(upbeat music) - welcome to capital View, where we discussed the latest in state government and politics.

I'm Hannah Mizel with NPR, Illinois.

Joining us this week is Charlie Wheeler, director of Meredith of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the university of Illinois, Springfield.

Thanks for being here, Charlie.

- I'm always pleased to be here.

- And also here is Jerry Nowicki of Capital News, Illinois.

Glad you're here, Jerry.

- Happy to be here.

- All right, so another fun packed week in Illinois.

Hot politics.

The Democratic Party of Illinois for the first time in 23 years is going to be headed by someone other than former house speaker, Mike Madigan.

Congresswoman Robin Kelly, on Wednesday night was elected the first new chair of the Democratic Party since 1998.

You know, she faced some competition, you know Robin Kelly of course, a five term member of Congress.

Before that she, you know, she worked I guess for Alexi Giannoulias as his treasurer and before that she had been in the general assembly for several years and she was backed by us Senator Dick Durbin and Chicago Aldermen Michelle Harris.

She was backed by Governor JB Pritzker, you know, the two put up quite a fight and there was this whole elephant in the room of a federal you know, federal election law, perhaps precluding Robin Kelly is a federal elected official from raising what's called soft money for state and local candidates and races.

But in the end it didn't matter.

So, Jerry, you were watching, you know, give me... Why should people care about this?

Should people care about this?

- For the Democratic Party I think what we've all witnessed the last 23 years is a sort of centralized fundraising effort through Michael Madigan.

He had...

I don't know the ins and outs of it, but it seemed like he could just make a few calls and the money was there.

In terms of moving forward with Congresswoman Kelly, there was a lot of questioning from members of the committee including a former Senate President, John Cullerton as to whether she'd be able to have that type of tap down fundraising effort.

But then there were other committee members like Senator Cristina Castro said, you know, I'll take on a greater fundraising effort on behalf of the party if we have to decentralize it to sort of have the same impact that we have.

And that might even help the Democrats say, build their brand as to, you know, there's more faces on the party as opposed to just a Michael Madigan who Republicans that weren't able to successfully attack as the face of the party for a couple of years now.

A couple of years might be an understatement.

But...

So I just think, yeah it might be a different look to fundraising, but in terms of what that means to the average political observer you know, I just don't know maybe Charlie had... You or Charlieú have some more insight on that.

- Well, Charlie, you know, both Robin Kelly and Michelle Harris they kind of resisted the notion that, the contest between them was any sort of proxy war between Dick Durbin and governor Pritzker.

Does it mean anything that governor Pritzker back someone and then lost, you know, this is the owner Republican Party at least is trying to you know, put this into a pattern of a string of losses that the governor has suffered in the last year or so.

But, you know, is it a proxy war?

What should we put into this?

I mean, there's that old, old saying, "Don't back no losers."

- Yeah, I would say that, obviously from Pritzker's point of view it would have been better had his candidate been chosen but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it makes any difference.

And the reason I say that is because your average person has no clue who the head of either party is.

It's pretty much a low profile job and they're more interested in who the actual elected officials are.

And so, the inside baseball people would say, "Oh, Pritzker took her other loss."

And it's true, but on the other hand, that does not mean that his legislative agenda is doomed or that the Democrats will put up another candidate to run against them for governor.

So I suppose in a way, it's not as well as he would have wanted it to turn out.

But I think if you look at it, the optics of having a woman of color leading the Democratic Party, says a lot as opposed to the Republicans who once again chose an older white guy.

And I think Robin Kelly, if you just look at her district which covers parts of the city, parts to the suburbs, parts of the downstate, she brings a more in-person relationship with those different geographic areas than with Alderman Harris, basically on the south side of Chicago.

The question about whether or not she can spend state money or raise state money, I think there will be a walk around, a range that was discussed at the meeting.

Senator Castro said she'll be going to take on that role.

There are other people who could it.

And as a matter of fact there are other states in which the state party head is also an elected member of congress.

So it's not a tool to disqualify her.

So I think when all is said and done, this is something that's news for a couple of days, but in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's gonna be as nearly important as a lot of other stuff that's going on.

- I mean, yeah, there's definitely a lot of talk about how if Robin Kelly was elected and indeed she.

How the party could change to get around those federal election laws and, you know, it would seem to me that whatever they do, it's gonna be a lot more like Jerry said, decentralized than 23 years of Mike Madigan, you know, controlling the entire, you know, fundraising apparatus which relied heavily heavily on, you know, trade labor and trial lawyers.

But, you know, the other thing is, Mike Madigan pretty much used the party as, you know an apparatus to elect, you know, mostly house candidates which increased his own power and it left other candidates at other levels of government and even the Illinois State Senate kind of to fend for themselves.

And that's why Dick Durbin had built up this Democratic County Chairs Association over the years to kind of compete and fill in the gaps where DPI wasn't really doing its thing.

So Jerry, do you believe that, you know if there's a shift to small dollar donations, that this would be the more inclusive Democratic Party?

Not just, you know, but like to also engage voters, perhaps, maybe engage voters in state and local politics because, you know God knows we need a shift back in this country to, you know not just paying attention to Congress and you know, what's going on in the White House, but what's going on in your own backyard in your own State Capitol.

- Sure, so that's what a lot of the people who had spoken yesterday in favor of representative Kelly, that's what they had sort of said.

That it was needed from the Democratic Party to sort of shift to that type of a situation as you had described.

So, you know, I don't know.

I think it's just...

There's a lot of...

I think both sides sort of believe in the characterization of the other side and I don't know how decentralizing the fundraising process will change that.

But if you have more faces to the Democratic Party than just Michael Madigan, it seems that you're taking away at least one line of attack from the other side.

- One of the things that I'm looking forward to see is whether or not the the party will have a more visible social media presence.

Because as we all know, that's an area in which Michael Maddie was, well in fairness, let's say he was not totally up to speed on those things.

And I can say that because I can relate to them 100%.

my grandkids will run circles around me in the cyber world.

- I was gonna say (indistinct )social media user, Charlie Wheeler.

- Well I was...

I'm so far, fingers crossed, I've been able to zoom join the Zoom meetings for every time we've done Capitol News.

So, I don't wanna jinx myself but I think in this day and age having a younger woman of color leading the Democratic Party and with some of the younger committee persons being behind her, and with the talent that we have in this state for using social media, I think that would be an area where the Democrats could move forward and kind of match what the Republicans do.

And I see the tweets that go up every day and the the Senate Democrats have tweets all over the place.

The house Democrats, occasionally you'll see one.

I think that will probably change.

- You know, Charlie, you also referred to a couple of minutes ago the election of Springfield businessman, Don Tracy to head the Illinois Republican Party last month.

So there's new leadership at both state parties, you know, Don Tracy, he faces a pretty big challenge when it comes to uniting the Illinois Republican Party.

You know, it's not just the, you know, the obvious rift of who is, you know, considers themselves a true Republican because they support Trump and who considers themselves a true Republican because they don't.

It's also, you know the inter-party riffs on the state level in the last several years.

And you know, the latest is, you know, this Chris Miller, Republican house member from Oakland and his wife who is a newly elected Congresswoman you know, in a bit of a hot water yet again this spring, you know, back in January, the day before the Capitol insurrection, Mary Miller was caught on video saying that Hitler was right about one thing.

She said, you know, she was quoting him as saying, you know, you need to win the hearts and minds of the youth in order to have a successful, you know, kind of movement.

And then last week, these kind of digital sleuths who have been combing through video of the Capitol insurrection, they found you know, Chris Miller's truck, who of course has the Illinois house member license plates.

It had this decal on his truck of this kind of a militant group, far-right militant group, the Three Percenters who I've never heard of.

But you know, what happens now?

There's just so much division within the Republican Party.

How do you see this playing out?

This latest challenge.

- So, I would say Don Tracy will have a difficult time or I don't wanna say difficult time, but the task ahead of him is sort of trying to unite the various wings of the party with some less extreme type of policies in politics.

It's just going to be difficult because how do you sort of explain away Chris Miller's truck being where it was at the Capitol insurrection and as a party, do you really want that face on your party?

Maybe Charlie has some more insight from a historical perspective.

But I mean, to me it just seems like a difficult task, but of course the other thing that's going to play into how the chambers look is whether or not the maps, the redistricting maps are fair as they say.

Of course everyone's got a different definition of fair, but, yeah.

- Well, it seems to me that that's a problem that the, for lack of a better word, traditional Republicans have to deal with.

Do they really want folks who, not necessarily the Millers, but other elements that are white supremacists, that are racist, that are insurrectionist.

Do they really wanna embrace those people?

And if they do, what does that say to the rest of Illinois?

Are they gonna be comfortable supporting Republicans?

I mean, Republicans already almost, what would you say?

An endangered species in Illinois if you look at the fact that we have two US senators, both Democrats.

Democrats dominate the congressional delegation.

Democrats have all the statewide elected office.

Democrats have the super majorities in both chambers in the general assembly.

And years and years ago, when I first started as a reporter and this is going back half a century, that was not the case.

The Republicans were probably, if not the preeminent party in this state, they certainly were on equal terms as the Democrats and a lot has changed since then.

The party itself in my judgment has moved much further to the right and is welcoming people who back in my day, they would've condemned.

And there's also demographic changes as state has become, has increased in its population of people who identify as Hispanic and the Republican Party does not do well.

Party has never done well with African-Americans and now the tax it's taking on the national level don't seem to me to be the kind of way you can grow your party demographically to match what's happening in Illinois.

- And the other thing here I wanna wrap up before we move on is that Congressman Adam Kinzinger from Shanghai, he is continuing to, you know, wage this kind of public war against Donald Trump and you know, the far right elements in the GOP and he wants to, you know, restore the Republican Party.

You know, it's now been two months since he's put himself out there.

Do you see this playing well for him, Jerry?

I mean, he also, he attracted a primary challenger for next year because of this.

Catalina Loft, who she lost.

She came in third I think in seven way primary last year in the 14th district and she wants to go down to Adams District.

But of course, as you mentioned, there's gonna be a remap.

So we don't know how those districts will shape up, but you know, how do you see this playing out for him?

Do you think it's a winning strategy here in Illinois?

- You know, I can't predict that.

But the interesting thing about that whole dynamic for me is that it sort of demonstrates that the conversation within the Republican Party right now is basically not about policy at all because Adam Kinzinger voted with President Trump.

I don't know the exact percentage, but it was it's over 90%, 95%, whatever it was.

In terms of what President Trump tried to accomplish, Kinzinger had his back no matter what and he just said you know, you can't have this level of insurrectionist thought guiding the party.

And he's now been censured by untold numbers of local GOPs and whatnot.

Regardless of the fact that he was the person in Congress that Trump could rely on for the policy wins that, you know, he said.

So, I just don't think, it's weird to observe the sort of chasm in the Republican party, considering the level of policy debate that's part of it, which isn't much.

- Sure.

Although, I mean, it's...

I'm not sure that anybody could say that we've had like a real substantive debate on, you know, policies other than maybe tax policies in years and years.

But I'd like to move on.

So, you know, the third stimulus bill on the federal level, I guess we're dedicating most of the show to that today.

You know, past the US house and is set for a vote in the Senate.

You know, this would be $1.9 trillion slightly less than the Cares Act, but, you know, include all the kind of same hallmarks, individual aid, you know, aid for folks who have children, you know, but also critically this $350 million in proposed aid for state and local governments which especially local governments have been crying out for for, you know, pretty much this whole pandemic as they've had to kind of make their budgets work because I mean, state governments too especially.

Us in Illinois, we've had to borrow from you know, the Federal Reserve Program.

I think we're still the only state in the union who had to do that.

But, you know, unlike the federal government, state and local governments can't print money.

So, what does this mean, Charlie?

You know, if the state word, you know, state and local governments were to get their share of that $350 million, what would that mean and would it, you know, stave off the kind of most drastic results?

Like, you know, permanently layoffs and permanent, you know cuts to services.

- Well, I think that obviously, it would be a blessing for the state to receive this money.

The proposal as it passed the house included a $7.5 billion that would come to the state of Illinois and another $5.7 billion that would go to local governments.

Now, the Illinois municipality has said, we want the coney to come straight to cities and counties, we don't want it to be funds from the state as a lot of local government money actually is.

And the state's response was, "Well, we need to make sure that you spend it according to what the rules are.

Because you don.t have a record of doing that in the past.

But the...

I'm guessing, some of the money to pay Don the bill backlog to replace money that was lost because of the pandemic.

I would hope a good portion of it will be used to meet the state's obligation to increase elementary and secondary education by 350 million in the coming budget.

Maybe put some of it towards the pension debt.

But as I said, it will be a big relieve to all know they have those extra dollars.

It will buy us some time.

- And of course, a key part of Illinois economic recovery is actually having the population vaccinated to a level where we have herd immunity and people can, you know, start going about their business in a more normal way and businesses can open up and, you know, commerce can start, you know, at the levels that, you know maybe not pre pandemic for awhile, but at more normal and sustainable levels.

So, Jerry, I'd like to kind of end the show on how vaccine rollout has gone.

I feel like the last time we all gathered and talked it had not been going very well.

But you know, now the state has something like what?

18 mass vaccination sites, the Johnson and Johnson, a one dose vaccine was approved by the FDA and sent to the States and Illinois is gonna get, has already gotten 105,000 doses this week.

So Jerry, how are things going and do you think that there's more confidence in the Pritzker administration than there was you know, two, three weeks ago on this front?

- Well, it's still hard to get an appointment for a vaccine.

I think is you've said on Twitter, You know, your family members, we all have family members who've refreshed all day and just haven't been able get an appointment.

So, there are certainly things that you'd like to see more out of this vaccine rollout.

The press releases and such that we've gotten recently.

They all try to demonstrate that understate is building up this capacity for when we have the vaccine to put in people's arms.

And, you know, they all contain a line sort of attributing delays to lack of supply.

It still seems like there could be a better way to get yourself on an appointment list rather than as it's been described the sort of lung hunger games as you're available.

You know, there's not...

If you don't have a younger relative to sit and refresh a screen all day to find that appointment, how are you going to get there?

If the phones aren't ringing, whatever, how are you going to get these appointments?

So, hopefully as the vaccine supply increases, these appointments become more and more, and we don't have to talk about this as much, but I know we still got plenty of people who just simply are sitting here like, what do I gotta do to get this appointment.

- And Charlie, you know, I checked on the demographics of, you know, who is getting the vaccine doses in the state yesterday.

And, you know, there's a couple a hundred thousand folks who are listed as like an unknown race, but there's, you know, compared to when the state first put out the data, there's actually even more white folks who have gotten the vaccine versus any other racial or ethnic group.

And I mean, it's leaving a lot of people behind.

And you know, the other thing is, if you don't speak English as your first language, you know, you might be left out because there's no, you know, kind of centralized state hotline, you know, for that.

Maybe the state would even be able to handle setting that up.

But real quick, Charlie, I mean, what is the legacy if the state doesn't, you know amp up minority outreach and, you know shots to those folks?

- I think efforts are being made to do that.

For one thing the state is in the process of setting up a hotline that would have a multi-lingual capabilities that you'd be able to talk to someone in Polish or Spanish or Arabic or Korean, to help you set up an appointment.

One of the difficulties of course, is that the communities of color, the access to the internet is not as great as it is in wealthier communities and particularly in the Hispanic communities, you have many people for whom English is not the first language or the language they speak and so they're having a problem accessing these things.

- Great, well, that's all the time we have today.

Definitely an important conversation.

Thank you to my guests, Charlie Wheeler, Jerry Nowicki.

And we'll see you next time on Capitol View.

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