[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the Capital View on Cebu.

I'm Brian Sapp.

Governor JB Pritzker this week is directing state agencies to be prepared to cut 4% of their budgets.

And Republican Darren Bailey finally makes his decision on joining the race for governor.

We'll cover these topics and more on today's episode of Capital View.

Joining us this week to talk about these issues are Jeremy Gorner of the Chicago Tribune and Jason Pica.

He's the director of the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Thanks for joining us today.

>> Glad to be here.

>> Um, Jason, let's start with you.

Governor Pritzker issued an executive order this week on Tuesday, directing state agencies to find 4% in their budgets to cut, um, as a hedge against president.

What he says is the impacts of President Trump's economic policies.

Can you talk a little bit about what led the governor to make this decision, what he's saying and what impact this might have on already tight budgets?

>> Yes.

Uh, yeah.

The executive order asks all the state agencies within the next month to, uh, look at how much money they're spending and see if they can sock away 4% in the, in case that, uh, some real cuts need to be made, uh, to the state budget.

Uh, the governor attributed the need for this due to President Trump's, uh, one big, beautiful bill, uh, as was referred to several times.

Pritzker likes to call it the the big ugly bill.

Uh, sort of a counter to that.

Uh, but as you remember, that that bill, you know, includes some tax breaks for billionaires and reductions in Medicaid funding and some other things.

And, you know, those are all, all aspects that are going to be a hit on the state budget.

There's also been the tariff situation.

That's that's, uh.

State officials say will negatively affect the financial position of Illinois as well.

Uh, so at this point, just asking, uh, those state agencies to set aside 4%, uh, there were some questions.

He was questioned this week in a news conference about, you know, why do it in an executive order that's really overly political and, uh, you know, makes a big deal out of it.

Why not just send a memo?

Uh, but he mentioned, you know, this is a big deal, and he deals with executive orders all the time to to sort of emphasize the fact that this is important.

Um.

Republicans were quick to give a response to the governor's executive order.

Uh, Senate President John Curran, uh, House Republican Leader Tony Mccombie and even Darren Bailey, who's a presumptive candidate for governor, again, on the Republican side, uh, mentioned that, you know, it's not President Trump's economy issues that are causing Illinois's problems.

It's the massive overspending that the state has been doing over the last several years, they pointed out.

You know, when JB Pritzker started being governor, the the general funds budget was in sort of the mid 30s, billion dollars.

Uh, and this past year it was about $55 billion.

So there's been a huge jump in revenue and spending.

And those Republicans are telling him to I think we need to cool it on spending before we, uh, worry about what other causes are to the Illinois's budget problems.

>> Um, Jeremy, you've been at the statehouse.

Do you think that this is going to have an impact as we look to the fall session, to the fall veto session?

I mean, is this something that legislators might have to pick up or.

No.

>> Well, well it's interesting, Brian.

So this is really a contingency plan, um, from the Pritzker administration.

I mean, I know that after the spring session ended in May, um, you know, there were questions about are they going to call a special session in the summer to try to shore up any adverse actions from the Trump administration, particularly from, um, his spending cuts, um, his spending, his spending cuts bill?

Um, and that never happened.

It came and went.

And clearly there were several reasons where there could have been a special session or the reason to look out for one.

I mean, don't forget, the state still needs to figure out how they're going to fund transit.

They have the $770 million fiscal cliff to worry about.

And, you know, funding the Chicago Public Schools could be an issue.

So there were talks that maybe there'll be a special session under the guise of those issues, while also figuring out any kind of budgetary shortfalls arising from whatever the federal government is going to deprive, um, Illinois of.

But that that's come and gone.

I mean, we have veto session in a few weeks and basically kind of like what Jason was saying is that, um, this was really this executive order was really just to emphasize the immediacy of the problem and really just kind of telling these state agencies to, look, stay on hold.

We might need some of these funds for reserves for later on.

The other thing, too, um, I was in Joliet yesterday for Pritzker.

And, you know, asking him about this.

And one of the things he said was that, um, you know, if you look at other states, um, they've had to, you know, really kind of think again about how, you know, they're managing their state budgets as well.

He says Illinois is doing fine now, but they can only go by the information that they have presently is what Pritzker said.

So that's really, um, a sign of what this is.

Um, really.

And it also it's kind of a win win if you think about it for Pritzker, because this comes under the backdrop of this very public feuding that he has had with the president.

Um, Pritzker has emerged as one of his most ardent critics.

I mean, Pritzker has floated you know, there's been talks of him floating the idea of even running for president.

So this is so politically, this is also, um, this puts Pritzker in the spotlight, you know, as well.

But obviously, you know, with him that's taken a back seat of trying to get Illinois's, um, finances in order.

And really, like I said, this is more just a precautionary measure in case, you know, things do get rough because next year, he also had mentioned to me that even next year is not going to be an easy budget.

So they got for the state.

So they have to see what they have to do there.

>> Sounds like lots of headwinds.

And like you said, and I believe Governor Pritzker in his press release, referred to Iowa as having these troubles.

And then in doing some research, they talked about some states seem to be having some recession issues or worries.

So I think as we go on, we're just gonna have to see where these policies nationally start to have their impact locally.

And if they come about, um.

Moving on.

Jeremy, I want to stick with you.

Um, you attended a hearing on Monday in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals about Illinois's gun ban that they passed, um, after the 2022 Highland Park shooting.

Can you talk a little bit about tell us about this case and what was argued?

I understand that we had somebody from the DOJ actually come and argue to write.

>> And just to kind of remind viewers, I mean, because this there have been legal challenges to the, um, you know, to the Illinois assault weapons ban since it was signed into law by Governor Pritzker in 2023.

Um, so what's at issue here is, um, a Supreme Court decision from a couple of years ago, a US Supreme Court decision that really established a new test, um, you know, a new, like, constitutional test to decide whether some of these gun laws, um, follow the Second Amendment.

Um, you know, one is asking the question is, you know, if these states are going to ban certain weapons, you know, are they in common use?

That's number one.

And number two, is there a historical tradition of laws like it, um, of such regulation of banned weapons?

Um, Illinois believes that, you know, um, you know, Kwame, Attorney General Kwame Raoul's office, who's defending these legal challenges against gun rights groups, says that, um, they do you know that this ban does fall under the Second Amendment because, um, a lot of these guns that are banned under the assault weapons ban, a lot, especially these semiautomatic rifles, AR 15 types are basically he and other Democrats have talked about them as being weapons of war.

They have, um, characteristics that are very similar to military weapons.

And then as far as the historical tradition, um, test goes.

Yeah, there's they've pointed to court cases where, um, you know, jurisdictions have, um, regulated, um, the use of these weapons.

You know, for instance, uh, during the Saint Valentine's Day massacre era, the Tommy gun or the Thompson submachine gun, guns like it.

There were states that, um, imposed regulations on that.

So there's that.

Whereas you have gun rights groups who say AR 15 AR, one of the most commonly used weapons in the country.

There's millions of them in circulation.

They're used for self-defense.

Um, and then as far as his and then as far as historical traditions, because they're so common.

Um, you know, there's a obviously a tradition of, you know, preserve preserving, um, their legality.

You know, I'm oversimplifying it.

I'm not a lawyer, but yeah, basically, they're they're they're arguing the opposite of the Pritzker administration.

Now, this case appeared before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week.

Um.

Um.

Because of a lower court's ruling in southern Illinois that, um, the Illinois gun ban was unconstitutional.

If the Seventh Circuit overturns this, it could go to the US Supreme Court.

Now enter the Trump administration official, Harmeet Dhillon.

She is a Fox News personality.

She she's been a Fox News personality.

She is, um, US assistant attorney general for civil rights for President Trump.

Um, she was given a rare, you know, something we rarely see, um, a DOJ representative speaking on behalf of any lawsuit, really, especially for for something like this.

She was given five minutes to basically express that, um, you know, that these guns that are banned under the Illinois assault weapons ban do qualify as arms under the Second Amendment.

But right away, she was interrupted by one of the Seventh Circuit panelists who was basically saying, okay, so basically questioning how, you know, we have one lower court, the Southern Illinois lower court ruling the ban unconstitutional, but we have other courts or at least one other court that has ruled a similar case constitutional.

So then he started asking her if would you, you know, do facts matter, like, you know, would you in terms of would you still support a ban against, you know, lifting the ban, even if, you know, even if it's constitutionally sound?

And she maintained that the position of the Trump administration is that these guns that are prohibited under under the Illinois ban are protected under the Second Amendment.

And she was pretty firm about that.

Um, in her back and forth with the Seventh Circuit.

So basically what we see now is the Seventh Circuit has the case.

They're going to consider it if they if they uphold the ban.

We'll have to see what the state of Illinois does.

Or if they uphold the, um, if they uphold the the Southern Illinois um judges ruling, um, ruling it unconstitutional.

We'll see what the state of Illinois does.

But if they reverse it, then we might see the wheels in motion for a possible, um, Supreme Court um, hearing here.

Possible Supreme Court hearings on this case.

Okay.

Yeah.

>> And I just really quickly I think so they either side could take it to the Supreme Court.

Then we're waiting on the seventh District Court of Appeals.

One of the things I read a couple articles, I don't remember if you talked about this, but a previous lawsuit had made its way.

But the justices at the Supreme Court decided not to.

But Justice Thomas, I believe, had said that this topic could be ripe for a hearing there.

>> Yes.

So so that's a good point.

Is last year, um, in July 2024, um, there.

So around that time, basically you had one of the gun rights groups.

At least one of them went directly to the Supreme Court to try to get the case in front of them.

And the Supreme Court is like, pump the brakes.

We're only in the preliminary injunction stage with this case.

But Justice Thomas basically said, yeah, you know, you can't come to us now, but we do.

But but, you know, Clarence Thomas says, I do think that the Illinois gun ban is highly suspect.

It'd be interesting to see, once the full case is adjudicated and gone through the process.

He indicated that he would like to see the case before the High Court again.

Um, certainly the case that the Seventh Circuit has before them, now that I just talked about, that would be the case that could await the Supreme Court again, if the Seventh Circuit decides to overturn the Southern Illinois judge's ruling.

>> Okay.

Well, just time will tell, and we'll see what the justices at the Seventh Circuit decide.

Um.

Darren Bailey this week is kind of a question of will.

He won't he won't he?

The past month or so, he's made some vague posts about joining the race.

Um, whether or not he'll run for governor.

Well, it sounds like he's made a decision and sent out a press release that he's making a tour around the state, um, on Thursday when this airs.

Um, what does this do to the race for governor Jason?

We've seen that.

It was a slow start.

We had a couple people, and then the past month or so, more people have been jumping into the race.

Um, you tell us a little bit about Mr.

Bailey's background and then what this means.

>> Yeah, definitely.

It's been a slow start on the Republican side for the race for governor.

Um, but, you know, once he enters the race, Darren Bailey will become the the person with the most name recognition around the state to run against JB Pritzker.

As we know, Bailey ran against Pritzker in 2022.

Uh, he lost by 12 or 13 percentage points.

The race was called fairly early.

A lot of people who did not vote for him were turned off by maybe some of the social issues that he kept talking about.

And so, you know, I think a main question for Bailey will be what's going to be different this time?

What's not going to let you lead to another, uh, you know, double digit loss like it was four years ago?

Uh, and we see some signs of that already.

Uh, we look at his running mate that he has chosen, uh, Cook County Republican Chairman Aaron Del Mar.

Uh, those two had in the past have not gotten along.

Uh, Bailey actually, uh, endorsed someone else to be the Cook County Republican chairman earlier this year.

Uh, but Del Mar won anyway.

Uh, but this gives Bailey, uh, desirable, you know, Chicago area downstate split with Del Mar representing, you know, from the suburbs and you know, representing that that area in Chicago.

While Bailey represents his southern Illinois roots, he's a, you know, a farmer from from southern Illinois.

Uh, so and then, you know, the other big change, I think, is, as I alluded to earlier, uh, Bailey talked a lot about, uh, abortion, talked a lot about gun rights.

Uh, those are things that maybe turned off some of some voters, especially some of the suburban voters.

And maybe he'll take a cue this time from what Trump did to successfully win the white House.

Uh, this latest time, uh, Trump talked about immigration.

He talked about crime.

He talked about the economy, uh, these big issues that people care about, uh, less so than some of these other issues that, uh, that tend to divide people, uh, you know, very sharply.

Uh, so we'll see where this goes.

You know, he as I said, he's the person with the most name recognition at the moment.

Uh, he joins James Kendrick, the DuPage County sheriff in the race for GOP governor.

Ted Dabrowski, who runs a conservative think tank website called The Wire Points, is in on the race as well.

Uh, there maybe another name or two, but those are the most recognizable ones.

Uh, filing for filing petitions for this upcoming election starts late October, so there may be some others who jump in, uh, without us knowing right away, but, uh, we'll see where it goes.

>> Um, Jeremy, have you one of the things I think is Trump, what's his influence going to be?

I mean, kind of going back to where Governor Pritzker has been kind of a thorn in President Trump's side.

Um, do you see him making any backings yet of people, or do you think that this is going to wait until we have a more front runner?

>> So it's interesting you bring that up, Brian.

So let's flash back to 2022, when Darren Bailey ran against JB Pritzker the first time.

If you recall the Republican primary that year, Bailey Darren Bailey got the Trump endorsement during the final stretch of the 2022 Republican primary.

There was a big, um, uh, Trump, um, um, had a big rally in western Illinois for him.

Um, and at the same time, you know, Governor Pritzker was all in on like, you know, pouring millions of dollars to the Democratic Governors Association so they could come up with TV ads, you name it, basically tying up tying Darren Bailey to Donald Trump.

That is something Pritzker wanted because he knew that, you know, at the time that Donald Trump was unpopular in Illinois and figured and Pritzker figured, hey, you know, if Donald Trump is going to align with Darren Bailey, that's good for me because Illinois voters have rejected Donald Trump.

I mean, you know, in the 2016 election.

Election.

In the 2020 election, um, President Trump lost by 17 percentage points each time.

Now, in the present day, it'll be interesting because, um, in last year's election, Trump only lost Illinois by probably about 9 or 10 points.

He did a lot better.

I think a lot of that might have had to he I think he gained a couple thousand more votes than he did previously.

But I think, you know, I think a lot of it might have had to do with, um, the fact that Kamala Harris just didn't get the votes in, in Illinois that Joe Biden did in 2020, but nonetheless, um, but what we saw in 2022, if I, if I may go back to 2022, is in the general election.

What you saw is you started to see, you know, when it was Bailey versus Pritzker after Bailey won the GOP nomination.

Then you started to see Bailey sort of distance himself from Trump.

I remember in Marion, Um, uh, about a couple of weeks before the general election.

Um, there was a there was an event in, uh, the Williamson County GOP had held where, um, Donald Trump Jr was the keynote speaker, and Darren Bailey spoke at that event.

But Darren Darren really kind of kept his distance from Donald Jr like he in his remarks.

I don't believe he he, um, referenced him once, whereas you had Donald Junior saying we need to get this man elected, Darren Bailey, you know.

So I don't know.

We'll see how that dynamic.

We'll see how interesting that dynamic plays in, in, you know, in the race this time around.

I mean, when, when, when Darren Bailey ran against Mike Bost for that Republican primary, uh, congressional seat in southern Illinois.

Yeah.

I mean, Bailey again, was really trying to vie for Trump's endorsement.

And what we saw there is Trump ended up endorsing Bosse.

So we'll see what happens in this statewide race.

>> Okay.

Um, yeah.

It'll keep shaping up and we got a long time and we'll see where it shakes out.

Um, we've got about five minutes left.

I wanted to kind of finish the show.

Um, talked about Governor Edgar passed away, and his funeral was this past weekend.

Um, and lots.

I did an interview with John Jackson, who's been on the show and just talked about, um, Governor Edgar's background and how he was kind of an old school statesman.

Um, Jeremy, I think I was going to start with you.

Can you tell us a little bit about what happened and what what they said at the former governor's funeral this past week and a little bit about his legacy, maybe.

>> Yeah.

Well, I mean, the theme of, um, of the funeral, you know, as far as speakers goes, including Governor Pritzker, was that, you know, Jim Edgar was a moderate Republican.

He, um, was governor in the 90s at a time where, you know, although Republicans and Democrats were on opposite sides of the aisle.

There was still some, you know, they could still be cordial.

They could still get along and, and come to, to understandings.

Um, and, um, that's really what what um, you know, Jim Edgar, um, emulated he was he really embraced that idea of bipartisanship and, um, you know, and that's I think that that idea was really kind of hammered home at his funeral, um, and especially and with anybody talking about his legacy, because you compare that to now, um, there's such a divide in this country, there's such a divide among the two political parties.

And, um, you know, so, you know, really Edgar's kind of looked at as a throwback in that sense, showing that bipartisanship could work.

You know, he was the stereotypical social, social, moderate, fiscal conservative, um, um, executive that, um, Illinois, Illinois had.

So he's you know, he kind of represents what Republicans were in this state when they really had a lot of power behind them.

I mean, he was when he was governor, there was a two year period where the Republicans controlled, um, I believe it was one, one or both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly.

So, um, yeah.

So so he represents that era.

He was somebody who Pritzker greatly admired.

Um, despite him being on the opposite side of the aisle.

>> One of the you talk about that.

And, um, one of the things I recall about the governor, uh, Edgar talking about how he had even opponents in his own party and he had to and that he tried to make it more about what was right and and going, um, you know, maybe even against his own party at some times.

Uh, Jason, before we started recording, he talked a little bit about Governor Edgar had been in your class a few times.

What?

What did you see of the man that came and talked with your students?

As you know, they talk about working with politicians and state agencies and things like that.

Yeah, we got about two minutes left.

>> I and the other instructors who who work with my public affairs reporting students, would often invite Governor Edgar into our class just to talk to them about Illinois political history and the dynamics that they need to pay attention to.

Before my students start their internships, news reporting at the Capitol.

Uh, and Governor Edgar was always just very down to earth, uh, very approachable.

I mean, he had a great background in education.

He, you know, taught college courses for many years after he was done being governor.

Uh, so this was this was old hat to him, but, um, yeah, just, you know, very generous with his time and the information he provided.

Uh, you know, I always found it interesting.

You know, he, as Jeremy alluded to, he was a throwback to when politics was less caustic.

Politics was less hateful.

Uh, and, you know, it was set at his funeral.

Governor Pritzker said it that, you know, Edgar told him that the most important thing you need to do as governor is pass the budget.

Not the most glamorous thing that a person in state government has to do, but definitely maybe the most important thing.

Uh, if you asked some politicians in Springfield about what the most important thing is, I'm not sure the budget would be their top answer.

There may be some other things.

Uh, Edgar often told our class that, you know, he fully realizes he would not win a Republican primary if he ran in this era.

Uh, which is which is correct.

Um, and so it's, like I said, just a throwback, and, uh, we'll miss him.

>> That's that sounds.

Yeah, like he's got a legacy that I think that, uh, in these contentious times, I think people should take a look at that and just kind of process that.

Well, that's all that we have for this week.

Uh, next week, we're starting to head towards the fall veto session.

I'm sure we'll talk about that, but join us next time as we look at what's making news around the state of Illinois.

On behalf of Jeremy Gardner and Jason Pisha.

I'm Brian Sapp.

Thank you for joining us on Capitol View.

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