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

I'm Hannah Meisel with NPR Illinois.

Joining us this week is John O'Connor, political writer with the AP.

Glad to have you here, John.

- My pleasure, Hannah.

- And also here for the first time is Dan Petrella, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.

Glad to have you here, Dan.

- Hi, Hannah.

Thanks, good to be here.

- All right.

Well, we are filming this on the first day of petition passing season on January the 13th.

Always an interesting time in state government politics when we see, you know, candidates come out of the woodwork, and go into their neighborhoods and collect signatures.

But this time, we're doing it in the depths of January instead of usually when it's still warm outside in September.

And of course, our primary, which is typically in March, was put off till the end of June because of COVID and, you know, other concerns that Democrats who control the general assembly had.

But, Dan, we have a really interesting slate shaping up at the Republican side.

We have seen, you know, the Kennedy's firebrand Republicans since last summer say they're running for governor, people like Darren Bailey and Gary Rabine.

Darren Bailey especially, a state senator who has defied, you know, a bunch of COVID mandates and launched a bunch of lawsuits for himself and kind of made the lawyer, Tom DeVore, famous.

Well, along comes a slate that is rumored to be funded, will be funded, it's being denied by Ken Griffin, one of the richest people in Illinois and a conservative donor, but it's being orchestrated by the folks behind the Rauner 2014 win, Mark Kirk at 2012.

Mike Zolnierowicz is the name of, you know, Rauner's first chief of staff.

And very smart guy in Republican politics.

Also, working behind the scenes to defeat that graduated income tax of Governor Pritzker's in 2020.

So Dan, tell us a little bit about this Republican slate idea.

- Yeah, so it's trying to be sort of portrayed more as a middle-of-the road, pro-business kind of ticket for these statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, comptroller, secretary of state.

And it's shaping up to be a mix of political newcomers or relatively new names to the political scene with some more familiar names for people who watched the state as Tom Demmer, a Republican state rep from Dixon who's one of the deputy leaders from the House GOP for example, is going to run for treasurer.

But we're also seeing some people who have made bids for office at the state level before and lost.

So it's an interesting mix of folks who we have yet to see who the candidate for governor is going to be.

There are a lot of rumors flying around about Richard Irvin, the mayor of Aurora, and we'll see hopefully within the next several days who's gonna be the gubernatorial candidate on that slate.

- And John, you know, we've already seen a little bit of hints at their messaging, and it's kind of the same old hits that we have seen time and time again in the last decade and a half of politics in Illinois.

You know, especially, seeing Republicans still trying to tie Democrats to the now out-of-state house speaker again.

One year ago today, Mike Madigan handed over the speaker's gavel to Chris Welch in the face of a federal investigation.

And then, we've also seen Democrats hit back with all these people are tied to the failed one-term Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.

Are we fated to see this whole dynamic play out again and again and again in Illinois?

- There's been a lot of money spent badmouthing people over the years.

I mean, Mike Madigan, you think about the attacks that went on during the Rauner years.

Those attacks started under Rod Blagojevich who was a Democrat like Madigan.

And both he and Rauner and people spent millions and millions of dollars trying to tie this one person to all that's corrupt in Illinois, all that's corrupt about Democrats.

You have to be someone who pays more than a modicum of attention to politics to know who Mike Madigan is.

The electorate really does it.

However, if they hit on a theme, and stick with one theme, whether it be corruption or mismanagement, whatever, we saw how effective that can be in the income tax referendum.

You know, so on one hand, your right hand, it's the same old, you know, Republicans keep bringing up the same issues.

However, when they hit on one, they can be effective.

In that case, you know, Governor Pritzker had wanted to change the constitution to expand the income tax.

And he called it fair tax, that it would only hit the wealthy.

Well, the Republicans hit back that it was an open check for Democrats to spend more money, and that worked.

- Yeah.

And we've also seen, you know, speaking of that graduated income tax debate, Treasurer Mike Frerichs, some people might remember made kind of a gaff in, I don't know, the fall, summer of 2020 when he said, probably very ill-advised, he said this would probably open the door to taxing retirement income, which other states do tax, but in Illinois it's been kind of a third rail kind of thing for politics.

And Tom Demmer, he's in his mid thirties, very youthful, and like, again, one of these model Republicans who's been in the house for, gosh, I guess about 10 years now.

Dan, we saw in his opening salvo to run for state treasurer against Mike Frerichs, we saw him use that, Frerichs' comment against him.

Is that still, you know, really popular?

- Yes, you know, and what's interesting too on that and sort of a side note is some of the same groups who were opposing the graduated income tax have advocated for taxing retirement income as part of sort of their package of solutions for some of the state's budget troubles.

What was interesting too was sort of the reaction to Demmer announcing his candidacy.

The Democratic Party of Illinois coming out and calling him a radical, tying him to the Rauner agenda.

And Demmer's someone who's probably pretty much as middle-of-the-road as it gets for Republicans these days.

So that was kind of an interesting line of attack, I thought, from the Democrats.

You know, I think you have to think about too the fact that the Democrats have a pretty compelling case to make for these statewide offices.

The state is in better financial shape than it was when the governor took office.

There have been, you know, some very controversial things that they've done with their super majority in the legislature.

But people might be happy with things like a minimum wage increase, and recreational marijuana being legalized, and sports betting being legalized, and roads and bridges in their hometown being fixed for the first time in a decade or more.

So the Democrats have a compelling case to make.

It's gonna be interesting to see how the Republicans try to attack that and try to pick that apart.

- Sure.

And Democrats also have this, I hate to make the pun joke but I'm gonna, they have this Trump card of this is Illinois.

You know, you've seen the Republican Party nationally go off the rails in the last five, six years.

With the Trump wing of the party, having this like anti-democracy foray into things that are just fundamentally illiberal and anti-democratic society.

And so, John, do you think that Democrats are going to fully exploit that?

Does that work in Illinois?

Because, you know, the average voter might not be plugged in and might not know that this slate of candidates who are gonna be we hear fairly well-funded.

They might not know that they are the mostly moderate middle-of-the-road, kind of typical Illinois Republican.

- And as much as we think of Illinois being a blue state, your question reminded me that there are a heck of a lot of Republicans in this state, it's just the geographic distribution of them.

In 2010, Bill Brady won how many counties against Pat Quinn, the Democrat incumbent?

And, you know, Bill Brady by all rights should have won that election.

But Pat Quinn just stormed Cook County and overwhelmed him.

I'm not sure that when people vote, they're voting necessarily about whether I fear that the Rauner years are coming back.

People don't remember who Bruce Rauner is.

I think a lot of that is all white noise and maybe an endorsement for the idea of shortening campaigns, because the campaigns tend to get filled with all this white noise.

And when it comes right down to it, voters vote their pocketbooks.

How do I feel today?

Do I have more money for my family?

Is my insurance, you know, am I paying too much for insurance?

Am I paying too much for retail goods?

So when I go to the store, how much is the cost of bread?

How much am I paying for gas?

It doesn't matter whether that politician on the ballot has anything to do with those commodities.

At the time, voters are gonna vote with their pocketbooks, basically, when it comes.

So the idea of, "Oh, remember the Rauner years?

"Weren't they terrible?"

Or all this, you know, Susana Mendoza claims she's a reformer's comptroller, but she's tied to all these nefarious characters such as Mike Madigan and Ed Burke.

I don't know that, that is as important as, you know... You know, all politics is local said Tip O'Neill and many before him I think, but all politics are very personal too.

- Sure.

Well, you know, I've sat on this program before.

I think that the all politics is local, that's getting less and less true.

Obviously, like you said, John, kitchen table issues are always gonna be something that folks go to the ballot box with that in mind.

But with the nationalization of politics over the last however many decades, we'll say three or four especially with the advent of cable news and especially social media, Dan, we've seen a nationalization like you wouldn't believe.

Tying local candidates to Donald Trump when the two have never met each other.

But, we'll also see it work to some people's advantage, like say a Mary Miller, the freshman Republican in the southeast part of the state to Congress.

You know, she decided on New Year's Day or announced officially that she would challenge Rodney Davis and that she had President Donald Trump's endorsement.

And we've also seen folks like, I mentioned Darren Bailey, who is hugely a Trump supporter.

Of course, he did have the gaff with his running mates who didn't support Trump in 2016.

But all that aside, you know, he criticized Ken Griffin last week.

And he said that these candidates on the Z slate were bought and paid for despite the fact that in mid December, he was on Facebook asking Ken Griffin for money.

All that aside though, I mean, what kind of backlash do you think that these far right Republicans will have and will it actually make any difference come August after the primary?

- Yeah, is the question for me or John?

Sorry, Hannah.

- You.

- Oh, I'm sorry.

You know, I think we're thinking about two different cycles of voting here.

The question is, you know, the Republican base in a Republican primary versus the general election in the fall.

So you might have to appeal a little more to the right wing of the parties when you're trying to win GOP nomination when there are a lot of GOP voters in Central and Southern Illinois who are more conservative or even in some parts of the suburb, you know?

So it's gonna be an interesting dance for those candidates to try to win the party primary, and then pivot to the fall when they have to appeal to mainly voters in the suburbs that have tended to decide the elections in the last several cycles.

Because we've sort of seen democratic strength grow even more and more in Cook County, and then Republican strength go downstate.

The suburbs have really been the sort of swinging area of the state.

And, you know, there's a lot of interesting dynamics at play with everything that's going on with the pandemic, and schools, and lots of different issues that I think are gonna make these races play out in really interesting ways in the areas around Chicago.

- Well, John, earlier in the show I mentioned that we are taping on the one-year anniversary of Chris Welch becoming House Speaker, first black House Speaker in Illinois history.

You had an interview with him this week.

Tell me just reflections on the first year of Chris Welch in office.

Certainly been interesting, and we've certainly seen kind of a turn to the more progressive when it comes to action out of the House.

- Absolutely.

That's one thing I raised with him.

Last spring, people asked me, you know, how was the session going?

And I said, under the old speaker, we didn't know where anything was going, but we knew that he had his ducks in a row and he just hadn't revealed them yet.

The new speaker was kinda like nobody knew where it was going, and he wasn't sure either.

But you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing or a pejorative.

It was that he was much more open about letting his members run with bills.

And he, you know, was not shy about saying that.

You know, I asked him about a bill such as letting convicts, people who are still incarcerated vote, for example.

Or even something like parental notice of abortion.

Those are things that may not have even seen the light of the board under the former speaker.

And now, you know, that indicates to me what you said, Hannah, kind of a turn toward the progressive.

On the other hand, if you ask Republicans, they'll say same old, same old stuff, different day, you know?

He says that he's much more open.

He's obviously much more open to the public.

My interview with Chris Welch was the first interview I've ever had with an Illinois Speaker of the House one-on-one, so that's saying something.

But as we recall, he promised a lot more openness.

And I said, the rules, the House rules which Republicans fought him over, they claim that everything's the same.

That the speaker still determines the agenda, what's called when, whose bill does get called.

And he responded, "And we now have term limits on Speaker," you know?

So that was kind of like, boom, mic drop, you know?

That's a pretty big rule change right there for the Illinois House of Representatives.

- And Dan, you know, we've seen, speaking of Republicans earlier, we've seen this messaging trying to coalesce on rising crime rates and what Republican wanna do with that.

But rising crime is not just, you know, something that Republicans are worried about.

Everyone lives in these communities where we have seen rising crime throughout the pandemic.

And Welch made comments to several news outlets, I think including yours, about what he wants to do this spring about crime.

Tell us a little bit about that.

- Yeah, he was not very specific.

He sort of touched on some broad issues they may look at, such as carjackings and organized retail theft, things like that.

The sort of smash and grab robberies we've seen, you know, in the high-end shopping districts in Chicago and in other places.

And I think Democrats are in a really tough spot when it comes to crime in this election cycle because obviously, nationally and here in Illinois, Republicans are trying to make it a top issue.

But that also tells you that it's not an issue that's unique to Illinois or unique to the City of Chicago.

You know, I think if you think about the potential gubernatorial candidates who may be running who is the mayor of Aurora, he will probably have to answer for issues that Aurora is having with crime.

Sorry, sort of an aside there, but the Democrats need to show people that they're being serious about these issues, trying to find ways to address crime, but also not run away from this massive overhaul of the criminal justice system they passed just a year ago, which Republicans somewhat, you know, debatably are trying to attribute the rise of the country, given that some of the biggest provisions of that bill haven't gone into effect yet.

So I definitely think it's gonna be one of the top issues of the session this spring when it finally gets going.

I guess the question is what exactly they're gonna do about it, and there haven't been any real concrete proposals at this point from the majority party.

- And, John, I mean, you've watched this stuff for decades.

Can you give us a little bit of a quick historical perspective about the back and forth through the decades on, you know, tough on crime.

You know, we've seen this era of the more progressive prosecutor.

Of course, one of the number one examples of the country of that is Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx.

But we've seen this kind of ebb and flow before, right?

- Absolutely.

You know, with the war on drugs that began in the '70s, that translated into a building boom of prisons in Illinois during the 1980s.

I think in 1980, there were 10,000 people incarcerated in Illinois.

Today, there's over 40,000.

And the idea made sense, put people away for a long time.

And it led to prison overcrowding and big expenses, and not too much of an impact on the crime rate.

Quite frankly, the 180-degree reversal that we've seen happened in the last couple of years with the police-involved murders of people such as George Floyd, of course, in Minneapolis.

And the Democrats passed this major reform bill last year, an overhaul to the justice system that this kind of a kinder and gentler thing.

There's more specific rules for police officers and how they can interact with the public.

And along with Kim Foxx in Cook County and quite frankly, Governor Pritzker commutations since marijuana is now legal recreationally, that there've been commutations, pardons for people convicted of possession that we understand now that convicting people of possession of marijuana is largely foisted upon minority groups, you know?

And that sort of thing that there's more to criminal justice than just locking people up.

Now, we see these new crimes are kinda scary.

They're very brazen.

Smash and grab.

The majority leader of the senate and her husband, Kimberly Lightford of Maywood, is one of the victims of carjacking.

She and her husband had their SUV taken away from them.

But the answer is always very elusive, you know?

What to do and how to do it.

And does somebody really think about whether I'm gonna go away for 60 years instead of 20 years if I use a gun in stealing this car?

An interesting thing that we also that we see this increase in these types of crimes during COVID, because quite frankly, there was a drop in crime.

In fact, Baltimore, because of COVID, stopped prosecuting possession of drugs and prostitution.

And the prosecuting attorney in that county has now said, "I'm not gonna start up again," because there was no reason to.

That the complaints about those crimes dropped.

So it's interesting, the ebb and flow like you mentioned.

And of course at this time, as Dan said, Democrats are not very specific.

But they're gonna have to answer to it, and the Republicans are gonna push 'em real hard on it.

- Yeah.

I mean, we have an evolving, you know, division of social science and economics that kind of examines crime and criminal justice.

I do wanna make a quick correction on what you said, John.

I mean no ill will about it, but when we had our highest population in prisons about 2011 when we had about 49,000, and it's fallen to about 28,000- - Is it at 28 now?

All right, thank you.

- It's a crazy fall and we've seen, you know, but broader issues within the Department of Corrections still despite the lowered prison population.

And, Dan, in about 30 seconds, we also see this kind of problem at the Department of Children and Family Services, still things that have been working for decades, but the Pritzker Administration has not been able to fully fix.

10, 15 seconds on that.

- Sure.

We've just seen the recent killing of a DCFS caseworker in the Springfield area.

The director of the Department is held in contempt of court over an issue where kids who are in custody in DCFS's care are being held.

You know, it's a very tough job.

He is like the 15th person to have the job in the last 16 years when he took office a couple years ago.

You know, it's often thought of as the hardest job in state government because you're really trying to protect children from horrible things that are happening with them in their own homes, and we've seen director after director at the agency fail to do that in many different ways.

And this is just sort of a continuation of a long-running saga at the agency.

- You're correct.

All right, well, that is all the time we have for today.

I'd like to thank my guests, John O'Connor, Dan Petrella.

I'm Hannah Meisel.

Please catch us again next time on "Capitol View."

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