(upbeat music) - Welcome to Capitol View, our look inside and outside the Illinois state capital and all the happenings in between.

I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Our guests this week are Amanda Vinicky of WTTW and Chicago Tonight, and Charlie Wheeler, the Emeritus Director of the Public Affairs Reporting Program at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Both of you, thanks so much.

- Glad to be here.

- You're welcome.

Good to be here.

- We had a whole list of topics to talk about today, and before we even got started, that list had to be thrown out the window, and we're starting from scratch.

Big news in terms of Illinois politics this week, both behind the scenes and right at the front.

With the Illinois primary less than a week away now, we're hearing that billionaire donor, Ken Griffin is saying, you know, I think I'm done with Illinois.

He's moving his company, reportedly, to Miami.

Amanda, what does this mean?

Just days before the primary, and this is a big player in Illinois politics.

- He is a big player in Illinois politics because, you know, money talks.

In fact, the US Supreme Court has told us so, and Griffin's money has really been, especially since Rauner left Illinois, also for Florida, we're talking about previous Governor Bruce Rauner, that is, he'd been, come in as a key funder of the Illinois Republican party, sort of resurrected it.

Had a GOP in statewide office.

And then since he left, Griffin came in, also got Dick Uihlein, another very wealthy Illinoian to come back and tried to resurrect again, the Illinois Republican party.

But as we saw the GOP divided between really the conservatives and then the more old school establishment, however you wanna think of it, Republicans, and according to new polling that we have, it really shows even more that the establishment candidate who Griffin hit back to Richard Irvin, really behind in the polls, and so Griffin says that he's out.

He's been indicating this kind of hinted at it, that he was so upset with crime in Chicago, that that was going to make him take Citadel and his family and leave.

But I think it's more than that.

It is crime.

It is also, I think sort, both the timing of this move, this announcement and what we have gleaned in terms of one of the reasons perhaps that Irvin is sinking.

We're not, he's not getting any additional infusion of cash.

It's apparent, from Griffin, that he's done with Illinois politics.

- Richard Irvin was just one of the Republican candidates backed by Ken Griffin.

There was a whole slate of what they called Griffin candidates.

Charlie, what does this mean for those campaigns?

Is there, you know, a more ominous sign than your biggest financial backer pulling out of the entire state right before the election?

- Well, if, if I'm not mistaken, the amount of money that was given by Griffin to the other people on the so-called urban slate was pretty minuscule.

A lot of the money was funneled through Irvin's campaign itself.

And I'm guessing that most of the people on the slate probably will succeed.

I'm trying to, this is horrible, I'm trying to remember who the heck they are.

- So you've got, you know, Steve Kim for Attorney General, Tom Demmer for Treasurer, John Milhiser for Secretary of State.

- Okay, now.

- And then, Shannon, forgetting her name.

- Teresi?

- Yes, there we go for comptroller.

So I do think this does not bode well for them in terms of if they were expecting any Griffin cash.

- A couple of 'em don't have primary oppositions.

Demmer is gonna get nominated for example.

Milhiser, and this is something that puzzled me from the beginning, Milhiser is a former judge, former U.S. attorney.

He's running for Secretary of State.

Figure a guy like that, why doesn't he run for Attorney General?

That would fit in my mind more with what his qualifications are, rather than being the guy who gives out driver's licenses and lectures people about drunk driving, but whatever.

And he's facing Dan Brady from Bloomington who has been in the legislature, I think for almost a decade and who in.

- Won.

More, yeah.

And in the current state of Republican affairs, he would be seen as being more moderate compared to a lot of his compatriots, particularly from that part of the state.

So I think some of Griffin's people will survive.

Irvin is going down the tubes big time.

And of course with him goes his running mate, Avery Bourne, a state lawmaker from Springfield, the Springfield area.

She lives, I believe in Morrisonville.

And in my mind, that's kind of sad, 'cause she was very young, very bright, very articulate, and when she first came to the legislature, I looked at her as someone who, if they stuck with it, would have an opportunity to rise up in the ranks and someday maybe be the house Republican leader.

And now from all indications, she's gonna be a use to was, or a has been after next Tuesday.

- I do think, Charlie, that while some of the members of the slate will certainly get out of the primary either because they'll win, although that is no guarantee in the Secretary of State and Attorney General contests, where there is some true competition.

They're going to, it's going to be perhaps tougher in a primary election where if you do have Darren Bailey succeeding, there is really, it seems, no love lost and internally they're not going to be, you know, running together.

And who had been the primary backer is exiting the state.

The Republicans are, I think, going to be hard up to get cash to truly compete, particularly when you've got Democrats backed by Pritzker's billions.

- Yeah, but, I would argue, in November, where the Republican party is currently, nationally, and the folks are the loudest voices in Illinois, they're kind of out of sync with what the majority of the Illinois voters are.

So whether Griffin is here to throw millions at 'em or not, I'm pretty sure the whole Republican ticket is going down the tubes come November, barring some dramatic unforeseen circumstance.

- Well, Charlie, you bring up an interesting point and we've been kind of dancing around this question throughout the primary.

As you look at the challenge between Darren Bailey, who has the highly conservative backing, he's hoping for endorsement this weekend, as a matter of fact, from former president Donald Trump, versus the Richard Irvin, as Amanda, as you call them the more established Republican party, perhaps a bit more moderate.

Is this a sea change when it comes to the Republican party of Illinois?

I mean, we heard just earlier this spring from the Senate Republican leader, Dan McConkie, who said that Illinois' Republican party is not the party of Trump.

It appears by polling that perhaps that's not exactly accurate.

- Well, it occurs to me, maybe more relevantly, and this of course is gonna date me, it's not the Republican party of the governors that I covered as a reporter for the Sun Times.

Starting with Richard Oglesby, through Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar, even George Ryan, it's taken a huge shift to the right.

And part of it appeals to the, for want of the, if you will, the pejorative description of the angry old white guys like me, although I don't think I'm particularly angry.

Whereas the demographics of the state are moving in a different direction.

And so the current forces in the Republican party are not the same as the people who ran it back in the day when it had success.

And they're people who in my judgment would be more in tune with maybe Southern Indiana or Iowa rather than the state of Illinois, which is dominated by the metropolitan area of Chicago, obviously, which is a lot more, I believe it's a lot younger, it's more diverse, more progressive, more liberal than downstate Illinois.

- We're seeing this play out as well, as we mentioned, that Senator Darren Bailey, who is the front runner now for the GOP nomination for Governor is hoping for an endorsement from former president Trump.

Trump is going to be in central Illinois, in Quincy over the weekend with Congresswoman Mary Miller, who has already received his endorsement.

She's in that hotly contested race against Representative Rodney Davis running in the same district.

Because as we've explained before, Illinois is losing a congressional seat.

How is this going to play out in your mind?

Is it too late for Darren Bailey to get that endorsement?

Does he need it?

Amanda?

- I'm not sure that he does need it, at least if polling is correct.

I mean, I sort of have been wondering, as we've been reporting on these polls, polls were late in coming.

We didn't have a lot of them early on, how much of this is, I think, part of it that there's a lot that goes into Darren Bailey's rise.

I think the leak of the abortion decision is a big player there.

I think frankly, a flawed campaign strategy on the part of Irvin is a large part of it.

Changing demographics, but also, you know, sort of self-fulfilling.

You report he's the front runner and then there's more backing and you report Irvin is sinking and then that feeds into it.

And so how much of this, frankly, the media cycle contributes to.

At this point, if those are to be believed and we definitely get the pulse that, that they are pretty spot on it, that I don't think he needs it.

You already have Darren Bailey out getting boosts from the democratic party of Illinois and the governor saying he's too conservative for Illinois, which is something that Bailey wants out there.

In terms of the party, Bailey is clearly doing all he can.

He is not running away from his conservative bonafides.

And that is one that Pritzker is pushing in the hopes that that is going to put it over the top and make for what some had expected, would've been a perhaps tough race for Pritzker, after COVID with a lot of people, not perhaps thrilled.

Other people, of course, fully behind all that Pritzker has done.

That's not gonna be an issue.

So in terms of Trump, Bailey doesn't need it.

Does he want it?

Sure.

That wouldn't hurt.

It'd be great.

But he already has pictures with the former president that he's running in his campaign ads.

Will president Trump do it?

I mean, I have no inner, clue to the inner psyche of Trump by any means, but he certainly hasn't thus far.

So I'm not sure what would make him wait until Saturday when he has already gotten behind Mary Miller, other than, yeah, maybe he'll be on stage, have a good chat with Bailey, speak extemporaneously and Bailey will get some sort of nod.

But I don't imagine at this point in time, that's going to change the dynamic in any way.

- No.

And I think given the former president's kind of approach to these things, the fact that Darren Bailey is looking more and more like a sure winner makes it much more likely that Donald Trump will endorse him on Saturday.

- Yeah, get a notch, a victory in his camp.

- Mm hmm.

- Yeah.

- You've both mentioned this recent polling that's showing Darren Bailey out even further in front of the rest of the pack when it comes to the Republicans.

But new numbers show that Jesse Sullivan has now moved ahead, at least within the margin of error, of Richard Irvin.

Charlie, is there any opportunity here, you think, for an election day surprise where suddenly you see someone like Jesse Sullivan come out on top?

- I'll never say never because you never know what is gonna happen, but I would be absolutely astonished if Jesse Sullivan were the Republican nominee.

He's got a lot of baggage too.

He's portrayed as being an outsider.

He was born in Petersburg, but he comes from Silicon Valley.

He's one of those tech guys that a lot of the Republican base is suspicious of.

He's portraying himself as probably the most theocratic of the group.

And I'm not sure how that, how well that would go over.

And I think it's more likely than not that he he'll be back in the pack.

He may come in second or he may come in third, but wherever he comes in, he's gonna be pretty far behind Bailey.

- Amanda, let's push this out beyond the Illinois primary, which is June 28th, Tuesday.

What does the messaging convert itself to?

A lot of times you see candidates race to the extremes for a primary, and then they've got to come back to the middle to win over those more moderate voters in November.

Will that happen here?

- You know, I would have thought so at one point in time, particularly if it is Irvin who captures the nomination.

He has been very careful about what he says.

That was the strategy.

It could appear to be a flawed one, but it certainly was one that was looking ahead to getting out of the primary with an eye to November.

Bailey, not so much.

I mean, he has, you did see, I think part of the campaign, maybe a change in tenor.

For example, in Chicago, where there's a lot of population, AKA, a lot of voters, Bailey campaigning in this city and saying, I like visiting here, my wife, Cindy and I, it's great.

And then during debates, he doubled down on calling Chicago a hell hole.

That is something that may well resonate with residents of Southern Illinois, who feel very fractured from the city, but that's probably not gonna go over so great in the city, maybe even in the suburbs, despite folks who are dissatisfied by what is happening in the city proper, may not take too kindly to it.

So I don't know how you walk away from that.

There's going to, he might, but he has tried to say I'm a conservative, and I think that that's a message that can win.

Pritzker, again, perhaps may retool.

He's, I think, always very careful, and of course there's talk of Pritzker trying to be President Pritzker.

So he's going to be calibrating his message.

Particularly, I think, he'll be feeling fairly confident if Bailey captures the GOP nomination.

He may need to recalibrate if polls show that that general election race will be anything like close, but he's kind of, I think, already expecting, all right, got it in the bag.

Let's look to the White House.

- Sure.

There's already been a visit in fact to New Hampshire that Governor Pritzker made in the last several days.

Is that going to hurt him as he tries to work with the legislature in the coming years?

If he were to win reelection in November, Charlie, do you see lawmakers saying, there's another person who's already checked out, we're gonna do what we want to do, and therefore, any agenda that he might have would be dead on arrival?

- No, I don't think so.

And the reason I say that is 'cause his agenda is not likely to vary that greatly from what the majority of the Democrats in the General Assembly want.

It's not like a situation where you had Pat Quinn who had a lot of bad feelings with House Speaker Madigan, going back a long, long ways, where the legislature, despite the democratic control of both chambers, basically ignored Pat Quinn.

It wasn't like with Rod Blagojevich where it became pretty clear that he was a crook early on.

So the legislature didn't really want to deal with him.

And Pritzker's had good success with the General Assembly so far.

There've been issues where there've been differences of opinion.

His people have been able to negotiate with the involved lawmakers and come up with compromises to move the state forward.

And I would say they're pretty much on the same page.

And if someone is intent on running for president, one of the things you wanna do is make sure that people can't point and say, you want to run the country and you can't even run your own state?

What the heck?

And so he's, if that's indeed his intention, I think that would even be more incentive for him to work with legislative leaders to move forward a program.

- And a lot of that will depend.

I fully agree with Charlie.

I think a lot of this is gonna depend.

This year was somewhat easy to do actually, because Illinois had a whole bunch of cash.

A lot of this is going to be dependent and kind of Pritzker's future path, the path of our state, all of our finances collectively are gonna depend a lot on what happens with the economy.

If there is a recession, what that would mean for a bottom line in states and will it make it tougher for particularly those like Illinois, that while our budget was in a great place this year, still have some long term fiscal issues to reckon with.

What choices will be ahead?

- One of the national issues that either person, any person that wins election for governor in November will have to grapple with is gun legislation, crime, things that are going to continue to be news makers long after anybody is casting a ballot.

The U.S. Supreme court is out this week with a new decision that may impact Illinois when it comes to concealed carry legislation to the Illinois Supreme court, for example, ruling or choosing not to rule on concealed carry and other FOID card issues.

Sorry, I forgot the term that I was looking for.

FOID card issues.

How is this going to impact what gets done between now and November when you've got these big national and statewide issues that perhaps need to be addressed, perhaps even through a special session of the General Assembly?

Amanda?

- So the special session that we're hearing talk about would really be geared toward another, hasn't been issued yet, but U.S. Supreme Court opinion we know will be issued sooner than later, dealing with abortion and Illinois already has, is mostly in place for if Roe V Wade were to essentially be overturned, in this opinion, that the right to an abortion would be nonetheless enshrined in Illinois law.

What the special session would be over, would be for example, to give protection to healthcare workers.

When we turned, however, to the gun decision from the U.S. Supreme court issued on Thursday, you know, right now this is dealing with a law in New York that didn't allow gun owners to freely carry a gun in public.

They had to sort of prove that they had some sort of necessity to do so.

Illinois isn't one of the handful of states that has anything like that.

If you have a concealed carry permit and you go through all the requisite public safety checks, you do have the ability to carry a gun in public where that is allowed.

So I could have seen there being some sort of agenda, particularly in the wake of some of these mass shootings, for Illinois to try to push forward maybe tighter gun control legislation, but really there hasn't been an appetite for that in the General Assembly.

It's tough to get those things through, tough, even in Illinois, with those democratic super majorities and Democrats holding statewide office and Democrats controlling the Illinois Supreme court, because this isn't strictly partisan, to get something like background checks or, to get fingerprinting required for everybody applying for a gun license.

So it does, I think, change that dynamic.

What we could perhaps see, there's an expectation that this U.S Supreme Court decision on guns could lead to a flood of new lawsuits, further seeking to take down what restrictions Illinois has in place at present.

- Charlie, that case before the Illinois Supreme Court challenged whether or not Illinois' firearm owner's ID card system was constitutional, or whether it violated the constitution in terms of a second amendment right, or other gun rights that are enshrined.

Do you see that case going anywhere or would there have to be a change in the makeup of the Illinois Supreme Court before that would change?

- Well, I think the ruling that came down the other day was in keeping with the long history Illinois courts that they don't want to get into the constitutionality of anything, if they can find a way to avoid it.

And so the ruling was on a procedural one that there were errors made at a lower level.

And when the trial court attempted to change the underlying case beyond what the Supreme Court said should be involved, then the Supreme Court said no, and you've gotta go through the regular appeal process.

And dissenters said, well, that's, you're gonna wind up at the same place.

Why can't you settle it right now?

Without getting into all the details, 'cause it's a pretty complicated case, but it struck me as at some point, we're going to get a case before the Supreme Court, Illinois Supreme Court, dealing with the legitimacy of whether or not you need to have a FOID card.

One of the arguments made against it, which has been mitigated through action taken by the legislature and Pritzker, there was a heck of a long waiting period.

You'd apply to get your card and you could wait like a year.

Now it's turned around pretty much within the timeframe set within the, in the statute.

So I think it would be upheld by the Illinois Supreme Court, given its current makeup.

It could well be challenged and go to the ultimately in federal court, go to U.S. Supreme Court and say, well, this is another requirement upon my ability to have whatever kind of weapon I want.

I shouldn't have to go through this rigmarole and get a license and all that.

So we'll have to see, although I saw a news story, a NPR news story, mentioning that Justice Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion wrote that this does not affect any licensing requirements in most of the states.

It's just this handful of states as Amanda mentioned, where you had to have a special reason.

And so I would guess at least as my brief understanding of it, is Illinois doesn't say you have to have a special reason to have it.

It just says you gotta fill out the paperwork.

So I think that may pass muster at least for the moment.

- Sure, sure.

All of these things constantly evolving and it's certainly something we'll keep an eye on.

In the short amount of time that we have remaining, we saw yet another conviction and sentence this week in Illinois politics.

Former state Senator Tom Cullerton, sentenced to a year in federal prison for embezzlement.

Amanda, what's it going to take to change the culture of politics in Illinois, from where people say, oh yeah, sure, there's another conviction, there's another sentence?

- Jen, that's either a two second answer of, I don't know, or perhaps a book, a thesis to investigate what it will possibly take.

There certainly are laws on the books.

What had been illegal remains illegal.

I'm still wondering, there was a Senator A mentioned in some of the federal court filings there.

Still curious about who that is that has helped to sort of arrange a deal along these lines for Senator Cullerton.

But he is one of, I believe it was, seven, within really the past, you know, few years really of sitting legislators, who's dealing with a corruption oriented battle at the courthouse.

It really is dismaying for all of Illinois politics and those concerned about government.

- Certainly.

Charlie last word on corruption and politics in Illinois?

Is there a bright future or do we see more of the same?

- I would argue that the only way that it will be a bright future is if we, the electorate demand it.

And if we, the electorate, upgrade our own performance.

- Be informed and be active in terms of voting.

Those are all great words and great advice as we head toward the Illinois primary.

Charlie, Amanda, thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for joining us on Capital View.

I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Join us next time right here on your public media station.

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