(gentle music) (camera beeps) (gentle music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) - Welcome to another edition of CapitolView, your weekly look at the happenings inside and outside the Illinois state capitol.

I'm your host, Jennifer Fuller.

Our guests this week are Kent Redfield, emeritus political science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield, and Jason Piscia, the director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program, also at UIS.

Gentlemen, it's been a busy week for you with severe weather and lots of damage in Central Illinois.

I appreciate you taking the time.

- Sure thing.

- Good to be here.

- Sure.

Let's get started with a bit of a look back of what's happened this week.

Highland Park, for example, on the 4th of July, marked a somewhat somber anniversary, the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting there back in 2022.

Political leaders, from Governor J.B. Pritzker, members of Congress, local leaders and others were on hand.

They talked about the resilience of Highland Park.

They talked about the ways that they're working to try and protect other communities, as well as Highland Park, from something like this happening again.

Governor Pritzker specifically talked about reforms that he has put into place and that he'd like to put into place.

Kent, let's start with you.

Do you think that Highland Park is going to continue to be kind of this beacon from which lawmakers and policymakers make changes in Illinois?

- Well, I think it will continue to be, you know, a focus within Illinois.

Unfortunately, nationally, you know, these occur with a certain amount of frequency, and they tend to just, you know, the latest incident kind of washes out and diminishes, in terms of public attention, the previous ones.

And so it's certainly a rallying cry, you know, a rallying cry in Illinois, but I don't, you know, in terms of national, you know, with the divided Congress and a very ambiguous situation within what is or isn't, what the Supreme Court considers constitutional or unconstitutional, it's hard to see any really dramatic changes.

It may get refocused as the court fleshes out its previous ruling, but I would like to be more optimistic than I am.

And I just, I'm not sure that this is really a tipping point outside of the focus within Illinois.

- Jason, do you see Illinois, as Kent said, kind of pushing forward even amid a, you know, the Midwest, where the rules are different from state to state, and still being an outlier when it comes to gun control and things like that?

- Yeah, definitely.

I mean, on several social issues and issues like that, you know, Illinois is sort of this oasis of being different from all the states around it.

And I found it interesting, you know, this week that, you know, President Biden, in talking about the Highland Park shooting, you know, was clear that nothing's gonna happen on the national level due to the divided Congress.

But, you know, putting the ball clearly in the states' court, that this is an issue that states can take on for themselves.

Illinois has done it.

Illinois is being held up as a model for what other states could be doing to address gun control in their own states and their own communities.

Again, we're surrounded by a bunch of red states, so it's, you know, unlikely that any of the state legislatures there will deal anything, will deal with anything, but it'll be interesting to see if more states will take up this issue in the weeks and months to come.

- We'll get to Supreme Court rulings a little bit later in the program, but I did wanna mention, as we were recording last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals was hearing arguments over Illinois's assault weapons ban.

And while no decision has been handed down, we don't yet know a timeline on when to expect that, Governor Pritzker expressed some optimism for the state's side of that issue.

And I'm gonna read a quote here.

Question from one of the appeals court judges, and this is what Governor Pritzker said.

He said, "Judge Easterbrook and Westwood "asked questions about is it really going "to be a popularity contest "about which gun we're going to allow?

"Because people who are advocating "for semi-automatic weapons are saying, 'Well, gee, "'everyone's got one now, so you can't ban them.'"

That's what the governor said about the arguments.

Is this something, you know, we've talked about, obviously, this case, regardless of how the Seventh Circuit rules, is going to make it to the US Supreme Court, but, Kent, do you expect that this is going to be the final decision when it comes to gun control across the country?

- You know, it really is not clear because the case that essentially signaled that they wanted a new regime, a new way to look at the Second Amendment, was a concealed carry case from New York.

And so here, we're talking about an assault weapons ban, and the court indicated they were going to take a case involving whether or not you could prohibit people who were guilty, had been convicted of domestic violence from possessing weapons and, you know, guns.

And so, you know, the court said, "Well, we ought to apply these historical standards.

"We'll have to look at what "was common use and understandings."

But that's, you know, that just results in a lot of ambiguity when you get to specific laws involving the different parts of gun control.

And so I just don't see any clarity very soon.

I think that that's the point raised by the appellate court judge is the critical one, just exactly what does this vague standard mean in reality, in terms of what states are or aren't, you know, can or can't do?

It makes a big difference for Illinois, how that's construed for a state.

You know, a Tennessee, you know, a state with very broad Second Amendment rights within their state constitution and state law, they're perfectly comfortable with what's going on at the federal level.

They're not trying to, you know, push the envelope.

- Sure.

Jason, a similar question.

Does the state of Illinois wait and see how this case is going to play out?

Or do you see lawmakers using examples like Highland Park and others to say, "We're going to continue to push for some changes in the way that we do things here in Illinois"?

And if it has to change, we'll figure that out later.

- Yeah, I see the state legislature continuing to sort of put their foot on the gas when it comes to coming up with new ideas for gun control in Illinois.

There's still plenty of avenues they could go down to address things.

There's a bill on the governor's desk now that passed in the latter part of the session that deals with making firearm companies liable, depending on how they market their products.

So that's on the governor's desk now.

And, you know, with the supermajorities in both the House and the Senate in Illinois, there's no reason why they shouldn't or won't stop now.

The political will is there.

They'll get lots of pushback and threats for litigation all along the way, but that hasn't stopped them before.

So, yeah, they'll wait for this assault weapons ban ruling to come down, and pivot and deal with things as they come, but in the meantime, they'll continue to push forward.

- You mentioned that the legislature has a democratic supermajority in both chambers.

The governor is a Democrat as well.

As we look to how things might change in 2024, we look to the races in the 2024 election.

And a big announcement this week from former GOP gubernatorial nominee, former State Senator Darren Bailey announcing he will challenge incumbent Republican Mike Bost for the 12th Congressional seat in Southern Illinois.

Jason, how does this race match up?

Do you see, you know, someone coming out right away as the clear front runner, or is this going to be neck and neck all the way up to the ballot box?

- Yeah, this is gonna be one of the most watched congressional races in the country (laughs) in the year to come.

You know, these are, Mike Bost and Darren Bailey, both, you know, Trump-supporting conservatives.

Bost is the five-term congressman from that district, so he's a well-known commodity, has a pretty significant campaign war chest built up, which is gonna need to get a lot bigger.

Darren Bailey's still building his and can't use his state money in the federal race, so to speak.

But, yeah, both candidates were endorsed by Trump in their respective last races.

It'll be interesting to see if Trump takes a side in this one, or if anyone will care if Trump (laughs) takes a side in this one.

But, yeah.

And Bost will have the support of the Republican establishment.

On the national level, they've already said.

You know, US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said, you know, they're gonna stick with Bost.

He's a loyal supporter.

He supported McCarthy through the whole process to make him the speaker.

So Bost has a lot of things going for him, but Darren Bailey is popular.

You know, he won almost 75% of the vote of that congressional district in his governor's race several months ago.

So, you know, the numbers are there.

I think it's just gonna come down to a matter of who's the loudest and who can make the most noise and who can appeal the most to the base.

- That noise, a lot of times, comes down to money, and, Kent, that's where your expertise lies.

So is this going to be one of those record-breaking fundraising and campaign spending races?

- I really don't think so because in terms of national money, or even if we're looking at Darren Bailey's patron for the gubernatorial race, which was Richard Uihlein, you know, a Republican winning the 12th Congressional District doesn't change the math nationally at all.

This is, you know, whoever wins the Republican primary is going to be the congressman, and that's not gonna add or subtract to anybody's total.

And so spending money in the 12th Congressional District is not gonna be as significant to actors looking at the big picture as spending money in swing districts, where you can pick up a seat, where the Republicans could defeat an incumbent or capture an open seat, or defend a Republican who has a very, very strong challenge.

And so I think that is, you know, if Bailey is counting on a lot of national money, I'm not sure that's gonna be forthcoming.

It just, it doesn't make sense for, let's say, the Club for Growth to be spending a lot of money in the Republican primary in the 12th Congressional District.

So, you know, I think that's a problem, and that Bost has an advantage because of being an incumbent, then lots of people like to give money to incumbents and they like to back winners.

And so, you know, Bailey will have trouble peeling off or getting resources from groups that are basically, you know, comfortable with Bost and really don't want to get involved with, you know, picking a fight when they're, you know, they're gonna be happy with who, reasonably happy, with whoever wins.

And, you know, certainly from Bailey's standpoint, you know, his choices are either to be one of, what are we at, 19 or 20 members of a 59-member Senate, and be where the Republicans are pretty irrelevant.

Or, you know, to try another run for statewide, it's hard to imagine a set of circumstances where a Republican can win statewide in the current environment.

So this is his best opportunity to raise his profile, to get a career that's more significant than being a state senator in an overwhelming Republican minority in a very, very blue state.

- And, Jason, what's the strategy here?

And, for example, I was talking with John Jackson of the SIU's Paul Simon Public Policy Institute this week and we were discussing this race, and he mentioned that you might see Darren Bailey portraying himself as the outsider versus Mike Bost as the establishment candidate.

What does this do to the electorate in this conservative district, the 12th Congressional District, which covers far Southern Illinois in terms of making a choice between two very conservative Republicans?

- Yeah, I think, you know, while this, as Kent mentioned, this race won't really, you know, change the makeup of the US house in terms of, you know, a partisan split, it will tell us a great deal about how the Republican electorate has changed or has not changed in Illinois.

You know, we have this wing of the Republican Party that's gone super far right.

We see that embodied in the lawmakers that are part of the Eastern Bloc, which includes Darren Bailey, you know, who take, you know, far right stances on many issues.

Are, you know completely behind Donald Trump.

And then there's, you know, the more moderate wing of the Republican Party, embodied by people like, you know, Kevin McCarthy, and Mike Bost, to an extent.

So is the Republican party gonna go all in on the Eastern Bloc wing of the party or kinda remain more moderate on some of these issues?

To me, that'll be, you know, the most telling thing to come out of this race.

- I wanna change gears just a little bit.

As we said, we'd get to the Supreme Court opinions that were handed down late last week, and that includes striking down affirmative action in higher education.

What impact, Kent, do you think will come from this in Illinois?

Most of the public institutions, at least, have said, "We don't use affirmative action "in our admissions policies, anyway.

"We have other ways of measuring "the students that we admit to our schools."

Will this decision have an impact in Illinois?

- It might have some impact at the main, at Champaign-Urbana, you know, the main campus of the U of I, where, you know, they're competing with other, you know, top, Big 10 and national universities, and so there's a lot.

In terms of the students they'd like to recruit, there's a lot of competition.

As you get down into, you know, the regional schools, Eastern, Western, Illinois State, Northern, you know, there is, you know, they're all trying to build their enrollments, and so it's not a, you know, they would like to maintain diversity in a number of different ways.

It's not gonna be terribly noticeable unless you expand it to hit some other avenues.

If the state were to initiate programs that were based on class or income, I mean, and we already have the MAP grant.

If you got into issues of athletic scholarships or, again, legacy kinds of, you know, where people who are donors or are children of alumni have definite advantages, you know, again, that would have a bigger impact on UIUC than it would, you know, the other schools.

Again, if there's not gonna be anything involving diversity in terms of the state board of higher education or initiatives from the governor or the legislature.

There is always, you know, if we expand questions of diversity or we expand, you know, affirmative action, or even, you know, the other case that was on the docket about, you know, providing services for people in protected classes, you know, there could be a ripple out of that in terms of universities and the state in general, but it's not gonna be terribly noticeable in Illinois, no.

- Jason, let's get to that other case that Kent referenced, and that's the one that would allow business owners to refuse service to groups of people that perhaps they philosophically disagree with.

We've already seen reaction from state leaders here in Illinois about what's going to happen as a result of this here.

Do you think that you'll continue to see more?

Illinois already has some pretty strong language on discrimination and things like that.

- Yeah, as soon as that ruling came out, you know, Governor Pritzker was among those saying that, you know, decrying the decision and making it clear that Illinois, again, will remain an oasis for, you know, rights in that area.

You know, this is a good progressive issue for Democrats to get behind, and I do see, again, Illinois trying to up its profile in, you know, being accommodating to the LGBTQ community.

So I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of legislation come out of this.

I need to form it in my mind a little better on exactly what the legislation might do or what tact it might take, or if it'll be effective at all, or maybe just, you know, something to show support.

But I do see some sort of legislation to come forward that would, you know, clarify this in Illinois on what businesses can and can't do when it comes to, you know.

when certain customers come into their businesses.

- Sure.

Last year, when the decision that overturned Roe versus Wade came down, a lot of political watchers pointed to that decision, the Dobbs decision, as it's called, as reason for strong democratic successes in the midterm elections, which traditionally would've gone to Republicans because of the White House control in the Democratic Party.

Do you think that these decisions, affirmative action and other protected classes, will have an impact on the 2024 elections?

Jason, I'll start with you.

- I think it all contributes to it.

I mean, the Dobbs decision was just so big and, you know, overturned a precedent that was in place for so long.

That was sort of a culture-changing decision that affected, you know, every corner of America.

And that, you know, clearly motivated people in the last election.

You know, these decisions are maybe a little less high profile at the moment.

And again, we're still a year or more away from the election, so like I said, it's gonna contribute to some people's motivation to get out and vote, but in the end, I think, you know, Dobbs will still, is still, you know, more, you know, game changing.

- Sure.

Let's get back to something a little more state-centric, go back to the state of Illinois, and that's this issue of the pension liability.

People know about the unfunded pension liability in the state of Illinois, which is well over $100 billion.

The Illinois Legislature budgets every year to pay down that pension debt.

And state leaders have celebrated over the last several years that they've paid even more than what was budgeted.

I believe it's up to $700 million more than what was budgeted over the last three years.

But this week, S&P Global came out with a report that said, you know, that may not be enough.

That may not be enough to stabilize and shore up this unfunded pension liability that the state faces.

And because of the way the Constitution is written, there aren't a lot of ways to get out of that liability, besides paying it down.

Kent, what do you expect lawmakers to say about this report, and what's in the works in terms of trying to get some of those dollars paid down?

- Okay, well, and there is an issue of unfunded liability in terms total and how that affects the state budget.

There's also an issue that is percolating in terms of the tier two program that is currently in effect for new employees.

And there is a definite issue about whether or not that runs afoul of the safe harbor provisions within Social Security that allow the state of Illinois to say, for a university employee, for instance, you know, "We're not gonna participate "in Social Security because we've got a better system."

Clearly, tier two has issues.

It might be something as simple as just taking off the cap on what's pensionable under tier two.

You know, it's a complicated formula that you have to meet.

So there's gonna be a response in terms of that.

Then we have a formulation most closely identified with the Illinois Policy Institute, essentially says, you know, "We need to get everybody out of the pension business "and go to our state-supported defined benefit.

"We need to go to 401(k).

"And then we need to amend the state constitution "to limit future pension benefits "for retirees."

And full disclosure, that would be me.

And so, you know, that's their proposal.

The legislature is working, has a group that's working, has a bill that they're hoping to have in shape in the fall.

Representative Kifowit, it's basically centered in the House, and they would like to find some ways to pay down the pension debt.

Things that we have done, like allowing, getting people to cash out in terms of, you know, or in terms of their retirement.

But they're looking for some ways to generate some money from designated sources that would, you know, designated revenue streams, or doing some bonding that would go into paying down the debt, would limit the liability by spreading out the payments, in terms of certain bond payments for instance, or finding another revenue stream.

The problem with that is that we've got lots of competition about what the state wants to do with its money and how much we're gonna have left after all of the COVID stimulus money goes away.

And so, you know, there are things we could do.

They seem to feel like they've got something that's a much better alternative.

You know, that's a positive aggressive change that is an alternative to what the Policy Institute is putting forward.

But, you know, so I think we're gonna have at least some attention, some effort to try and change how we're addressing that.

Money spent on pensions, the unfunded liability, is money we don't spend on schools and mental health care and everything else.

And if you tie up a revenue stream for paying pension debt, that's a revenue stream that can't go to higher ed and elementary ed.

You know, the budget looks great right at the moment, but the next two or three years are gonna be pretty critical in terms of how solid ground we really are on.

- That'll wrap up our time.

I'd like to thank Kent Redfield and Jason Piscia for joining us on CapitolView.

You can find all of our episodes online at wsiu.org.

I'm Jennifer Fuller.

We'll catch you next time.

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