(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - Welcome to Capital View.

A show profiling what's happening inside and outside the Capitol in the State of Illinois.

I'm your host, Jennifer Fuller.

Along with us this week is Jerry Nowicki, the Bureau Chief for Capitol News, Illinois.

Jerry, thanks for joining us.

- Yeah.

Thanks for having me, Jen.

- Also joining us this week is John Jackson, a political analyst with the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale.

John, welcome to the show.

- Thanks Jennifer.

I've been looking forward to this.

- We should start things off with what's really continuing to make headlines.

As much as we wouldn't like to start with another update on COVID, it's really making headlines.

Particularly in the Metro East and in Southern Illinois.

Jerry, we've seen some guidance this week from the Illinois Board of Higher Education that kind of in some ways contradicts what we hear from K-12 leaders in the State Board of Education.

In terms of masking requirements, vaccine requirements, and what we can expect from the incoming fall semester.

How do you think that's playing statewide?

- Yeah, so the universities was, it struck me as a pretty forceful, like you should really do this.

You should really require vaccinations type guidance.

And then whereas State Board of Education was they're kind of emphasizing that it's going to be a local control situation.

They really got dinged.

And I'm sure it was a difficult period for superintendents and for SB, where they've put "shall" in their, in their previous guidance, they "shall" require masks.

And now it's "should", which is of course the legal delineation that should is a suggestion, whereas shall is a requirement.

So with the shall, I spoke to superintendents from around the state that they're worried, a kid has his mask down for whatever reason, that means they're disobeying specific state requirements.

And now they're opened up to a lawsuit because of this one student per se.

I don't know that it would ever get to that point, but that's a fear superintendents sort of said at the time.

Now, the should, maybe not quite as much legal liability there, but they can still individually choose to require a mask.

Problem is a lot of districts are seeing aren't requiring masks, even for unvaccinated students.

And you know, elementary schools, they're all gonna be unvaccinated because you have to be 12 years or older to get the, I think only the Pfizer.

One of the vaccines, I think it's Pfizer that can go to 12-year-olds.

So, you know, it's gonna be a local control thing.

It's what superintendents have wanted.

It's what schools have wanted.

And you hear a lot of people talking about, you know, why can't my local school board with people elected here in town have that control.

And now they do and we'll see if we'll see any outbreaks at schools or whatever else that follows.

- You know, you, you mentioned that the K-12 students and particularly those elementary school students are not yet eligible for the vaccine.

John, in full disclosure, you've been a chancellor at SIU Carbondale.

You've had to make decisions that would affect the health and welfare of students, faculty, and staff.

With the IBHE strongly recommending a vaccine requirement, how do you think those decisions are going on college campuses across the state?

- Well, it varies, of course.

And that goes to Jerry's local control to some extent.

IBHE said they strongly encourage all publics and privates to require the vaccination.

And of course, that has not been the total uniform response.

University of Illinois, all three campuses, Northern, Loyola, Northwestern, as I understand it are going to require.

SIU.

And as far as I can tell, the rest are strongly encouraging vaccinations, but not absolutely requiring.

And so that's giving you a two track response.

Although SIU has emphasized, as I'm sure the others have, that they're going to require in athletic participants, they're going to require in public health facilities, med school and the campus hospital and so forth.

So that is a bit of difference even on campus.

This illustrates that these are very tough decisions to make, but the ones that are requiring, or I'm sure standing on the inner, in Indiana University case, where federal judge upheld the rights of universities to do that.

The rest of us are sort of going with the, SB give up to local control I thought it notable.

Les O'Dell had an article in today's paper saying that all the community colleges in this area basically were following our model in a sense.

So a little bit of discontinuity there in terms of university's responses to IBHE.

- Sure.

When you look at a statewide response as well, Governor Pritzker has said that he doesn't have plans to re-institute some of the restrictions that we saw as the state moved through COVID over the last year to 18 months.

Jerry, do you think that you're gonna see some different language from state leaders as we continue to see positivity rates climb across several regions?

- You know, I had the, the governor's doing his re-election round of interviews right now.

And I had, I had spoke to him yesterday for about 10 minutes.

And there is a bit of a hedge right now on the statement that I received last week that said no plan right now with vaccine.

You know, he said, "We're watching this every day.

We're particularly watching hospital numbers.

And you know, if we get to a certain point, there might be something we have to do in that regard."

So one of the interesting things he said to me, well, first I, I tried to get out of him, you know, is there, you know, we've been able to in previous phases of the pandemic, we've been able to watch that 8% number.

If a region is above 8% positivity for three days, we know they're going to be hit with mitigations.

I said is there are a number I should be watching right now that I can look at and say, oh, we've crossed the line, there's going to be more mitigations.

He said, "I'm listening to my medical experts daily, we're looking at all numbers, hospitalizations are important," but there was no number that he gave me.

The other thing he said to me, I know he's denied this time and time again, but he had, he had brought out that 99% of the recent deaths are unvaccinated individuals.

So I said, you know, is there a circumstance where we could see, for lack of a better term, a vaccine passport or vaccine requirements to enter a business or whatever.

And he said, you know, from the state, it's not in our plans at this time, even-- So it's similar responses as to what he said earlier, in earlier stages of the pandemic.

But it doesn't appear on the table at this time.

- As we've seen over the last 18 months, certainly something that's gonna continue to evolve.

Jerry, you mentioned that the governor formally announced his plans to run for reelection next year.

And I know he's making the rounds, talking with media members and, and others about his plans and trying to tout some of his accomplishments while maybe downplaying some of the, the challenges that he has faced.

And in some cases, perhaps some, some dings on his record.

How do you think things stack up at this point when it comes to JB Pritzker running for reelection?

There are at least three candidates on the Republican side of the ticket that have said, hey, we would like a crack at this as well.

- Yeah.

I think, you know, our interview, I focused on a lot of the stuff that he's going to have to settle before the election.

So he's got, there's a, there's a whole session left.

We got a lot of things to deal with with the pandemic and other things.

So as it stands now, could be completely different than what it looks like in November 2022 and the months before that because people vote early now, as we saw last year.

Last year, whatever it was.

So, you know, there's a lot of daylight left before the end of the election.

He's gonna spend a lot of money.

We'll see you who spends the money on the other side, but he's got some tough decisions to make.

But you know, his, I think his tagline on his first campaign ad emphasizes this pandemic and it said, "Strong leadership in tough times" or something along the lines.

So, you know, he'll have to demonstrate that in the next year or so.

- John, you've covered a lot in terms of how polling goes and how strategy goes in gubernatorial elections and other statewide elections across the State of Illinois.

The primary next year actually is moved, it'll be in June.

So we're still nearly a year before a primary even.

How do you think that the messaging so far is going?

What are the challenges that JB Pritzker faces in a re-election campaign?

- Well, at the top, I would start with proposition that the governor is the odds on favorite.

There are all kinds of given.

Some of which will change, but some of which really won't change.

The number one issue and the governor's already signaled that he's going to run on this is his handling of the whole question of how to respond to the pandemic.

He's going to claim he followed the science.

He's going to claim that he had a solid plan, as we all know what the five stages of that plan.

There were lots of critics, lots of pressure.

He got up every day and talked about it and defended it.

So that's going to be number one.

It's also going to be his number one deficit, because there were a lot of people upset about that plan and criticized it, including a lot of state reps and a lot of state senators as you well know.

The second, he's going to run on his fiscal management and he's going to have a decent case he can make there.

20 years of downgrades of our credit rating.

He's going to proudly point to that having turned around recently.

He's going to argue that he and general assembly have produced about balanced budgets.

And number three, he's the head of a state that's clearly a blue state.

He goes in with the advantage of being a Democrat.

We don't have to talk very long about the money for everybody to know that the governor's going to put in it whatever he thinks he needs.

The only question there is the response from mega donors on the other side, like Ken Griffin.

And then to point of your initial question, the opposition is currently divided.

There's no doubt about what there's a Trump wing of the party, and there's still a party establishment wing that's pretty strong.

And this area across the state, there, people that still don't want anything to do with Donald Trump, particularly in the suburban areas.

So there's lots there to critique.

There's lots that could change.

But nevertheless, those are the givens.

And we can certainly talk about some of the possible deficits.

And Jerry talked about some of those already.

- Sure.

You know, the, the governor is not unbeatable as we saw in the 2020 election.

The graduated income tax, which he shepherded through and was a great champion of failed.

Does that loss, do you think, affect his re-election?

Is that something that he's going to have to carry with him and acknowledge?

- I think it's, the challenge is if there's revenue deficits in the upcoming session as I noted, the graduated tax would have put a couple billion dollars into the fund that would have helped us respond to that.

But now in the absence of that, if there are revenue shortfalls, he's going to have some difficult decisions to make in the upcoming year when the extra $300 unemployment payment expires.

We don't know how the economy is going to respond.

So that's how the graduated tax would affect in a sort of indirect sense this upcoming session certainly.

- Sure.

You know, John, you mentioned the fact that the Republican Party is, in some cases, fractured or at least split when it comes to whether it's a strongly Trump-based organization or if there's a, another maybe more moderate party platform that's available there.

At the same time, is there some sort of split perhaps brewing in the Democrat Party?

When you see the way that Mike Madigan, former House Speaker, former State Party Chair, used to run the campaigns of the Democratic organization, do things change going into 2022?

And if so, how?

- Well, things will change a lot.

The absence of Speaker Madigan is going to be a tremendous difference.

The Republicans have been able to run against Madigan and that's enough said in their commercials.

And that stands for all kinds of things.

An awful lot of people in Illinois do not like about Illinois government.

Down to the sort of mechanics though, it's going to change because of the question of the state party leadership.

Congresswoman Robin Kelly is of course officially in that position.

What her power will be is very much up for grabs.

The hard money versus soft money distinction, Madigan ran that, and he ran that as a very tight ship on controlling that money, particularly with state legislators, notably the House.

But all of that went through Madigan.

And it is not at all clear whether they can put on a unified campaign now and what the role of the two, the House and the Senate Leader in the general assembly will be.

So sort of stay tuned on that.

It'll make more difference to the legislative races than the governor's race, but it's a lot of unsettled right now about possibilities of Democratic Party as organization providing leadership and financial help.

- Jerry I wonder your take on this as well.

We've also seen that Governor Pritzker tends to lean a little bit more progressive than Democrats have in some cases throughout the state over the last several years.

Is that a shift or a change in the Democratic Party, do you think?

- I don't-- it's, it's hard to say what sort of effect Trump has had on making this possible or what sort of effect the governor's seemingly imperviousness to primary challenges due to his bank role.

So he, he certainly, I know he's made Democrats in the Senate a little uncomfortable with some of the laws they've had to vote for.

And I shouldn't say had to vote for, some of the laws that were put on their plate.

They had to explain some of them.

I know there was a lot of discomfort with the Criminal Justice Bill that passed.

But essentially the moderates got, got some concessions from the, from the other side with, you know, a trailer bill that was a little more palatable to law enforcement groups.

So, you know, it's, I think the governor has done a good job though of sort of letting the legislature sort of fight their internal battles to an extent.

But in terms of the fundraising, you know, I remember the discussion when they, when they chose Robin Kelly, I think it was former Senate President, John Cullerton.

He said, you know, "She's, I'm worried about the headlines that follow from this, you know, Democratic leader can't fundraise or whatever."

But then it was Senator Cristina Castro who said, "You know, if we need people to step up and do a better job getting money rather than it being a top-down thing, I'm all for it.

Count me in.

I'll pound the pavement.

I'll do whatever I have to do to get the money.

So we'll see how it turns out.

And then of course you have the governor who's pouring lots of thousands of dollars, probably going to be millions into Blue Wave Illinois, which is a sort of downballot advertising initiative, independent of the Democratic Party of Illinois.

So that's going to continue as well.

- Looking to the Republican side of the ticket, as we said, we've got at least three people who have said, yeah, I'm interested.

I'd like to run for the nomination for governor.

I know I've seen statements from all three of them: Gary Rabine, former State Senator Paul Schimpf and current state Senator Darren Bailey, all talking about the governor and what they call fiscal mismanagement.

They say that the Democrats continue to spend more than they bring in.

There's also the opportunity there, you know, JB Pritzker ran, in some cases, criticizing Bruce Rauner for his handling of the Legionnaires' Disease outbreak in a state veterans home.

The Republicans have an opportunity to come back and say, well, look at the LaSalle Veterans' Home and the COVID outbreak there that killed 36 veterans.

John, do you think Republicans have a messaging opportunity there to at least bring the governor to the table in negotiations on anything controversial or something to bring him back to the middle?

- Well, I think the LaSalle Veterans' Home will certainly come up and that'll be a subtext that the Republicans will emphasize on his handling of COVID.

The IDES employment security problems will probably even be bigger because that impacted so many more people.

So those are fair shots.

Republicans will make very serious issues about those.

The narrative is sort of all over the boards right now though, the question of fiscal responsibility is going to be a bit of a hard sell in my estimation, particularly on the New York credit ratings agencies.

Governor can retort to that, resort to that and certainly will.

I think the, the question in my mind right now, that's very unsettled about the, the field is the Republicans' primary lineup.

Will it include Rodney Davis?

Because he's someone that has a pretty sizable chunk of following in his congressional district.

He's been in the news up to and including yesterday.

And of course his decision apparently will depend on the outcome of the redistricting battle and what that map looks like.

All of that's very much up in the air, but I'm sure he'll take stock the day after the Democrats release that map and make a final decision.

But in my estimation at this point, he'll be probably the leading candidate, certainly a leading candidate very quickly in that race.

And then he will have down straight, downstate strength, considerable strength.

But how will he play in the suburbs is a huge question.

And then I think we know how he'll play in Central City Chicago.

So that race is still very unsettled, I think.

- Sure.

And we saw from Rodney Davis, who of course had been added to this committee, looking into the January 6th insurrection in Washington, then Republican leadership pulled all of those members off.

Rodney Davis spent a little bit of time saying that he wanted to use his position on that committee if he were still on it to expose some of the lies that Democrats were propagating.

Jerry, is that playing to a base or is there something there that you think he's really trying to get at?

- You know, I don't know.

Rodney Davis is an interesting character in that he has a pretty bi-partisan voting record.

And from, in terms of outside analysts reviews of some of his votes, but he's also an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign.

So while he might like to distance himself from the president, he is tied from the former president, I should say, he is tied in that regard.

That commission thing is interesting because, you know, you'd think that you'd sit on that at least with an open mind if you wanted to appeal to sort of a general audience.

But maybe he needs the Trump cred when he's facing sort of Darren Bailey conservative question, everything about the COVID restrictions type deal.

Paul Schimpf has some conservative background as well, but I know the governor likes to ding him on the fact that he, he opposed the budget that ended the impasse.

Like he would still be in the impasse if it were up to Paul Schimpf.

And then Gary Rabine is sort of outsider type, can't really hit him on a record, just gotta do his business acumen per se.

But, you know, I think Rodney Davis would be an interesting candidate, but I don't know what he's getting mad with the commission stuff.

- John, you mentioned earlier that the Republicans really perhaps face a reckoning this, this next election cycle in terms of where does the party stand in the State of Illinois?

Do you see them coming together or will this kind of fractured nature continue from 2022 perhaps into the 2024 election?

- Well, I think it'll be very contentious and something of a dog fight up through the primary because there are fairly significant divisions and differences in the Illinois Republican Party.

There's just no question.

But what the sort of more moderate establishment types are still a powerful force in that party.

So this will be a real test of that proposition.

Coming together afterward, there are always scars from a hotly contested primary race.

I think they will come together and appeal to the base at that point.

But the base is not big enough.

Certainly not for the Republicans.

And so the question becomes, how do you broaden that base to get 51%?

And nobody I see right now has much of an answer to that that's running in the Republican primary.

So that will be the big question post-primary era.

- We've talked a lot about the governor's race, but there will also be a race for Illinois Secretary of State, as Jesse White has announced he won't run for re-election.

A short amount of time remaining.

Jerry, I wonder how you handicap that race.

Where, will it stay in Democrat hands?

Will it switch?

- I don't know about the general, but it looks like Alexi Giannoulias, our former treasurer as a senate candidate and lost to Mark Kirk whatever year it was, 2010 maybe.

He's got the fundraising and the endorsements lined up right now.

There's a couple other candidates.

I know that Senator Mike Hastings dropped out.

I think some Chicago ties there.

I don't know too much about that race right now.

You know, it'll be an interesting one.

It certainly seems like all the statewide are tilting Democrat, but we don't know.

It's this type of midterm situation is always sort of a toss up.

- Sure.

And of course we always have to factor in, John, as you would say, that the Democrats may not do as well in a midterm election.

You might see more Republican gains both in Congress and in some cases at the statewide level.

With that, we're running short on time.

So I want to thank our guests, John Jackson of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale.

John, thanks so much.

- Sure.

Glad to be here.

- And Jerry Nowicki, the Bureau Chief for Capitol News, Illinois.

Thank you.

- Thanks for having me.

- And I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Thanks for watching Capitol View.

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