(intense music) - Welcome to "Capitol View", where we discuss the latest in Illinois state government and politics.

My name is Hannah Meisel and I'm with NPR, Illinois.

My guests this week are Kent Redfield, emeritus professor of political scientist at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Kent, thanks for being here.

- Good to be here.

- And Peter Hancock, reporter for "Capitol News Illinois".

Thanks for being here, Peter.

- Hi, good to see you, Hannah.

- I think, as always, top of mind for the last year has been COVID.

Obviously we are making great strides in Illinois with getting vaccinated, but that hasn't been even all over the state.

You know, in central Illinois, southern Illinois, access remains, you know, not terribly difficult, but in northern parts of the state, you know, people have to wait in line and you know, it's been kind of confusing.

But the governor finally got vaccinated this week.

He took a one dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine out at the Illinois State Fairgrounds at the National Guard run site there.

And you know, that's always symbolic when, you know, the head of state, the head of government, you know, goes on TV and does something for the first time.

You know, Kent, do you think that maybe the governor waited too long in the name of, you know, not wanting to be seen as jumping the line?

You know, because there are real arguments that, you know, he's asking everyone to take it himself but he had waited until almost the end of March.

Do you think that that's really a thing or do you think that people who are, you know, annoyed at when he decided to do it are just making hay up?

- Well I, you know, I think he would have taken criticism if he'd have done it earlier because he's up in the Chicago area and they have had a number of problems in terms of access up there.

But, you know, I think it has symbolic value.

And I think it's, you know, when you've got the picture out there, it's always good.

I would have liked to have seen him do it a little sooner.

You know, our problem is shifting away from not having enough, you know, vaccines to do the shots, to try and get access to communities and trying to convince people to, you know, to take the shot.

And it's gonna make a significant difference how we are with getting people who either have problems getting appointments and getting access 'cause of where they live or people that are reluctant to and need, you know, some encouraging.

And so, you know, it's kind of a, everybody on deck in terms of trying to figure out how to get that you know, 10%, 20%, whatever it's going to be, that's really going to make a difference in us getting to a level of herd immunity that's going to help us knock down the spikes and the variants that are inevitably going to come.

- Right.

And Peter, we are approaching April 12th, which is the day that all Illinoians 16 and over will be eligible to get a vaccine.

This is one of the major announcements the governor made last week.

It was that.

And then we are heading for this so-called bridge phase, to phase five, which, you know, almost a year ago, the governor announced this five phase economic reopening plan.

You know, phase five is basically normalcy, but no one was really able to envision back then what life would look like, you know, 10 (indistinct) later.

You know, would vaccines even be available this soon?

So Peter, refresh our memory.

What is this bridge phase that the governor announced?

And what does it mean for, I guess, the confidence of citizens and businesses, you know, able to up the capacity limits and see kind of a light at the end of the tunnel?

- Yeah.

I think Dr. Ngozi Ezike described the transition from phase four to phase five as a dial, not a switch.

You don't just flip a switch and reopen everything.

So it's this gradual process.

Once we have 70% of all of the seniors age 65 and over have received at least their first dose and as long as these other metrics, the number of deaths, the number of hospitalizations, the rate of spread, as long as those stay within a certain parameters, then we'll gradually start reopening.

They will increase capacity limits.

And then eventually, I guess it's when maybe 50% of all people have been vaccinated, they'll go to what they're calling full reopening.

It's not entirely full.

There will still be public safety guidelines.

The mask mandate will stay in place until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says to lift it.

But other than that, everything should be back to normal.

I'm not sure, you know, people have been traumatized by this thing and I'm not sure how quickly ordinary, everyday citizens are going to be willing to go into crowded bars and go to karaoke parties where people are breathing and singing out loud.

It may take, I'm not sure we're going to go back to handshakes anytime soon.

But gradually it will look pretty much like normal other than the masks staying in place.

- Right.

You know, the masks stay in place, well some people view that as, well, we're not truly returning to normal.

Quite frankly, I enjoyed not having a cold or flu at all the entire year.

But yeah, right now, as we film this on Thursday morning the metrics for the bridge phase, like you said, Peter, that 70% of folks 65 and over getting vaccinated to reach that bridge phase.

Currently sitting at 66% so we're getting pretty close.

However, you know, the rest, other COVID metrics, new instances of the disease, hospital intakes, those have been trending upward for about a week and a half now.

You know, I know that the governor is, he's said that he's worried about this.

You know, he's also said he's worried about those new COVID variants that, but that fear maybe hasn't borne out like it has in other countries, such as Europe, that's kind of experiencing a fourth wave of the disease.

So Kent, you know, what are the, if, you know, things really blow up here and we experience a resurgence and are not quite able to meet that bridge phase or you know, going into phase five.

Do you think that that has political ramifications for the governor?

Especially now that we consider his reelection campaign is going to kick off any day now?

- Yeah.

I mean, we're essentially a year away from, you know, the March primary.

And so it is, you know, he will be judged by how the state is doing a year from this fall.

I mean, there's absolutely no question about that.

And you know, what the economy looks like, and that's going to be, you know, where we are with the virus and people's perception of the virus are going to be huge.

I mean, we've got two competing dynamics.

We've got the Miami Beach, you know, you've got people out there who have never really taken this seriously who are just dying to get out and to do things that may have adverse public health effects.

And then you've got, you know, certainly people my age in terms of, you know, the reaction to what's been going on.

Restaurants can be open at 100% capacity.

It doesn't mean that people are going to go.

I mean, and so there's going to be those, you know, those brakes on the economy coming back.

And when you get, either the virus flares up or you get the human behavior flareup in ways that make people feel uneasy, then you know, they're not going to be willing to participate.

Again, and we really don't know the longterm effects of the shift from, you know, shopping in stores to shopping online in terms of, you know, if you go into a big box store you're going to see an impact on inventory.

You know, there's not as much stuff out on the shelves because they've been, you know, they haven't had to have it out on the shelf.

And it's going to be interesting to see how to respond to that.

I think the governor is going to get, you know, he will own the situation regardless of where it is.

But it's a, you know, it has to be a concern.

And I think people generally give him pretty good marks at this point.

But it's going to be a dominant issue if things, particularly if things aren't going well.

- And Peter, you know, our surrounding states for the most part have had looser restrictions at a lot of points in time in the pandemic.

Indiana, for example, their mask mandate is kind of downshifting to a mere mask advisory on April 6th.

But Indiana has also been pretty successful in getting vaccines out.

And I believe that they're gonna start offering them to all Hoosiers 16 and up, I believe, next week.

You know, when we look at Indiana, Iowa, that never truly had a mask mandate, Missouri, you know, those border states, they're always, you know, a topic of conversation when we talk about Illinois policy.

Because it's just so easy to compare because we have five bordering states.

Do you think that as we near this end of the pandemic, oh, you know, fingers crossed, that the border states will become, you know, an even more kind of, how do I want to say this, like, topic where we can't help but follow because it'll become too toxic for us to not and too risky to our economy to not?

- I don't know.

People like to compare and contrast states.

I think it's worth remembering when you talk about Missouri that one of the reasons the Metro East area had such severe problems for a long time was there were so many people crossing the river back and forth between St. Louis and the East St. Louis area.

And, you know, on the Missouri side there were virtually no controls.

And that spilled over into Illinois.

I have a lot of family in Missouri over toward Kansas City.

And I can tell you, you know, they complained to me that Missouri basically has no plan.

It's very difficult getting lined up for vaccines over there.

So, you know, I'm not sure that those comparisons, just because their economy is more open and just because there are fewer public health mandates doesn't mean they're, you know, weathering the storm any better than Illinois is right now.

Illinois is unique.

We have two very large urban metropolitan areas between Chicago and St. Louis.

And then a lot of cities the size of Springfield or Rockford or Peoria, places like that.

So it's a very different situation here.

And I just think, you know, states need to manage their response according to their own conditions.

And I think that's what Illinois has done.

- And Kent, you know, speaking of the governor's political chances, the governor did, you know, kind of a one-year reflection on this pandemic.

He went around and spoke to many reporters including myself, including "Capitol News Illinois".

And, you know, he gave the standard politician line, that he's focused on governing, not focused on his reelection.

You know, I don't see, you know, saying, oh gotcha to that.

You know, every politician says that.

However, you know, come to find out after that long week of, you know, profiles on the governor and his pandemic year that he had actually a few days prior put in $35 million to his reelection campaign.

Now that was just a few days before what would be the one, you know, looking forward to the primary election 2022.

So it didn't quite bust the caps of, you know, this 2009, I believe, election law that we put in place to kind of get money out of politics.

But it seems that folks have decided yeah, that law's in place but we're just going to exploit it.

So Kent, can you explain that law and you know, what this means?

- Sure.

We have contribution limits that apply to people running in office at every level.

But we also have triggers waive those limits.

If you were in a situation where a candidate is self financing, and there are triggers, it's $250000 for a governor's race, then if you're not the self-funder then the limits come off for you and you can compete and take bigger contributions.

And the other, and it can either be a direct contribution or it can be a loan.

And so you don't, you can have skin in the game where you're actually putting your own money in the campaign and you can't get it back or you can loan the campaign and then have the campaign can later on repay your loan.

The other way it happens is with independent expenditures.

And again, if someone spends $100000 to support my opponent in a legislative race, then I am without, I can ignore the, that waives the contribution limits for myself.

What the governor has done is put money into his campaign he can operate with without opening up the ability of anyone that wants to run against him to raise money.

Governor Rauner did exactly the same thing.

And so we think of these waivers, these triggers as being defensive, but the way the governor is using it, the way that Governor Rauner used it, it's essentially offensive.

It's putting money in your campaign but you're not paying the price in terms of taking the limits off of potential opponents.

And just, you know, this is a system where we limit private money coming into the system but once it gets into the system, particularly in terms of party groups, it moves very, very freely.

And the self-funding and the independent expenditure waivers allow particularly legislative leaders and people running for constitutional office to have, you know, be able to receive huge contributions.

So a system that, you know, it has some impact, but it's pretty permeable.

If you want to get money into the system and can't figure out how to do it, you're probably not trying very hard in terms of the way that the system runs.

So at some point the government will put more money into his campaign and that will allow anybody running against him to raise contributions without limit.

But right now, you know, by doing it three days before the deadline he's got a pot of money he can work with.

And everybody else is raising money, you know, under the limits that are about $60000 for a PAC or, you know, $20000 for a corporation.

It's a huge advantage.

But he's got $3.3 billion.

So it's, you know, he's going to have a huge advantage regardless of whether he manipulates the, he games the campaign finance system.

- Right, exactly.

And we've also seen legislative leaders kind of figure out this game, too, at least since 2016.

I want to say, you know, Mike Madigan was the first legislative leader to break the caps with, I think it's like, $100001.

And then, you know, that gives you an advantage for your caucus and other leaders have figured that out too.

But it seems like I don't hear much of an appetite from folks to get back into campaign finance rejiggering, at least right now.

So I guess we're in for a couple more rounds of pretty expensive campaigns, we'll see.

(laughs) - We're spending a lot of attention not doing anything about ethics, so we don't have time not to do anything about campaign finance, so.

- Right, right.

And, you know, it's funny.

When ethics reform was kind of a big, hot topic pre-pandemic in, you know, January and February of last year, I think people had asked like, well, why not wrap campaign finance into this?

And I want to say that, you know, leaders from both parties were kind of like, well, that's a separate issue.

Because no one really wants to give up their advantage.

You know, speaking of COVID, in-person fundraisers are really, you know, the way that business is done in Springfield.

And these Monday night fundraisers, which is also kind of a interesting relic of the last time that we did campaign finance reform, because you're technically not supposed to have fundraisers in Sangamon County, you know, during a legislative week.

So they say, okay, well, Monday nights.

But Republicans especially have been kind of pushing the envelope on doing in-person fundraisers because, you know, that's a main source of how they get things done.

And Zoom fundraisers, I'm hearing from a lot of lobbyists and lawmakers that they are no fun because you're already on Zoom all day.

But want to get to something else.

You know, it is deadline week, traditionally a pretty busy week in the Capitol.

But only the Senate is here in person this week.

The House is continuing to do their mostly remote online committee work.

But I want to talk about two kind of notable bills because I feel like they're emblematic of this kind of, you know, more progressive wave of, you know, lawmaking that we've seen in Illinois recently.

Peter, you wrote about this week, you know, a bill that would allow inmates in prison to vote.

Tell me about that.

And, you know, I think it's very interesting because this comes at a time that we are seeing other states kind of clamp down on voting access.

So what does this mean, you know, both to the bill, but also just the progressive movement that we've seen here in Illinois?

- Yeah, the bill would repeal an existing statute that prohibits people who are currently incarcerated or on a work release program or on furlough from voting.

And that's in accordance with the Illinois constitution which also provides the same thing.

And so representative LaShawn Ford from the Chicago area wants to take the first step in allowing inmates to vote.

And I think the argument in favor of it is that these people, well, first of all that it's racially discriminatory because roughly half of the prison population is black, even though only about 14% of the general population is black.

And that these kinds of, you know, taking away people's voting rights was inherently racist to begin with.

The argument against it, I believe, and it was only an informational hearing to get the bill out there and educate people.

There wasn't really any vocal opposition at that hearing.

But the argument is that if you commit a serious crime and you're sentenced to prison, you have to give up certain rights and privileges of citizenship.

You give up your freedom and you give up your right to vote.

I think the proponents would argue that these people are going to get back out of prison eventually, and you want them to feel a connection to the rest of the society, and allowing them to participate in the political process is one way toward that.

So I imagine once it comes up for a vote, if it comes up for a vote, it's going to be a lot more contentious than this one hearing was.

- Sure.

And this also goes along with a principle in that massive criminal justice reform package that was, you know, pushed by the black caucus during lawmakers' lame duck session, that would eliminate so-called prison gerrymandering.

It wouldn't take effect until 2030 so it wouldn't happen for this next remap process, which is beginning this year, this spring, really.

But it's this principle that folks who are incarcerated, you know, if they are from Joliet, if they're from Chicago, but they get sent down to, you know, a prison in Southern Illinois, that they should not count toward the population of Southern Illinois to a congressional or legislative district.

And so this is, you know, settled.

Like I said, it won't take effect.

But it's this vein of more progressive, you know, rights for prisoners and things of that nature.

We also, related to voting, last Thursday evening which would have been after this program was filmed for last week, the House approved a bill that would kind of make permanent voting options that were made available for the 2020 election, things like curbside voting and you know, being able to cast your ballot in a dropbox and not have to go in, things because of the pandemic and make it more permanent.

But, you know, it seems like there's a lot of appetite for Democrats and quite frankly from a lot of voters to make those things permanent.

But of course, Republicans say, you know, not so fast.

One other, we have not very much time remaining, but Kent, you know, this progressive wave that we've seen, do you expect it to continue?

And like when we see trends on the national level, you know, just like a few, 30 seconds here, what's your take on how national politics will continue to affect Illinois Democrats and Republican parties?

- Most of what's being pushed nationally is trying to deal with expanding voting access.

The things that that would require states to do, Illinois already does.

I mean, we have moved, if you look at where we've come legislatively in the last two decades, we are a very different state and a very progressive state.

Now we are certainly divided between northeastern Illinois and downstate Illinois, but there's no reason to believe given the huge majorities that the Democrats have in the control of the executive branch, that this is going to continue.

We're arguing about things on the margin because we already do all of the things that the Democrats want to do nationally with voting rights.

- All right.

Well, we are all out of time for "Capitol View" for this week.

I want to thank my guests, Kent Redfield and Peter Hancock.

I'm Hannah Meisel.

And we'll catch you next week.

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