another Trump administration could push for.

One delegate talked about not so much in Trump's speech, but earlier in the week, I don't know if you caught this, Fred, that the head of the Teamsters Union had some speaking time on one of the four convention days at the Fiserv Forum, and basically what that told this delegate, Sean O'Brien, he's the general president of the international brother of the Teamsters, this delegate said that when O'Brien spoke, doesn't think that that's a good look for Democrats.

When you think about unions, union support, which has traditionally been more in favor of Democrats, trade unions, organized labor, this is what the Teamsters represent.

That's something that you would think that would benefit Democrats a lot more, and this delegate was hopeful that this guy's speaking at the RNC, and he is giving a pro worker speech to Republicans, doesn't think that that's a good look for Democrats.

- Yeah, and of course that has been a narrative for some time, and during the Trump administration, Peter actually covered this at the convention.

Peter, I want to go to you now for your different take on the convention in this story that the Illinois GOP is being urged to look beyond its traditional base as the National Party does court unions, tell us about that.

- Yeah, I mean, right now the Illinois Republican Party is largely a rural party.

There was a time not too awful long ago when the Republicans were very competitive in the suburbs around the collar counties of Chicago as well as in a lot of places in downstate Illinois.

But something has happened over the last, oh, the last two or three presidential election cycles, and you know, I wanna say it coincides with the rise of Donald Trump, but I don't want to go so far as to say Donald Trump caused this.

But you have seen suburban areas outside of major metropolitan areas like Chicago, all over the country.

The suburbs have gone purple or even blue.

It's happened in Chicago, it's happened around Kansas City, I think it's happened around Philadelphia, a lot of places, and in large parts of America, the Republican Party has basically become a rural party.

And I think the leadership of the party recognizes this, and they're saying they need to work to get the suburbs back, but they also need to broaden their base, and to Jeremy's point, where you saw Sean O'Brien from the Teamsters Union come in and speak to the convention, that was the first time you've ever seen a major union president like that speak to the Republican party.

Now it was the Teamsters, it wasn't the UAW, it wasn't the AFLCIO.

The Teamsters largely represents truck drivers.

That's their big, their number one group that they represent, and that's a little bit of a different demographic.

As I was saying over the last few election cycles, and this has become a major concern for Democrats, is that this traditional democratic voting block of organized labor, non-college educated men primarily have migrated from the Democratic column to the Republican column, even though you still see organized labor's money go to Democrats, and you see, you know, their organizations throw a lot of in-kind support behind democratic candidates.

Their voters, the blue collar, working class, non-college educated male voters have been migrating to the Republicans, and that goes back to Ross Perot in the early nineties as well as Donald Trump in the current era, and if that turns out to be a permanent shift, then I think Democrats and political scientists all over the country are gonna have to recalibrate and figure out, you know, where the electorate is going from here.

- Yes, very interesting, and it relates all back again to the race coming up in November, and with the deficit that Democrats are facing now with those groups, they are hoping that they can, with a new nominee, generate excitement among young people and women to increase voter participation among those two groups to make up for losses.

Jeremy, I wanna move on now to another story.

This is a follow up story.

The Highland Park Parade mass shooting victims are suing the Illinois State Police for approving the suspect's gun card.

Tell us more about that.

- Yeah, so there've been about five lawsuits, I believe, Fred, filed against the Illinois State Police for approving Robert Crimo III's FOID card, his firearm owner's identification card.

Of course, that's what you need in Illinois to buy, to make a legal purchase of a gun, and this comes after, you know, if you recall, the big controversy before the Highland Park mass shooting is that sometime before that, police responded to Crimo's home and had reported that he had initiated a suicide attempt, and they found various paraphernalia, daggers, and I think some other items in the home, and so what happened was is that authorities filled out what's called a clear and present danger report, which essentially alerts law enforcement that, you know, what it's supposed to do is, and among other things, is alert law enforcement that this is an individual who is not fit at this time to carry a firearm.

But not long after that, he was still able to get a FOID card.

I believe it was his father who helped him get that FOID card, and then of course, unfortunately the rest is history.

So basically this lawsuit alleges that he shouldn't have been able to get that FOID card in the first place because of this clear and present danger report that had been filed on him months before.

And, you know, since the shooting, of course, and I believe well before the lawsuits, Governor Pritzker and state police had really kind of pushed the fact that the state police had, you know, they would take into consideration cases like Crimo's, like even if you didn't own a gun like Crimo at the time that these clear and present danger report was filed, they could still use that as an evaluator if one decides to apply for a FOID card at a later time.

That was something that the state police, you know, wanted to ensure the public that they are doing now.

Of course, after we saw what happened, on that horrible day on July 4th, 2022, but nonetheless, families are filing lawsuits against the state police because of this, and yeah, so that's kind of where it is right now.

- Yeah, we will be watching, again, something to continue to follow up on as it continues to develop and go to the courts.

Peter, as we wrap up, we have about four minutes left.

There's a state audit that has come out, and there's been some reporting on this that shows that Illinois continues to struggle filling vacancies on public boards.

Tell us about this.

- Well, I think this is one of the things that happens.

State legislatures love to create boards and task forces when they have legislation that they don't have enough support to pass.

So you create a task force to study it for the next year, and a lot of these task forces, they're assigned to write a report, the report comes out, and it sits on a shelf and collects dust, and nobody ever looks at it after that.

And I think what you're seeing is the kinds of people who serve on those task forces and those boards kind of realize there's not a whole lot to be gained by sitting on them, and so it gets to be hard to fill them.

A lot of times I think the governor himself has been a little bit slow to fill positions on boards.

Some of these boards are extremely specialized and, you know, dealing with highly technical subjects in the healthcare industry or the insurance industry or whatever, and it just gets to be hard to fill 'em, and we all live different kinds of lives now, we have different careers, and nobody has enough time to volunteer for, you know, all kinds of things, and so yeah, it's not surprising.

I think it's just one of these things that state and local governments throughout the country are gonna have to confront in the coming months and years.

- We'll watch it very carefully.

We have about two minutes left.

I want to give you each a minute to reflect on election 2024 and the incredible developments that we've had here.

Peter, let's start with you quickly.

- I sort of feel like in the last two weeks we have completely relived the year 1968.

I was just a little kid at the time.

It was not a pleasant year, but we have seen a presidential assassination attempt, we've seen an incumbent president bow out of the race, we see a convention coming up in Chicago where it's now less likely than it was a few days ago there could be a floor fight over the Democratic presidential nomination.

I mean, it just feels like the vibes of 1968 all over again, and for those of us who lived through it, that's not especially a fun thing to look forward to.

- Interesting take.

Jeremy, about a minute.

- Well, you know, kind of to Peter's point, when I grew up, 'cause I grew up in Chicago and I remember the 1996 convention when it was at the United Center, and just as a little kid following this, I just remember, you know, those days of more, it just seemed like there was obviously more stability.

I mean, Bill Clinton was a very popular president going into reelection, and I believe it was against Bob Dole.

That's a nod to you, Peter, being from Kansas, and it just seemed like there was more unity and stability back then, and that went relatively smoothly.

But now I think it's being from Chicago, it is going to be, I mean, I really don't know what to expect.

You know, as Peter said, there's less uncertainty about what could happen as far as who the nominee will be than there was a couple of days ago.

I know, you know, technically that hasn't been decided yet.

I do think it's obviously a bit unusual to not know who, you know, the nominee is gonna be going into the convention, so I'm just kind of anxious to see with that, what kind of dynamic awaits us, you know, in the next month and what are National Republicans gonna do to try to capitalize on that.

- Very interesting.

We won't be bored, that's the one thing that we know, right?

That's for sure.

And a lot of excitement about Vice President Kamala Harris and her candidacy certainly, in terms of the fundraising numbers, the rally that occurred this week, it's gonna be fascinating to watch.

Jeremy and Peter, thank you both for being with us.