[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Welcome to Capitol View on SIU.

I'm Jeff Williams sitting in this week as we take a look at what's making news around the state in Illinois politics at the top of the newsfeed this week, tension among immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago continues to escalate, as a federal judge has ordered the Border Patrol commander to provide the court with daily enforcement updates.

Also, week two of the General Assembly's fall veto session is underway, and it's officially election season, as candidates across the state have filed their nomination or are filing their nominating petitions this week.

Those stories maybe some more this week on Capitol View to help lead our discussion, our Dan Petrella, a political writer for the Chicago Tribune, and Jeremy Gorner, state government reporter of the Chicago Tribune.

Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.

>> Good to be here.

Good to be here.

>> All right.

As I mentioned, the ongoing Ice enforcement in Chicago has continues to spark significant tension, particularly following some recent fairly large scale raids that have resulted in multiple arrests, as well as seemingly daily clashes between protesters and and federal agents.

The situation has been exacerbated by reports of aggressive tactics on the part of of immigration agents, to the point where federal judges is now requiring daily reports on those confrontations immigration officers are having are having with the public.

Um, Dan, how would you assess the current situation in on the streets of Chicago now?

>> It's very tense.

And I think it's it's, uh, you know, shocking for a lot of people when, uh, when, you know, militarized federal agents show up in their neighborhoods.

Um, you know, we saw late last week, um, folks like landscapers getting getting chased down the streets.

Um, and lots of residents of some of these neighborhoods coming out and basically telling, uh, Ice and CBP agents that they weren't welcome in their neighborhood.

They wanted them to leave.

Uh, we saw tear gas deployed in several instances, including, uh, in the neighborhood on the on the northwest side, Old Irving Park, where there were kids on their way to, uh, to, uh, Halloween Parade.

And so it's, uh, it's been quite a tense situation.

Um, lots of, uh, you know, chaos and unpredictability.

And, uh, that was part of the reason that, uh, that, uh, Judge Ellis called Gregory Bovino for from Customs and Border protection into, uh, into her courtroom on on Tuesday.

And now we'll be seeing him, uh, daily for the foreseeable future as she tries to enforce this restraining order she issued a few weeks ago.

Um, trying to keep Ice and CBP from using, uh, using tear gas and other, uh, tactics, uh, on on protesters and journalists and folks like that as they come out, uh, to, to protest what's going on and to to witness and record what's going on.

>> Yeah.

I know when the Department of Homeland Security originally had had indicated that their so-called Operation Midway Blitz would be about a 30 day enforcement effort, has there been any indication yet when this enforcement effort may conclude?

>> There has not.

Uh, it doesn't seem to be subsiding anytime soon.

Um, you know, I think, uh, there's the question lingering as well, of whether, uh, the, the National Guard troops who, uh, have been sent here to Illinois and, and prevented from being deployed, uh, Whether that will situation will progress.

Um, there's a restraining order, you know, going forward until on that until, um, they're able to to resolve that issue.

Uh, on the facts in court.

But we're also waiting to see whether the Supreme Court will step in and issue some kind of ruling there, which the Trump administration has requested.

And we've been waiting.

Now, I think, uh, about a week to see what, if anything, the High Court might say on that issue.

Um, yeah.

It's been really, really, um, an interesting scene, you know?

Uh bovino.

When he left the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago yesterday, uh, was greeted by a small group of very angry protesters, peaceful protesters, but, uh, then kind of stood on the, um, the threshold of his pickup truck that he was getting into and sort of waved his arm in the air to his, uh, his, um, not really troops, his agents who were surrounding and then did sort of a raised fist, uh, gesture before getting in the car.

So it was a very odd sort of defiant thing to see after, uh, you know, the this judge had sort of just, uh, tried to, uh, you know, remind him of the restrictions that are in place and, and get some accountability for the way the agents have been acting out on the street.

It was, uh, he was very it seemed very defiant rather than than chasing them out of there.

>> Yeah, I know I've talked with some friends who who live in the Chicago area, who live in and around some of these enforcement areas, and I've heard what they've how how they feel about it.

Um, what kind of toll do you have a sense of what kind of toll this is taking on the city and maybe even even those that are that would be coming in to to visit Chicago.

>> Yeah.

You know, it's it's especially in neighborhoods like Little Village where you have a large Mexican American population in other parts of the city where there are large Latino populations.

It it isn't instilling a lot of fear.

Folks are, um, you know, going about their lives much more cautiously.

Um, there's seen lots of reports of, you know, uh, restaurants that are normally busy and bustling, uh, being empty.

And, and I think one of the thing that's sort of surprising about this is just the unpredictability of where, um, you know, where these folks in, in military garb might pop up.

You know, last week we saw them in places like, uh, Lincoln Park and Wicker Park, sort of North Side neighborhoods that are, um, you know, somewhat diverse, but certainly not, um, you know, heavily Latino enclaves of the city.

So, um, you know, obviously there are folks who are here illegally who are not Latino.

We should specify that.

But that seems to really be the emphasis of of what, uh, what Ice and CBP are doing here.

So, um, you know, I don't know that we've seen a huge drop off in tourism or anything like that.

I think we'll we'll see, you know, when those numbers come out annually, um, in the future, whether whether that's, uh, that's the case.

But at least anecdotally, there's certainly a lot of, of tension and, and fear and anxiety among folks across the city.

>> Yeah, yeah.

Uh, Jeremy, the the veto session obviously is going on.

There was some talk earlier about looking at maybe adding some additional restrictions to local law enforcement officers or school resource officers in terms of what help they could provide to Ice enforcement agents.

Has there been any movement on any of that during the during the veto session yet, or is that something that's just kind of on a back burner?

>> Well, so far we haven't seen anything yet.

I mean, there's been a couple of bills filed, but nothing that's gone through any of the committees which precede votes on the House and Senate floors.

We still have two days left, so we'll see what happens.

But among what they're looking at, Jeff, is this idea that, uh, you know, basically restricting, um, the federal immigration enforcement agents from going to all schools and hospitals, uh, for example, uh, to enforce civil immigration warrants.

So basically, what would happen there is, uh, if you have somebody who is, um, an undocumented immigrant.

Protection.

Know about it.

Um, basically what would happen there is that ideally these agents would wait for them at the courthouse.

So once they're done with their court date, they would swoop up and arrest them.

Um, but what, you know, there's legislation that's being discussed that would bar, uh, these agents from arresting undocumented immigrants on the grounds of a courthouse.

And I believe it would also apply somehow to a hospital.

>> Um.

>> But, you know, the question is about, uh, barring law enforcement from wearing masks.

We saw a lot of, um, immigration enforcement agents wearing masks on the street, obviously.

Um, but of course, the legal question is, is how do you compel, um, a federal entity to obey state law if that were to go into effect.

Um, and that kind of remains to be seen.

I know that, uh, speaker House Speaker Chris Welch has basically said he doesn't want to pass anything without any teeth.

Um, you know, one, uh, legal advocate, uh, for the, um, you know, the proposal I talked about for the courthouses had basically said, well, the way around that for courthouses would be that, you know, the logic is, is that, um, the courthouses fall, you know, there could be an argument to be made that these courthouses, if they're county courthouses, fall under fall under local or state authority, and basically local or state authority has the ability to enforce its own laws, really.

And, um, and if they want to bar the federal government from encroaching on their territory, they can do that.

Um, you know, and make no mistake, immigration enforcement can still enforce civil warrants.

They just wouldn't be able to do it on the grounds of a courthouse.

You know, given everything I just said, I don't know if that is the legal justification that will fly, but I know that that was something that one legal advocate for one of these proposals was telling me.

>> Yeah.

And we've already seen, uh, Tim Evans, the chief judge of the circuit court here in Cook County, uh, do that sort of through through a rule at the courthouse.

We'll see, you know, whether that ends up being, uh, you know, being enforceable, whether they can, um, you know, take any action if it's if it's violated.

I think that's not something we've seen happen yet, but it will be interesting to see what what happens if it does.

>> Mhm.

Well, there's some other issues that are going on in the veto session.

I think it was this week that that House Democrats floated a plan to help fund the Chicago area public transit, including closing some, adding some incentives or some taxes I guess, to tech and uh, ultra uh, which um loophole to try and help provide funding for the so-called fiscal cliff that the transit authority is seeing.

What kind of acceptance or reception is is is that receiving?

>> Well, we'll find out when we go into the Capitol today.

Jeff, so far this whole, um, uh, saga has been very dramatic, um, between, uh, the House and Senate.

Um, and, um, you know, basically what you had is you had this big Senate bill that was, um, 800 pages, something like that, that passed in the spring.

And the basically what it called for was a governing structure for the regional transportation authority that oversees the Chicago Transit Authority, Metra, and Pace, um, the two sister agencies of the CTA.

And, um, it would overhaul the RTA with a new system, with new governance so that, um, there's so that the three, um, entities that I mentioned, CTA, Metra and Pace are all kind of on one, you know, that there's a commonality when it comes to service and fare structure.

Um, you know, because that was one thing that was a big problem.

And then, of course, the other big problem was funding.

Um, you know, advocates have said that they need, um, there's a fiscal cliff coming up of $770 million, um, from, you know, brought upon largely by federal pandemic money that's running out.

Um, um, but RTA comes back a couple weeks before veto session, says, yeah, actually, we're only $200 million in debt.

So what happens there is you have members of the Illinois House who have criticized the RTA, saying they can't trust them.

They're very skeptical about what's going on there.

How do you find $500 million?

Um.

You know, just out of the blue, of course.

RTA has explained that that there were better than expected sales tax revenues that contributed to that, but at the same time.

But but what happened is, is that the Senate passed its own bill in the spring with revenue with revenue options that included, um, tacking on a $1.50 fee for food deliveries and other deliveries, um, as well as a real estate transfer tax for suburban Cook County and the collars.

Um, but that never passed the house.

Um, the house instead.

Yesterday, late last night came out with its own bill.

Um, those two, um, revenue enhancements I just mentioned were not in the bill.

As far as we could tell, this bill is over 1000 pages, and it includes, um, an amusement, a 7% amusement tax.

Amusement taxes are for, um, you know, what you would tack on for, like, sporting events and other entertainment.

Um, and then a billionaires tax, has been put in, I believe at 4.95% is what I saw.

And then there's also another sales tax.

And then um, we had heard that there were floating.

We couldn't find it in the bill.

But one of the things that we were hearing from lawmakers was that, you know, another option was going to be a tax on streaming services like Hulu and Netflix.

And altogether, these taxes and others would, um, add up to around $1.5 billion, which is what advocates say they need for, um, you know, Chicago area public transit to function.

Now, of course, the question is, well, what about the rest of the state because the rest of the state is going to have to pay for some of this.

And so that's where we're we're going to see some divide for sure.

Um, if it, if this makes it to the House or Senate floor and Senate floor, um, and you know, one of the things that the Chicago lawmakers have done is they've thrown down state, um, some incentives.

They said that in the Senate bill, um, there was $200 million that was included for, um, I believe it's a little more than 50 downstate transit agencies and 95 counties.

I didn't really see anything like that in this new bill, but that's that's something we're still kind of reviewing.

But, you know, you you should be ready to.

Um, you know, a House and Senate kind of fighting over this maybe, or or at least deliberating deliberating over this, but also downstate lawmakers kind of curious about how they're going to benefit.

>> Yeah.

And, you know.

>> Pritzker Governor Pritzker has been very insistent throughout all of this.

One of the specifics that he had said is that there needs to be something for downstate transit districts included in the bill, as well.

He wants a world class transit system, he says, for for the entire state, or at least the entire state where there currently exists mass transit.

One thing he hasn't really said, though, is how he would propose to pay for that.

He's been very hesitant about weighing in publicly, and it seems even even privately, about which revenue measures he would he would support to to fill that gap that the transit agencies are seeing.

>> So one thing that seems to keep coming up week after week is incentives in some form or another for for the bears.

Is that something that's finally dead this veto session or is that still potentially in play also?

>> I would say nothing is ever dead in Springfield, but okay.

Uh, I think it's unlikely at this point that we'll see something move.

There are always, uh, you know, somebody might, uh, pull a trick play at at the last minute here.

But, um, the situation really has not changed much since, uh, you know, since the spring where, uh, Chicago lawmakers in particular are concerned about the, uh, you know, roughly half $1 billion in outstanding debt from the Soldier Field renovation project 20 years ago.

Um, and they don't want to see, uh, package incentive package.

That will make it easier for the bears to leave, uh, and leave the city holding the bag for for that debt.

That debt is already repaid with with, uh, hotel tax revenue from the city.

And, um, when that falls short from money getting swept from their share of state income taxes.

But, um, the bears continue to not see that debt as their responsibility.

They, you know, they said we're tenants paying rent on this facility.

We paid, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars up front to help pay for those renovations.

Uh, so that's not really not really our problem to resolve.

And I think that's the at least the last I've been talking to, folks, the issue kind of remains, um, at loggerheads there.

They would love to to see a package.

There are other folks who, for other projects want this mega projects idea out there where, um, developers are these big projects would be able to sort of negotiate with local taxing bodies over what their property tax bills would be year to year.

Um, but, uh, I think a big holdup is is rounding up the support from Chicago lawmakers that was would take for any sort of legislation that's going to help the bears leave the city.

>> Yeah.

>> The the Illinois Federation of Teachers, they're scheduled to be lobbying in Springfield today.

They're asking for more funding, especially for about a third.

I think, of the K through 12 school districts that are that they're adequate funding is at 76% or lower.

They're also, I think, going to ask the governor to release the the 2% hold.

He's got, I think 25 million or so for, for, uh, college and higher higher education.

Is there any, any incentive to try to provide more, more funding for, for education in the state this, this fiscal year?

Is that going to be something that will have to be dealt with in next year as we start preparing the FY 27 budget?

>> It's going to be a heavy lift with two days left.

Jeff.

Um, you know, one of the things I had asked, uh, Speaker Welch, um, maybe a month before veto session, end of summer about, you know, what can we expect in veto session?

You know, and of course, he mentioned transit.

But then when I asked about funding for the Chicago Public Schools, because Chicago Public Schools is always in the car when it comes to what you're talking about.

Mhm.

He basically started talking, floating around this idea of we need to start taxing billionaires, which is what we're seeing in the transit proposal.

And the point is and I and I only bring that up because whenever, whenever you see some some like the Chicago public Schools, you know, they've always said that they want more than $1 billion.

Um, you know, because they feel like that would be adequate funding.

That's the adequate funding they need to function.

And they've been looking the last couple of years for Springfield to get that accomplished.

That appears, you know, in a tight budget year like this, that's probably not likely to happen.

But, you know, if IFT they're now going to be run by Stacy Davis Gates, who is the head of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Um, and, you know, obviously, it'll be interesting to see because it's a statewide it's the statewide teachers union, and she's very progressive.

Um, and, you know, she CTU has been behind this billion dollar push, um, to help the Chicago Public Schools.

But now, since we're talking statewide.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's it's difficult to, um, it'll be a difficult lift, I think, for, you know, in two days for lawmakers to mull this over, especially with knowing that the Chicago public Schools are going to have to be in this conversation.

And so far, there's really been some been lukewarm reception from lawmakers to, um, you know, to, to, to provide funding for that.

Not that they don't want to provide funding.

It's just that in the tight budget year that we have, it would be difficult.

>> And you've also already got the governor's office asking department heads throughout state government to look for potential cuts with the potential loss of of federal funding.

So trying to get more money out of the system right now, mid-year for, uh, for public schools without some sort of, uh, you know, tax, uh, revenue package attached to it is going to be, like Jeremy said, very difficult, especially given the tight time frame politically.

It's going to be really interesting to see, uh, how the Illinois Federation of Teachers operates going forward in Springfield under under the leadership of Stacy Davis Gates.

She's been one of the, uh, you know, few, um, you know, progressives and Democrats here in Illinois who's really not been shy about publicly criticizing Governor Pritzker when she disagrees with him.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> I want to do, uh, talk about election season.

It's officially underway.

Monday was the day that, uh, statewide and local candidates across the state were were filing their nominating, nominating petitions.

Uh, I believe they've got, what, a week or so to to file those.

Um, finish filing those.

But just looking at what's, uh, what's come in, uh, so far now that most of the candidates are, are official, um, what are we looking at in terms of any interesting primary races that are, that are shaping up?

>> I think, um, you know, obviously there's not going to be a big primary race on the Democratic side for governor.

Uh, the, uh, and Jeremy and our colleague Rick Pearson had a really interesting story this, this last week.

But the Republican primary for governor, um, is just, uh, a very messy, sort of chaotic situation.

Uh, that got only got, uh, sort of more bizarre and and interesting with the entry of, uh, Rick, who's a video gambling magnate, uh, who once had a proposal for a racetrack and casino up here in the south suburbs, canceled by the governor.

Over, uh, a report from one of our former colleagues that he had ties to organized crime figures in the past.

Um, so that's just one new entry.

Obviously, there was the the big tragedy in the Bailey family where Darren Bailey, the 2022 nominees, uh, son and daughter in law and two grandchildren, um, died in a helicopter crash last week.

So, uh, it's going to be interesting to see how that, uh, affects the dynamics of the race.

So that's one to watch.

Uh, just seeing how, uh, that field emerges and, um, who comes out on top there?

Um, you know, and obviously up here in the Chicago area, there are a whole slew of very crowded congressional races.

So one thing I'll be watching over the next week or so when we get to the end of filing, is how many people actually got all the signatures they needed in, in time to actually get their name on the ballot and just, uh, selfishly hoping for a little bit of a winnowing of some of those fields with so many candidates to keep track of.

But, uh, I know Jeremy's got other other races he's watching as well.

>> I don't know if you mentioned this.

Obviously for US Senate, you know, with Dick Durbin's vacancy.

I mean, we saw We saw Roger Krishnamurthy out there, a congressman from the northwest suburbs of Chicago.

He was out in Springfield.

Um, obviously Robin Kelly, um, another congressman from the south suburbs is running for for that Senate seat, uh, Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton as well.

Um, you know, there's a lot of big money in that race.

It's not from who you'd expect, though.

I mean, you would think that Governor Pritzker, since he's endorsed Julie, you know, the billionaire that he is, you'd think that he'd enjoy since he endorsed his lieutenant governor.

Um, no.

I mean, the front runner when it comes to funding is, uh, Raja Krishnamurthy.

He's been raising he's been in Congress a long time.

He's been raising a lot of money.

And it served them well so far because he's come out with a slew of TV ads.

Um, I don't I don't know, Dan.

I don't know if we've seen other TV ads from, uh, from Juliana Stratton or Robin Kelly yet.

Um, but definitely from Congressman Krishnamoorthi.

And then on the Republican side, you know, we so far, we've just seen Don Tracy, um, as as a major candidate on the Republican side, he's, of course, the former head of the state Republican Party.

Um, so, um, yeah, so so that's definitely all eyes are on that seat as well.

Just because it's been occupied so long.

By I mean, Dick Durbin's become a household name in Illinois.

I mean, he's been in that seat for about 30 years.

And, you know, so, you know, that's going to be another definitely another race to watch.

>> Yeah.

>> Gentlemen, in the minute and a half or so that we have left, um, what are each of you got your eyes on this week or the weeks ahead that you're going to be watching?

>> Well, I know.

>> Jeremy's going to have his hands full at the Capitol with the the end of veto session here.

We're taping on Wednesday morning, and hopefully he'll be, uh, asleep by sometime in the early morning hours.

>> On.

>> Friday when it's supposed to wrap up.

Um, I will be continuing to, to watch what's going on here with the immigration enforcement in Chicago and also, you know, helping helping out, seeing if there are any last minute surprises that pop up down there in Springfield while the rest of us are are sleeping.

>> Okay.

All right.

>> Well, gentlemen, thank you very much.

Dan Petrella, Jeremy Gorner Gorner, both of the Chicago Tribune, thank you very much for joining us this week on Capitol View.

And I'm Jeff, and I'm Jeff Williams.

Thank you for tuning in to Capitol View.

Have a good week.

[MUSIC]