(soft music) (intense music) - Welcome to "Capitol 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.

At the top of most newsfeeds this past week, the political battle between Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and President Donald Trump, as the Governor, the Mayor of Chicago, the Illinois Attorney General, along with other state and city leaders, continue their appeal to the President to not deploy troops and federal agents into the city of Chicago.

We'll take a closer look at that story and more on this edition of "Capitol View".

To help us guide the discussion this week, Peter Hancock, Statehouse reporter for "Capitol News Illinois", and Charlie Wheeler, Director Emeritus of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois Springfield and a longtime Statehouse reporter.

Gentlemen, welcome back to the program.

- It's good to be here.

- Good to be here.

- Thank you.

Well, the latest, at least as we record this program, the, I dunno if you wanna call it a standoff, but the political battle of wills anyway, continues between the governor and the president over the threat of deploying a national guard to Chicago.

They've been having these dueling news conferences the past several days.

I know "Capitol News Illinois" has been covering this.

Peter, what's the latest, at least as we understand it today?

- Well, the latest as we're taping this today, is that the president says, "We're going in," which means he is sending in some sort of federal presence into the city of Chicago, Cook County, to deal with what he believes to be a criminal crime wave, some sort of law enforcement crisis.

Governor Pritzker is saying, "We don't want you, we don't need you.

Please stay away."

It really does sort of raise questions about federal authority in law enforcement and sending in federal agents into American cities.

We've seen the federal government do this in Washington DC.

The law is different for Washington DC than it is for the rest of the 50 states as there was also a recent federal court opinion regarding Trump's use of federal troops in the city of Los Angeles, where the judge said that he did overstep his authority.

It was a violation of an 1870s era law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the federal government, in most cases, from using the military for domestic law enforcement, so, you know, this is more than just symbolic.

It really is a test of federal authority and of, you know, democratic institutions in the United States, and whether or not states and municipal governments can have any of their, you know, how much sovereignty they have when there's a president in the White House who disagrees, you know, with some of the policies there.

- Peter, you mentioned the federal district ruling in California.

Does that have any weight in this situation in Illinois?

- Well, there were some nuances to that decision.

As I understand it, and you know, want to point out that I'm not a legal scholar here, there is some authority to use federal forces to protect federal buildings or to quell riots or insurrections.

I think the judge noted that, you know, other people have noted that there is no insurrection going on in Los Angeles, but it was okay to use troops to protect federal buildings, and ostensibly that had to do with protecting federal ICE agents who were engaged in executing immigration enforcement actions.

That may be the case in Chicago.

The president has talked about, and the Homeland Security has talked about increasing immigration enforcement actions in that area, and they may want to use federal troops to help either protect federal agents or protect federal resources in that process, but otherwise, you know, just stationing troops on the streets for domestic law enforcement, I think is really stretching the limits of presidential authority here.

- Charlie, you've covered the state of Illinois for a number of years.

You've watched the National Guard has been called in in various capacities, whether it's for a national political convention, or for national disasters, or some sort of national security event or issue.

Is there any precedent for this type of action which may be happening in the state?

- Well, I think one of the big differences in the instances in which you cited it was coordination between the federal agencies, law enforcement, and the local folks at the city level, the county level, the state level.

I know I've read, and I think this is true, that in terms of, for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last summer, the planning began a year ahead of time and there was multiple meetings coordinating all these efforts between what are the feds gonna do, what is the state gonna do, the state police, how are the Chicago police, Cook County Sheriffs deputies, how are they all going to interact?

And this is more a case of the president, without any prior contact, deciding, "I'm gonna send the troops in because Chicago is a hellhole."

I think one of the comments he compared it that was worse than Afghanistan.

I'm thinking to myself, "What have you been smoking, dude?"

Chicago is not as, on a percentage basis, it's not as dangerous a city as many other cities in the country, and certainly not a lot of places overseas.

I mean, I would much rather be in Chicago than in Kabul, for example, but, you know, the president is great at over exaggerating.

He's basically a performance artist.

He's a TV reality star who made it into the White House, and I think that's what's going on here.

And the governor says rightly, there are things, and others say, there are things that the Feds could do to help us, but sending in the National Guard is not among them, and part of it is where are the National Guard gonna be?

My guess is they're gonna be in Millennium Park.

They're gonna be on the Magnificent Mile.

They're gonna be there for the TV cameras and for the tourists to take selfies and all that.

They're not gonna be in the neighborhoods on the West side and the South side where the real problem exists in terms of crime.

It's a performative issue for the president, and some people speculate it's to take folks' minds off other things that's happening in the nation as a result of his presidency that is bothersome to people, and it's kind of a distraction.

We'll send in these troops and blah, blah, blah, and I think, as I said, there are a lot of things that could be done if they were serious about it, putting more money into violence prevention programs, for example, stopping the flow of guns from outta state into Illinois, common sense things, but that doesn't seem to be the president's approach.

- And we will continue to see and watch and follow what happens with that.

In the meantime, I believe it was the Department of Justice that gave the state of Illinois, I believe it was a September 1st deadline to provide the state's entire voter registration database, I think, I believe Peter, unredacted.

You've been following that story.

What's the latest on that one?

- The latest is that the State Board of Elections did provide the Department of Justice with the same data file that they would give to any other government entity for governmental purposes, or to political parties or campaigns, political committees.

It does not include the last four digits of your social security number, your driver's license number or state ID number, your date of birth, all kinds of very sensitive personal information.

That is redacted.

At the same time, if you or I were to go into the State Board of Education and ask for that list, they would give us a different copy that has other stuff redacted, including your exact street address.

It might tell you what street you live on, but not your house number, for example, or apartment number.

So the Department of Justice wrote back and said, "No, that's not good enough.

We want the whole file with everything."

And on Tuesday, we received notice that the State Board of Elections wrote back to Department of Justice and said, "Too bad, that's what you're getting."

They are both citing federal laws.

State Board of Education is also citing state laws that specifically preclude it from handing out sensitive personal information.

We are waiting now for the other shoe to drop from the Department of Justice.

Are they gonna go to court, try and seek a court order or a subpoena or, you know, sue the state for this information?

What is unclear about the whole thing is why does the Department of Justice need this information?

They say that they are monitoring Illinois for its compliance with different federal laws that require states to maintain accurate and up-to-date voter registration lists.

They want to make sure that the state is, you know, scrubbing the list of people who have died, or people who have moved, people who are non-citizens, you know, various things like that.

The state of Illinois says, "We are complying," and basically, you know, "you can conduct your investigation and your monitoring with the information we gave you.

You don't need this sensitive data to do that."

So it's unclear.

The Trump Administration seems to be doing this in a number of states, trying, for whatever reasons, we're not entirely clear, probably having something to do with future elections and trying to make sure that the voter rolls are scrubbed of people that the administration believes shouldn't be there, so, you know, it's another battle between the state of Illinois and the Trump Administration, this time over the administration of elections, which under the Constitution, is largely a state responsibility.

The federal government has a limited role in administering elections, so we're waiting for the next shoe to drop to see how far the Department of Justice wants to take this.

- As kind of the institutional history of the state, would there be anything in Illinois's past elections that would warrant this kind of review at the federal level of how the state is conducting its elections?

- Well, you know, I think we all know the popular legends about Illinois, and the old joke that in Chicago, the motto is vote early and vote often, that voter fraud has been an issue in Illinois.

You know, whether or not, how much of that is truth and how much of that is urban legend is kind of hard to say.

I think what the election officials today would tell you is that Illinois elections are run by professionals who understand the law, that the people who vote are qualified to vote, and Illinois makes it as easy as possible to vote, including making advanced voting and mail-in voting accessible to whoever wants to use that.

That also seems to be a sticking point for the administration, but largely, I mean, the idea of dead people voting or people you know, running from polling place to polling place to vote multiple times, I think that's a lot more urban legend than truth or history in the state of Illinois.

- Yeah, Charlie, do you think this would have a chilling effect on voting?

- I wouldn't think so.

I think, my take on it is that the Trump Administration is kind of trying to set up a situation where if the elections next year don't go the way the president likes, he can come in and argue that, "Oh, there was voter fraud," and challenge results as he did when he lost the presidential election five years ago, and he sent a mob to try and overturn the results from Congress.

But as Peter said, maybe once upon a time, even before my time, yeah, there was widespread voter fraud.

People were buying votes, things like that, but that is so much of the past and that is not at all the case with the way things are done, and I think there will be issues that motivate people to go to the polls and they'll do it in whichever way is most convenient for them.

Here in Sangamon County, at the start of COVID, we went to vote by mail.

and before that time I showed up at the precinct, you know, every March or June or whenever it was, and every November, and then I started doing it by mail, and I've been doing it by mail ever since, and it's a very well regulated system.

I'll get an email saying, "We're gonna send you a ballot and if you didn't request this, let us know."

And then after they sent it out, they said, "Did you get the ballot?

If not, let us know."

And then they say, "Don't forget, you gotta put your ballot in," and then I'll drop it off at the dropbox.

And they say, "We got your ballot.

Did you put it there?"

And they check all the way along the way, and if I were to show up at my polling place and try to vote again, they'd say, "Nope, you already voted."

So here in Sangamon County, it's very well regulated and I think that's probably true most everywhere else in Illinois.

The actual cases of improper people voting as the old saying goes, you're more likely to be hit by lightning on your way home.

- Also, playing in the backdrop of all this, we still have the ongoing discussion of the midterm Congressional redistricting.

There's been lots of discussion both in so-called blue states and red states.

Illinois had this Fair Maps initiative led by, I believe, former Congressman Ray LaHood, a republican, and also former Commerce Secretary, Bill Daley, a democrat, to put redistricting in the hands of an independent commission.

That kind of ran into some legal roadblocks last time.

I know, Peter, you recently talked with both of those gentlemen, is there a potential reboot in the making, or is there a place for an independent commission at some point in Illinois elections or redistricting in mapping?

- That's certainly what they're hoping for.

I think they are gathering petition signatures right now to get an initiative on the 2026 ballot.

Of course, the sticking point is that under the Illinois Constitution, citizen initiated constitutional amendments have to be very limited, so in this particular case, it only deals with state legislative redistricting.

It does not deal with congressional redistricting, which has been in the news in Texas and California and now Missouri.

This would only be state legislative redistricting, but, you know, the issue here is that as long as it's, you know, run by the legislature itself, where lawmakers are essentially picking their own, this is where politicians pick their voters instead of voters picking their representatives, the issue here seems to be that with politicians involved, the maps are wildly skewed in favor of the party that's in power.

I mean, right now it's the Democratic party and Republicans would tell you that the Democrats majorities in the House and Senate are both vastly disproportionate to their actual majorities among the voting population.

In a statewide election, for example, Democrats on average, whether it's a race for governor, or US Senate, or president, or you know, any kinda statewide race, Democrats get about 55%, but they have more than 60% of the seats in the Illinois House and well over 60%, more than 65% I think of the seats in the Senate, so what they want to do is put redistricting in the hands of an independent commission that would, their priority would be to keep communities whole, not split up cities or counties unless it's necessary, and to ignore voting history or voter registration within precincts and counties when drawing district lines.

- Obviously, we're in the kind of the election season.

I know at the state fair in Springfield, and our recently completed state fair here in Du Quoin, we've had a lot of the statewide candidates have been at both fairs.

I wanted to touch on one.

Margaret Croke, who's one of the Democratic candidates running for Comptroller.

She picked up the endorsement of the St. Clair County Democrats.

She also previously picked up, I believe the Cook County Democratic endorsement.

Those are probably two of the biggest county endorsements in the state.

It's kind of a crowded race.

Do those two endorsements provide any advantage to her given the other candidates in the race?

State Senator Karina Villa, State Representative Stephanie Kifowitz, and I think Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim, is there any leg up yet, or is it still early in the process?

- Yeah, I would say that it's really significant and part of the reason is if you go back and look at the election results in the primaries from March of 2024, in the general primary, and I'm reading a sheet from the State Board of Elections, there were 891,342 democratic ballots cast.

559,359 were cast in Cook County, so that's more than 63%, so her having that endorsement is really significant, And among the downstate counties, not counting the Chicago region, St. Clair County had the most democratic ballots cast, and the Chicago area counties like DuPage, and Will, and Kane, and Lake, and so on cast more ballots, 'cause there's more people living there, but St Clair is the most, based on last time out primary voting results, St Clair provided the most democratic votes of any downstate community, so I think those are two very significant endorsements for her.

- I wanted to ask also, one of the GOP gubernatorial candidates, or declared anyway, Ted Dabrowski, made the rounds at Du Quoin last week making his pitch for governor.

I know DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick has also declared candidate for the Republican nomination.

At this point, are these two the likely gubernatorial candidates on the Republican ticket, or again, may we see some additional interest and some viable candidates as we draw closer to the primary?

- I'm going to guess that it's still a little bit early.

I don't think we've seen all of the candidates yet.

You know, clearly it does help to get out early, get your name in front of the primary voters, and, you know, as much as I hate to admit it, the primary is right around the corner.

It's coming up a lot sooner than a lot of reporters would like it to, but I'm just of the opinion, I don't think we'd seen all of the candidates yet.

I think there are maybe some ambitious state's attorneys, some ambitious County Commissioners, County Board Members, mayors out there.

The Republican party in Illinois right now does not have a very deep bench, which may make it difficult for this election cycle, but it also opens up an a lot of opportunities around the state for young, ambitious people to get a foothold, at least within the party, and start moving up.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I would agree with what Peter said.

I don't think we've seen a full list yet.

For example, on the Republican side, there have been no Republicans who've declared their candidacy to run for Comptroller nor for Secretary of State or Treasurer, so I can't imagine we're gonna see a ballot in November of next year where there are no Republican candidates listed for those offices.

Now, I would suspect that being a Republican statewide candidate next year is kind of a suicide mission.

You take one for the team.

You try and build up some name recognition for a couple years from now, but yeah, the Republican bench is very slim and there's not much hope, and part of it is, where are they gonna get the money?

The big fundraisers for the Republicans have kind of bailed and left Illinois, and if I'm a wealthy individual and I'm looking to invest my money, am I gonna put money into a race, say for governor in Illinois where your chances of winning are pretty slim, or am I gonna use it in Wisconsin or am I gonna use it in a Senate race in Ohio somewhere where it can make a real impact?

- In the minute and a half or so that we have left, what are each of you looking at in the coming weeks ahead?

What are you looking at in terms of what's gonna be at the forefront?

- Well, I would say right now that all eyes are on the city of Chicago to see how the standoff between the state and local authorities and the Trump Administration plays out.

Whether or not, you know, I mean it has political implications, but it also has real life implications for people, for recent immigrants to the United States, just for citizens in Chicago, for public safety, I'd say, you know, that's where all of the attention is gonna be focused, at least for the next little while.

- Charlie?

I would agree with that, because it's really a real significant issue and it affects people's daily lives in the city of Chicago, particularly if you're someone who's lived there many years, you don't have citizenship, you've been leading your life as a model citizen for 20, 30 years, now suddenly these folks are gonna come in masks and they're gonna haul you out of your vehicle, and take you somewhere, and be incommunicado, and next thing you know, you're on a plane to Sudan or somewhere.

- Charlie, I'll let you have the the last word.

Peter Hancock, "Capitol News Illinois", Charlie Wheeler, Director Emeritus of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Gentlemen, thank you both for joining us this week on "Capitol View".

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

And you at home, thank you for joining us as well.

I'm Jeff Williams.

Have a good week.

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