[MUSIC] >> Welcome to Capital View on WSIU.

I'm Jeff Williams sitting in this week as we take a look at what's making news around the state in Illinois politics.

The weather has caught up with me, so bear with me as I croak my way through the through the program today to help guide our discussions this week are John Jackson, visiting professor from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, and Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.

>> Good to be here.

>> Well, it has been another busy week as Ice enforcement efforts continue in Chicago, the federal government shutdown is moving into its third week.

Um, we'll take a closer look at those stories and probably more this week on Capitol Hill, on Capitol View.

Um, operation Midway Blitz in Chicago.

Now, what about a month and a half or so in Ice.

Enforcement efforts in Chicago seem to be becoming more aggressive.

I think this week, federal agents now reportedly targeting communities on the north side of Chicago in their enforcement efforts in communities of Rogers Park and West Ridge and Edgewater.

Meanwhile, protests and rallies continuing in and around the Broadview Detention Center.

At the same time, we continue to see legal pushback both at the state and and federal level from city officials and the governor and and state officials.

Um, a lot to unpack here.

Kent, what do you see as kind of at the forefront of this ongoing story this week?

>> Well, we're have activity going on a number of fronts where some of it has to do with, uh, how the demonstrations are regulated or not regulated, uh, crowd control, those kinds of issues.

Uh, there is are attempts by, uh, the city and the county to, uh, place some restrictions, particularly in terms of, uh, courtrooms where you're making arrests that are basically civil orders.

They're, you know, you don't have any kind of judicial, uh, warrant, uh, that's, that's involved.

And this is a, a real, you know, bone of of of contention.

Um, and, you know, you have so you've got those kinds of things taking place.

Uh, so we are in the courts.

We're doing things the city is limited in terms of what it can do, where the federal government is asserting, you know, this is executive power.

Uh, it gets a little murkier when you get into situations like, uh, the ongoing battle, uh, as to whether or not, uh, we're going to have the president's going to be able to to nationalize the Illinois National Guard and, uh, and use them in conjunction with and again, it's not clear whether we're talking about fighting crime, uh, which is pretty broad.

And, you know, might involve invoking, uh, you know, the, the, uh, you know, the federal act on, uh, involving insurrection.

And when you're talking about, you know, trying to protect the activities of, uh, immigration enforcement, which is a much more narrow executive order.

So, you know, quickly, you know, what's going on is you've got some executive orders that are kind of the city and county together that, uh, want to, uh, you know, we're going to we have protest zones.

How big it is.

You know, that's been a In contention.

Um, we have the city and the county basically saying, you know, by executive order, we're not going to allow Ice activities to take place in city property.

Uh, you know, buildings, parking lots, those kinds of things, you know, support, support activities.

And then there is an injunction, uh, that where, uh, a an attempt to get a federal restraining order over the very aggressive enforcement where you've you're shooting, uh, you know, pepper balls and those kinds of things and using tear gas and, uh, right now, again, there's a court order restricting, uh, how, uh, ice is able to, uh, respond to, uh, to protests.

Uh, that's in, uh, you know, that that could easily change, uh, in terms of, you know, the various appeals that are going on.

And so you've got this tussle about where we can demonstrate or can't demonstrate how aggressive that the federal authorities can be in crowd control.

And then you have, uh, questions about, you know, what kind of restrictions can the city place on essentially civil enforcement actions.

You know, and this mostly we're talking about, uh, arresting people that have come to federal court that are for some kind of immigration enforcement.

Um, and then another front is, uh, involves, uh, the National Guard.

And so, you know, you have two competing rulings at the moment.

Uh, federal appeals court in, uh, Portland has said that, uh, you know, the federal government can nationalize, uh, the forces that that are there and use them, uh, in what is often described as kind of, you know, riot control, insurrection kinds of, you know, those are the claims that are being made.

Uh, you have exactly the opposite situation going on in the federal courts in Chicago, where there is a restraining order saying that, uh, uh, from a circuit court judge saying that you can't nationalize, uh, the, uh, you know, the Illinois National Guard because the situation does not constitute an insurrection if you're just using them for crime.

Then we're in an area where, uh, the Posse Comitatus law restricts, uh, you know, nationalized Stylized Federal Guard would be, you know, federal, federal military from enforcing the laws.

Uh, there's a pretty stark difference between kind of if you look at the three things that are going on in, uh, Washington, DC, where the president has full authority to bring in National Guard, they've got about 3000 sworn officers.

There are about 3200, uh, uh, National Guard from various states.

Uh, you know, that constitutes, uh, about seven.

You know, you've had it like a 70% increase of, uh, the people that are, uh, you know, doing, uh, law enforcement kinds of activities in Portland.

If you get 350 National Guards Guardsmen, that's going to be, um, you know, in the neighborhood of 40%, you know, 800 to 350.

Chicago has 12,000, uh, sworn police officers, 350 National Guard, which is a number that's being thrown around, constitutes about 3% increase.

And so, you know, the what's being you know, Chicago looks much more symbolic.

We're going to have a presence, uh, you know, obviously in D.C., this is a huge federal force that's involved with local law enforcement.

And then, you know, an in between potentially kind of situation in, in, uh, in Portland.

So, uh, there's a lot going on here.

And, uh, you know, eventually the, the, the courts will, will sort it out as to, you know, where are the lines, what's permissible?

What isn't permissible.

Simple.

>> Something that I wanted to touch on.

We've talked a little bit about in some recent shows and just kind of maybe to add some context and get get your either one of your, your thoughts on this, but, um, how would you assess the level of intensity that is emerging from not only the government enforcement, but but some of the civil unrest or demonstrations that are that are going on, on, on around this.

You know, if as you look at, at modern history, I mean, are we going back to some of the protests and demonstrations that we saw in the 60s to see this kind of level of of intensity, or is this something on a on a different level?

>> No, it's it's, you know, we had back in the 60s and and you know, some of us, most of us were all of us were there, you know, you had serious confrontations between large crowds and, uh, you know, against federal institutions, uh, bombings.

I mean, you know, there really was civil unrest.

And again, we should state clearly there have been times when the federal government has has activated the National Guard.

And in terms of being able to, uh, you know, have civil order and enforce, uh, civil law.

And it's happened in terms of integration and trying to integrate schools and colleges.

It's happened, you know, in Los Angeles, uh, after the, you know, the riots and what, you know, we had you know, I have a vivid memory of, you know, time magazine with a picture of, uh, tanks going down this main street in Detroit.

And so, you know, we are nowhere at that kind of level.

And, uh, I would say the activity, the demonstrations.

Portland has a history of much stronger, uh, demonstrations and clashes with police than, uh, is certainly the case in, in, uh, in, in, in in Chicago.

Uh, and so it's, you know, it's are you narrowly protecting, you know, allow one having the federal government, the ability to enforce its laws.

Are you really talking about a full blown, uh, you know, nationalization of the of the local state guards in terms of confronting what, you know, historically, we would recognize as, you know, insurrection, threat to civil order.

And, you know, you so this is you know, this does not compare.

But again, this is a judgment call.

And so, you know, federal judges, uh, you know, you haven't don't really even have a trial record at this point to, to get, you know, we're appealing essentially restraining orders rather than a trial record.

And, and so some of this, you know, certainly falls within historical a lot of it looks like we're doing basically, you know, performance sorts of things to show a presence, to make a to make a point rather than responding to something that really threatens the ability of, of the federal government to, uh, you know, to conduct its, uh, its activities.

>> Okay.

And that kind of transitions into the next topic I wanted to touch on.

And we talked about demonstrations.

The the No Kings movement has gained some momentum over the past several weeks in opposition to Ice enforcement and some of the other, uh, President Trump's actions this past weekend, there were coordinated demonstrations across the country, as well as here in Illinois, where tens of thousands of people turned out at rallies in Chicago and Champaign and Springfield.

And here in Carbondale, where we had an estimated 2000 people or so, uh, at Turley Park.

Um, John, what do you make of this no Kings movement and its intention or Or call to action.

>> Well, I think it's a massive example of grassroots democracy.

Uh, the number of events alone is is staggering.

It started out the reports early were 700 events.

It ultimately went on to 2100 estimated events, including a bunch of sites overseas.

Uh, I had friends who went to the one in Carbondale.

And the 2000, according to them, is about right.

Uh, from Chicago to Carbondale to Dublin and around Europe, there were all kinds of demonstrations.

Uh, and I think it's worth noting that the media coverage said it was basically, uh, peaceable, that there were no big fights or anything like that.

Uh, it was described as, uh, good vibes and a block party or going off to, uh, the, uh, morning, uh, uh, farmers market kind of vibe.

And I think, on the other hand, the Republicans painted it much darker than that.

Uh, uh, they said this is the socialist, uh, the Communist, the Antifa, the Hamas supporters, and the extreme left of the Democratic Party.

Uh, both the speaker and the president said, this is the Hate America crowd.

Uh, the theme for the Trump administration was that particular negative spin.

I think it's interesting, though.

They've not been able to sell that very well.

The early polls are showing that the approval rate for what happened is really remarkably high.

And I think that goes to local news and local experience and friends and neighbors.

Uh, you get it from a person across the street who went?

You can't spend that.

And local news did a great job of covering this.

I think.

In summary, this shows the power of public opinion.

There are not many guardrails left on the power of the president, but public opinion is one of them.

And I think this is a case in point.

Uh, uh, Trump follows the polls and the polls are not good for him on this particular one.

So I'd say mission accomplished for that particular event.

>> Um, do you think this group does it have a do they know what the end outcome is that they're wanting?

Do they kind of have a unified call to action, or is it kind of the whatever the Trump administration topic of the of the day is for them?

Because I know there's been some discussion at the national level about, yes, they're doing this.

Yes, it's been successful.

But what is their what is their end?

>> Well, I think it's resistance.

And the resistance will only work if the political leadership class takes Take note.

And most notably, does this get the attention of the Republicans in the Congress?

Because that's the question.

Ultimately, they can begin to clamp down.

I don't think they're going to anytime soon, but that's the audience.

They've got to get some support from the Republicans who think that Trump has gone too far.

>> Yeah.

I wanted to shift gears a little bit here.

Um, one of the other issues that's making headlines is the federal government shutdown and the impasse, at least on Congress, in passing a continuing budget resolution and as well as the implications thereof, primarily the health insurance tax credits that are subsidies that are set to expire and that impact on the on the Affordable Care Act and the health care exchanges across the country.

And and here in Illinois.

I think if I if I've got the numbers correct, about half a million or so subscribers to the Health place marketplace in Illinois and another 900 or 1000 or so in the Medicaid expansion area of that.

Um, what is what are we looking at potentially, if these expire and we're in the open enrollment period, it sounds like it's kind of a mess at the moment.

>> It is a mess.

This is the continuing saga.

This is day 22 and counting with no end in sight.

And right now, no discussions.

And the House is not even in session.

Uh, the record, by the way, for a government shutdown is just 35 days.

And that happened in the first Trump administration.

We're at 22 and counting and they're not meeting.

And the president had a pep rally yesterday, uh, on the back lawn of the white House where all the Republicans went down.

And the Republicans are saying this is just another continuing resolution.

And in that they're right.

This is for a fiscal year that started October the 1st, and there are a lot of questions left about that.

As you indicated, we're still trying to put in place a permanent budget for FY 26, which has already started.

It's true that you've had lots of continuing resolutions all last year, for example.

They did that over and over again.

And so the Republicans are saying, well, let's just do another.

The Democrats say they want a deal now because this is the only time they've got any leverage.

Uh, we've got to do something about health care.

We've got to do something about food and nutrition.

And those deadlines are looming.

The, uh, matching money for, uh, the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare is coming due.

Um, the whole snap, uh, funding is going to run out on November the 1st.

And the Democrats are saying, we've got to do this now, and it's got to be a part of this discussion, Because once we give this up, uh, they've showed no sign that they're interested in negotiating with us according to the Democratic position.

Uh, the key here is Donald Trump, and he's showing no interest at all right now in getting this solved.

And that's the way it was solved last time.

He wanted to pay, uh, the federal employees and especially the military last time.

But right now, uh, they've taken care of the military, so he sees no pressure.

Indeed, Trump is using this as an excuse to start firing civil servants across the board in what he calls Democratic programs.

And it's interesting, the things they're calling Democratic programs, uh, that they're going through and firing people right and left.

And so that, of course, increases the pressure.

Uh, but, uh, the shutdown really seems to be here for a while.

I will say there have been a lot of polls and I think on balance, while both parties are being blamed, there is somewhat more blame being laid on the Trump administration because, after all, the Republicans do control a majority in the House and Senate and the presidency.

So that seems to be the leaning, particularly the issue among independents.

>> Yeah, I think it was it was late last week or early this week.

I think the governor's office and the and the insurance commissioner announced that the state kind of has a sort of a backup plan program that they're going to try to offer through the through the, through the marketplace.

Is this kind of a stopgap measure, or is it have any hope of trying to solve some of this issue for those purchasing from the from the marketplace in Illinois?

>> I think it's just a stopgap, but it does illustrate the point.

And that is, uh, the point Want for Illinois and all the states is they want the states to take over more of the funding, particularly for food stamps, for example, and and lots of things related to Medicaid and Medicare.

Uh, and we've got real questions about reopening the Illinois budget, uh, to new decisions that will be painful decisions.

And the General Assembly may have to, uh, deal with that on the upcoming veto session, for example.

>> And speaking.

Thanks, John.

Good transition.

Speaking of veto session Kent.

We've got the second half of the veto session getting under way in a way next week.

Um, just from your observation, are you expecting any substantive action to be taken up next week?

>> Uh, you know, there was an awful lot of things being talked about when we got into this, and I'm not sure that we're really going to have any, you know, anything's going to happen there.

The the pressure is off.

Fiscal pressure is off to do something on mass transit.

Because, you know, we've looked at the books again apparently, and everybody is satisfied that they can kick the can down the road until we're talking about, you know, the FY 27 budget.

Uh, both, uh, with uh, with the transit agencies up in northeastern Illinois and, and the, the state budget.

And then, you know, the laundry list was there.

The only thing we know for sure is that, uh, there's a really strong, uh, majority within the Democratic caucus, uh, that, uh, maybe the bears are going to move to Arlington, but we're we're not going to get any state money to help them move.

And so, you know, there's a definite no on that.

Everything else, you know, our energy reform was talked about, uh, evolving data centers and battery storage, insurance rate reform, more control over that with big increases in homeowners insurance.

Hemp was out there in terms of how we regulate these products.

And you can buy in the gas station that, uh, or, you know, or definitely not not not, you know, probably should be regulated.

They're not.

And, you know, the legislature, you know, would just as soon not make a decision, uh, if they don't have to because you make a decision, you make some people happy, you make other people unhappy.

I think we've I invoked this once before, but, you know, and this came from academia, where Dean once described, you know, when asked to assess the situation in, in some kind of planning meeting, you know, where we were at.

And he said, well, I think we're poised on the brink of thinking about action.

And I think that's, you know, that that might be a make a pretty good transfer to the way that the legislature often operates.

So it, you know, we could run for important bills, you know, when they come back to town.

But, uh, I don't know that that's necessarily going to happen.

>> All right.

Well, in the in the couple of minutes that we have left, gentlemen, uh, is there anything in particular that you're going to be watching or keeping an eye on this week?

John, I'll start with you.

>> Well, uh, the the races are really taking, uh, front stage in this part of the world.

Uh, we get all kinds of TV from Kentucky, and we see Kentucky politics getting ready for their races to replace Mitch McConnell.

Uh, I can report to you, uh, based on their ads, that, uh, the ones running, uh, for, uh, Mitch's place all love Donald Trump.

They've made that plain with their ads.

But I think the interesting thing about television down here is, uh, the replacement for Dick Durbin, uh, there are three very strong candidates.

And, of course, the lieutenant governor is very powerful by having, uh, J.B.

Pritzker's endorsement, uh, but, uh, the, uh, possibilities of the, uh, uh, the, uh, the sort of upstart is our congressman and our congressman, uh, that, uh, has the 30 letter last name, and, uh, he's all over the news down here, and he makes it plain that he's got the most money.

And Rajab makes fun of his own name, but, uh, he's got $21 million, and you can get a lot of name ID there, And I think in conclusion, the announcement by Darren Bailey that he's running puts a big name Republican into that race.

And he has to start out with by far the best name ID.

And so who the Republicans get there will probably come out to be Darren Bailey.

But also we don't know on the Senate side.

>> Kent, anything on your radar?

>> Uh, no, I if we're going to throw a lot of money around, it seems like more every election cycle.

And and so, you know, it's, it's, you know, 10 million there, 10 million there, you know, somewhere else.

And Dirksen used to say, pretty soon you're going to talk about serious money.

>> So, uh.

>> All right.

>> Well, Kent, we'll let you have the have the last word.

Kent Redfield.

John Jackson, thank you both for joining us.

I'm Jeff Williams.

Thank you at home for tuning in for Capitol View this week.

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