(dramatic music) - Welcome to "Capitol View," the weekly program where we talk about state politics and government, and how it might just affect you.

Joining me this week on "Capitol View" is Dave Dahl, longtime state house reporter for WTAX Radio.

Welcome, Dave.

- You're looking good, bro.

I see everything almost matches today.

- Well thank you, sir and you, as well.

Also, Raymon Troncoso, state house reporter for "Capitol News Illinois," welcome Raymon.

- Thanks for having me.

- It is a busy week, so let's get right into it.

The lame duck session concluded last week, complaints from some sides that, "This was rushed.

Why did we have to do all of these things so quickly?"

And progress declared by the other side about, "Why did things take so long as they have in the state of Illinois?"

And one of the important parts of this, maybe the linchpin of this through this whole lame duck session, was the Criminal Justice Reform Bill, which was passed.

I believe it was the last piece of legislation that made it out of the general assembly.

If not the last, one of the very last, and there were complaints afterward by some folks.

"Why did we take it this long?"

The final version of the bill came out, I believe, at three in the morning, something like that.

Passed out of the Senate two hours later and by noon, it was on the governor's desk.

Raymon, you have covered this, not just during the lame duck session, but in the weeks and months leading up to this, there were a number of hearings that were held remotely about what was contained in this package of legislation.

First off, can you tell us what's in there, in your view, the important parts?

And B do folks have a legitimate gripe when they say, "You know what?

This was passed in the dead of night, nobody had warning."

Go ahead.

- Well, the legislation itself has over 700 pages long.

It's a very, very massive bill, it has several different provisions in it.

One of the ones that law enforcement has taken issue with is the changes to use of force guidelines, but there's a lot of other things in there that have massive implications for the state.

The elimination of cash bail for pretrial detention, that's gonna be in effect by 2023, a new police certification by the Illinois standards and training board that every single law enforcement agency in Illinois has to abide by in order to hire police officers and receive state funding.

There's a lot in here.

In terms of whether or not it's fair that this was introduced so late, the final version was introduced around 3:00 a.m, and it passed the Senate just before 5:00 a.m, so it was a middle of the night passage on the very last day of the lame duck.

But in terms of everything that was actually in the bill, each of these individual provisions had their own three-hour hearing several months in advance.

Starting in September, actually with the use of force provisions were discussed in the Illinois Senate.

So I don't think it was unexpected what was gonna be in this bill, but for the size that the bill was, I think some Republicans and some people out there who opposed was in it, wish there was more debate than just the few hours that got in the lame duck.

- Yeah, and they wish that it woulda happened while people were awake.

- But on the other hand, I think folks might be hard pressed to think perhaps, of a bigger piece of omnibus legislation to be swallowed at once.

Since pension reform, how many years ago was that, Dave, when it was introduced-- - Was that 11?

Maybe it was earlier, maybe earlier than that.

- Yeah and to get something big done, you can't slow walk it, you've gotta do it at once.

And I think that there were provisions in this, qualified immunity being one.

We're gonna put that off 'til later.

That was carved out.

Another provision, I think, was cash bail.

That's not going to be taking effect immediately.

If I understand this correctly, not 'til 2023.

And that was later than had been originally talked about.

There's a cash bail.

The end of that has gotten a lot of publicity and attention and rightfully so, but I wonder about, also, the certification changes contained here because we will now have a state board that could have defacto power in whether somebody can be a law enforcement officer in the state of Illinois.

And that previously had been largely left up to local jurisdictions.

How big is that, Raymon?

- It's pretty huge and this was actually, originally, a separate bill that was crafted by Attorney General Kwame Raoul's team.

And it was a police certification act.

It kind of got rolled into the criminal justice omnibus as the clock kept ticking, and it seemed like we weren't gonna be able to get to as many bills.

So that was kinda added into this at last moment, but that, while it doesn't have support of the Sheriff's Association, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police have actually been asking for this, uniform standards for police certification.

Now, while some law enforcement agencies might not like that now, there's this state board that determines who gets to be a police officer or not, it does kind of take away some headaches in terms of someone might get fired in this jurisdiction or let go in this jurisdiction for some sort of misconduct, and when they go to apply at a new police department, they have no way of knowing that that happened.

So this kinda sets uniform standards, so everyone's on the up and up about who's been following the rules, so to say, of what it means to be a law enforcement officer in Illinois, and who hasn't.

- That speaks to the stereotype, Raymon.

Yeah, that speaks to the stereotype of police covering up for their own, police covering up for other police.

You know, stereotypically, customarily, the police unions don't like any of this stuff, any of it.

- Raymon, could this not and correct me if I'm wrong, could this also lead to de-certification of existing police officers, i.e.

the police agency in whatever local jurisdiction doesn't take strong enough action in the eyes of the person who complained they could then go, could they not, to the state board and could the state board then revoke certification?

And it's not even a question of transferring from one agency to the other, but staying where you're at?

Is that possible?

- It is possible.

So basically, every three years, an officer has to go submit their their certification license to the board and all the conduct they've done over the past three years, including mandatory trainings that they have to have gone to, making sure any sort of every complaint against them will be evaluated.

That's all part of this so yeah, someone who's currently an officer and is in good standing could be de-certified as a result of this bill.

But the provisions in place, it goes through several levels, including the department itself before it even gets to ILETSB.

And even at that level, there's two different boards, one that that makes the actual decision whether to de-certify and a board before that that has to recommend de-certification.

So there's been a lot of worries that people are gonna submit anonymous complaints and get officers fired, but there's just so many filters that a complaint has to go through before that, that I can't really see that as being a very, very reasonable claim.

- Yeah, I guess one reason I asked that question is that I'm aware of at least a couple issues of cases here, where we're broadcasting from central Illinois, where police agencies, the chiefs and sheriffs attempted to fire officers.

And that's been overturned by our union, by arbitrators that were part of the arbitration process that's spelled out in collective bargaining agreements.

And I've heard sheriffs and police chiefs say, "My hands are tied by this.

I wanted to get rid of this person because they had engaged in conduct which I found sufficient to merit their dismissal, but I could not do that."

Does this help with a situation like that?

- Yeah, and that's pretty much what the Association of Chiefs of Police asked for, is basically, we need some uniform standards that aren't up to what a union may feel about a situation.

Now we have uniform standards everywhere.

And that was actually a provision in the original bill that was cut, was collective bargaining.

It was going to remove the ability of police unions to collectively bargain on issues of discipline.

They would only be able to do wages and benefits.

The opposition to that was so enormous that it was ultimately stripped from the final bill, but we still have these uniform standards that are basically gonna overcome any sort of issues people may have with an officer being let go.

- Does that amount to compromise in any way, shape, or form?

I.e.

you're right, the collective bargaining aspects were stripped out, but yet when we put in the bill that Kwame Raoul's office had been taking the lead on, it sounds to me like it's perhaps a backstop.

Is that a reasonable way of thinking about it or not?

- Probably, I think it's not quite as extreme as removing the ability of unions to have a say and protect their members.

But it does give the management an avenue, not just to evaluate every officer that comes through their door looking for a job, but to let go of officers that they may no longer want in their agency for reasons of misconduct.

- Let's move on to cash bail, because that has gotten the most attention, I think rightfully so.

This again, it was supposed to, but now it's not gonna happen immediately.

What happens between now and 2023 to ensure that folks get a fair shake, regardless of how much money they have in terms of getting released from jail, but also protect the public?

How do they balance that and how do we get from where we're at now to that point in two years hence now, what happens in these intervening years?

- Well, now it's kind of in the hands of the courts, of the administrative systems that the Illinois Supreme Court uses.

A lot of this specific legislation on cash bail also used to be its own bill that was submitted by Senator Robert Peters of Chicago, which then got rolled into this massive omnibus that just took up so many legislation.

Originally, it was actually based on our report the Illinois Supreme Court released in April of last year, that basically outlined, we think we need about two years to move away from cash bail to this pretrial detention system.

Now that's in law and while originally, it was effective immediately, the courts reached out to the sponsors of this bill and said, "Hey, push this back two years like we said in our report and we'll have something for you by 2023."

So the actual language in the bill is that by 2023, we need a pretrial detention system that is non-monetary and evaluates people based on the risk of them not showing up for their trial date, the danger they may pose to the community, and the details of the crime itself.

So what that system specifically will look like is kind of up to the courts at this point, to determine that by 2023.

- There had been opposition to this by state's attorneys outside Chicago.

Kim Foxx, the Cook County state's attorney, has endorsed this.

State's attorneys elsewhere in Illinois had said no.

There had been stories in some police organizations as well.

If this comes to pass, then arsonists and violent, dangerous people will be released from jail who otherwise would have been kept and they are going to commit more mayhem.

What's your sense?

Is this hype or do they have a point here?

- I think it was a tad bit hyperbolic.

And in terms of the situation, they said that people would be released, but the truth is, we won't actually know what the system looks like until the courts present it.

We do know that cash bail is a thing of the past.

It's on the books now, so by 2023, whether that system's ready or not, we're not gonna be holding people unless they can pay.

- Okay, let's move on from criminal justice.

Again, a huge topic and there's gonna be more that's gonna happen, I think, in terms of qualified immunity, one thing that may have been kicked down the road or will be dealt with later.

Chris Welch, a new speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, has engaged in his past in conduct that is perhaps not the best conduct for someone to have engaged in, regardless of your status in life.

Which is to say he was credibly accused of beating a woman in 2002 and was then, 10 years later, engaged in a tight contest to join the Illinois House of Representatives and won by 36 votes, and-- - He also was accused of sexual harassment against employees of the school district where he was a school board president.

And he apparently was dating one of the employees of the school district and broke up with her, and that led to some legal problems as well.

- I was getting to that, but let's do an omnibus here and say he has had some issues with women-- - Me too.

- In his past.

And he has now been elected.

There was a huddle, which is very well captured by a photograph by Justin Fowler in "The State Journal-Register" where it's tight who's going to become the next speaker.

And Mr. Welch, Representative Welch was talking to democratic women at the Bank of Springfield Center.

He was subsequently passed through and elected speaker of the house.

Since then, he has said some things that are not perhaps in line with the truth, in terms of what happened in his past.

He has said, "I was never arrested."

That's simply not true, according to the Illinois state attorney general's office in a report issued in 2012, that's just not true.

It's also in opposition to what the police report said at the time, in which he was taken into custody, was told to turn around, "Put your hands behind your back, you're getting a free ride in the squad car."

Does what he says now about that stuff, does it matter?

Does it matter that he is saying things now about events in his past that do not comport with the record?

What do we think?

- Probably doesn't matter to the 70 some who voted for him for speaker, and that's the constituency you need to convince.

This stuff was way in the past and who among us Bruce, who among us?

He could have said "That stuff was in my past.

Well, I was never charged.

Well, I was never found liable in the civil suit.

I'm embarrassed by that behavior, I'm a better person now and I'm dedicating my life to being a better man.

I'm dedicating my time as general assembly to being the best speaker I can be."

And he didn't exactly say those things.

He kinda went into the rabbit hole of some of the people interviewing them saying, "Well, you know did you do this or did you do that?"

And he answered, "Well, I was never arrested."

- But we know that he was.

- It doesn't help, it's not helping.

- Yeah, it's not helping, yeah.

And I guess what I think about, you know, I agree.

Why are you saying you weren't arrested when you were arrested?

(talking over each other) And why, when people ask you about it, are you then saying, "In order and respect for the rights of the person involved, I'm not going to talk about this."

Raymon, does this pass the sniff test?

Or is this just a side show.

because what everybody has been talking about, he's the first Black speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives.

He's also the first person other than Mike Madigan to be the speaker of the House of Representatives, going back for how long?

Raymon, what do you think?

Is this a significant issue, should it be a real issue?

And can Republicans make hay of it?

- Well, I'm not really sure of the political implications down the line for Chris Welch.

We'll see if there are any, ultimately.

But what was most important is the night of, this was an issue for the Women's Caucus.

And as you said, that famous picture of them crowding around him and ultimately, they decided to support him.

So we don't know what was said in private, we don't know what negotiations took place, but ultimately, people who were in that caucus had to decide that this wasn't a major issue.

We'll see what they say down the line, but I'm not really sure what fallout's gonna result from this, if any.

- I guess what I'm saying is that they're saying this was in the past, but then after he was elected speaker, then he downplays and minimizes.

Isn't that kinda classic behavior of somebody who abuses women?

Minimizing this, (stammers) I guess it makes me scratch my head and maybe I shouldn't, but go ahead, Dave.

- Bruce, now of all times, we had the speakers chief of staff out on his ear, and some other people in the Madigan political circle and government circle out because they weren't right on me too, because they said the wrong thing, because they were bullying, and you would think that based on that, now would be the time to get a woman speaker, maybe even a minority woman speaker.

And they didn't do that, and you look at the allegations against speaker Welch and I think you've got an edge of this is the best we can do.

- Well yeah.

- I asked Jehan Gordon-Booth both that very question.

And she said yes, that Welch should be an excellent speaker and Jehan Gordon-Booth is a Black woman from Peoria who's been on the leadership team.

In fact, she's just been appointed to the Welch leadership team.

You would think she'd be a very good speaker.

Well, she's a striking woman and a bulging woman, but also very smart and she said, "You gotta have votes, and I've got a lot on my plate, I've got a little girl.

I'm busy with this and that and that."

And three women did run for speaker, and none of them had enough votes, nowhere near.

- I guess I wonder if, and it's hard to keep track of time, but with this have flown when Harvey Weinstein and me too was really in the headlines, would this have passed, would this have ever happened?

And it's hard for me to imagine that it would've.

- It's among the 70 of them and whatever deal was cut.

- And you're right, it's amongst the 70 of them.

- And that's not to diminish speaker Welch's skills, as a speaker, or anything going on with him in 2021.

But you dig up stuff like this and, as you said, well on the one hand, the Republicans will make hay out of it.

On the other hand, when you look at their numbers in the legislature, the Republicans haven't been able to make hay out of anything.

They couldn't make hay out of hay in the election!

- (laughs) Fair enough, let's move on, COVID.

We're doing better.

The numbers are down.

Raymon, again, you're more on top of this than a lot of us, but we've gone down now.

It's safe to exercise and breathe on folks again in gyms.

Are you gonna be out in the Y anytime soon?

Or is it time to maybe wait and see?

- Well personally, I think it's time to wait and see, and see things calm down, but if we're looking at the metrics, everything's really pointing in a very positive way.

Our case positivity is way down.

It's been going down for over a month.

Deaths are still kind of high, but deaths always lag two weeks behind hospitalizations and positive case results.

But we're opening up.

Pritzker has let us move out of the tiered mitigations for some regions and I think now, all regions, except for one of the 11 that exists in Illinois, are out of those tier three mitigations.

Some have moved to no tier mitigation, which is phase four of the plan that allows for indoor dining.

We have, I believe, three regions, including the one we're in right now that has Springfield that lets you do indoor dining up to 50% capacity.

And just over a week ago, that wasn't allowed.

So I think in terms of COVID, everything's trending in the right direction.

Vaccinations, now that Biden's in order, it's suspected that he's going to evoke some executive powers that allow him to expedite not just vaccine production, but vaccine deliveries to every state.

So we're looking at a very different reality in this first half of 2021 than we saw, even the last few months.

- Okay.

And does then the governor come out as, "Hey, I got this under control a lot better than a lot of other states did.

Look at my numbers, I'm able to open up."

'Cause he had a he had a rough session.

I mean, the lame duck session, he didn't get a lot of stuff done that he wanted, he didn't get his progressive tax passed, he's not done well.

Does does this sort of thing put some wind in his sails and give him some fresh life?

- In terms of how COVID is trending, probably.

In terms of the economic fallout of COVID, which is still so severe not just on state revenues, but for people personally their own economic status that affects how they see everyone in power in Illinois, right?

"How am I doing right now, compared to how I was doing before these people were elected?"

That kinda depends on what Biden does.

Pritzker has been seeking some federal stimulus.

He's been asking for for months, and he's been saying that if we get Biden an office, we're going to see some federal stimulus that's gonna help with our own revenues.

And we'll see if that comes to pass.

That might be the wind in his sail that you're talking about, it might not be.

He really is trying to anticipate what's coming down the pipeline as much as anyone else at this point.

- Yeah, and the decoupling issue where we're the business community is saying, "Don't do it" because this means we're gonna have to pay some taxes.

From the state's perspective, we need the money, whereas that the speaker Welch has indicated, "Yeah, I'm pretty open to this," is this as much of a done deal, something that's gonna get passed, as Welch had perhaps hinted at, like we did with the minimum wage?

What do you think?

- Well, it's probably gonna come down to how well Welch can negotiate because this Decoupling Bill did come up during the lame duck session, and it did not have the votes.

It couldn't be passed.

So once this new session comes in during the regular session, we'll see if some hearts and minds can be changed 'cause that's the only way it's gonna get through is if you get some people who said they weren't voting for it to vote for it.

- Yeah.

I wanna move on again.

We're gonna get close on time here soon, I'm very sure, but we have an opening in the Senate to replace former Senator Andy Minnaar and this looks to be perhaps, a placeholder sort of arrangement.

The smart money says Avery Bourne's going to be collecting that seat after remapping and so whichever Democrat fills it isn't going to be for long.

We've heard Doris Turner who is the Alder woman here in the city of Springfield.

- Yeah, she's in charge of the committee too.

- She was in charge of the committee.

And the person, and Dave, you might know the name, it's escaping me at the moment, but the chair of the Macoupin County, that person.

Sue Cherer has said, "Not for me, no thanks."

And understandably so, her seat is relatively safe.

Why would she take a placeholder?

Do we know who this is gonna be, and does this have any real substantive of effect on the course of legislation?

- Well, I would say no, that's a big hole with Senator Manar leaving.

We've got another question of Senator Brady and now, in the past few days, Senator Steans has announced your departure.

But it's almost an anomaly that a Democrat got elected to that seat and was able to make as much headway as he did, talking about Minar.

So yeah, I think you're onto something, Bruce.

- (laughs) Fair enough, and Manar went from what was he, 80,000 or as his salary to 248?

- 278.

- 278, okay.

Well, good luck to him and we can't all blame him for not gonna say he took the money and run, 'cause he deserves every nickel he gets.

I think he's done a fabulous job and that's my own personal opinion and-- - Yeah, he's got three kids, three teenagers.

- He has three kids and with that said, it's time to leave, everybody.

And so thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next week on "Capitol View."

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