(intense dramatic 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 are Jerry Nowicki of Capitol News, Illinois.

Welcome, Jerry.

- Thanks for having me, Hannah.

- And also here is John Jackson, visiting professor of political science at Southern Illinois University's Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

Glad you're here, John.

- I'm glad to be here.

- Well, another week where masks are, first and foremost, on policy maker's minds, as the legal battle over whether masks in schools will be officially dead or coming back is still going on.

So Jerry, tell us a little bit about this panel, this panel of lawmakers in Springfield this week.

To refresh viewers' memories, earlier in February, a Springfield judge, Raylene Grischow, she issued a temporary restraining order on the governor's school mask mandate.

And since then, it's been pretty chaotic, with some school districts still enforcing masks, some school districts throwing up their hands and saying, well, we're done with masks now.

And then the governor tries to reinstate his mask rules, which had expired around the same time, so a really perfect confluence.

And then this panel of lawmakers, which has the very most esoteric name, JCAR, Joint Community on Administrative Rules, they say, no, we're done.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, so the JCAR usually only becomes newsworthy when something controversial is before them, which this year has been a lot of things, 'cause a lot of what the governor's executive orders have had to be sort of executed through the state rulemaking process, which IDPH, the Department of Public Health, will put forth the rules sort of enforcing what's written into the governor's executive order.

So with that decision, what we're kind of seeing is the three branches of government all pulling in different directions almost.

You have the judicial branch with at least the one judge, Judge Grischow, saying, you know, this is a type of quarantine.

You can't really do this.

You gotta give the people who are subject to these rules some level of, I guess, a hearing or something to be discussed on that.

And then you have JCAR who's saying, well, this is before the judiciary right now.

We're waiting for a decision from the fourth district court of appeals, which will probably be coming soon.

And they're saying, well, we don't wanna...

Essentially three Democrats joined the Republicans saying we don't wanna touch this hot potato until the judiciary has had its say.

So the JCAR had to take up the rule 'cause it was an emergency rule.

They didn't apply for it as a long term rule in the first place.

So emergency rules only last 150 days.

So what we saw was the governor or the administration IDPH refiling that rule after the initial 150 days were up, and the lawmakers just weren't ready to do it.

- Yeah, and, you know, this further hinders the ability for the governor to have a continuity of having that school mask mandate.

And now the governor for his part says that it doesn't really matter whether the emergency rule won't be there because I still have my executive orders.

But, you know, John, in a larger sense, if we think back to the early days of the pandemic, you know, we got past a very scary first six weeks.

But then in late April, May of that year, you had a lot of Republicans especially, but definitely Democrats too, complaining that, you know, we are on the sidelines and we're being forced to sit on the sidelines from the governor's executive orders.

Now I think two years on some people would say, well, lawmakers voting, you know, including Democrats voting to reject this emergency rule.

That's just how good governance should work because for the most part, the general assembly has not really been involved in the state's COVID mitigation process at all.

So, is this just a natural outgrowth?

Did the governor make a miscalculation somewhere along the way where he didn't involve the legislature?

Or was it the legislature that was kind of secretly relieved to not be involved?

I mean, what should we make of this?

- Well, Hannah, I think we have government at all levels in disarray appearing right now because we have a very strong federal government system.

We have a very strong separation of powers, three branches, checks and balances.

And I think you see that all coming out now, and it is in some disarray and it's stemming from the fact that we've got a pandemic of people who are fed up with all of the rules, and just wanna be done with them and they just wanna move on with life.

And not surprisingly, the political leaders are representing that feeling.

As you say, now even democratic governors in blue states, California, New York, and Illinois have all either gotten out or have announced plans to get out of the regulations business very quickly.

And so we've got state agencies saying different things and doing different things.

We've got the CDC giving scientific guidance which says, hang on, it's not over yet.

We've still got to have some controls.

We recommend masks for schools.

And keep in mind, we've been through this before, as you were indicating Hannah, we bailed out after two months of trying this in April and May of 2020.

CDC says there could be another variant out there.

So they're being very cautious and very conservative as you would expect scientists to do.

But the White House and the governors, including the blue state governors, are saying we're close to done with this.

The governors want to establish, however, in this case, our governor saying he wants to be seen as following the CDC guidelines, but also protecting the power of the executive branch, and especially the department of health to have issued these guidelines and to have insisted that people continue to follow them until they're relieved from them.

So he's trying to protect his future power and other state governors to follow him.

And he's trying to say, I did the right thing and I followed the science.

Not surprisingly, we got JCAR saying one thing, the Springfield judge saying something else.

And we've got the appellate court now involved, and that separation of powers and checks and balances.

And it's really quite a mess right now.

We're cleaning up the leftovers hopefully of the last stage, but we don't know for sure that it's the last stage.

- Right.

We don't know.

Obviously, we all have hope that COVID will become endemic.

Although what does that mean?

I think I've seen a lot of pieces lately about it.

We don't really think know what... We're not using that word correctly in general.

But, you know, like you said, the governor wants to have the power in place just in case another variant does come along.

I mean, I know scientists are monitoring this.

The shadow omicron variant that is potentially more infectious even than Omicron, but we don't know exactly what that will mean, especially since so much of the population does have antibodies from vaccines or prior infection.

But, you know, just before I move on from this, it's just so interesting to me.

We talk about the public being done with the pandemic, done with masks, but then, you know, every once in a while we step outside of that social media TV feedback loop and we see data from this new poll that came out within the last week.

CBS news and YouGov, a poll that was conducted about a week ago.

Do you think your state should have mask mandates in place now?

And a total, you know, between both fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people, they say 56% said yes even among the unvaccinated.

Those who said should have mask mandates, 34%, that's more than a third.

That's wild to me.

And then among parents of school-aged children, do you think should masks in schools be required?

57% said yes.

57%, that is such a large margin.

And I think, I don't know, Jerry, do you think that I mean, I think in the past we've let a majority of the loudest... A minority, excuse me, of the loudest people dictate public policy.

But is this a policy failure, or is this just, you know, once you let the cat out of the bag, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, to mix a lot of metaphors there?

- Yeah, I think the elected officials are always sort of looking at where the polls are trending, and it's certainly trending as a larger portion of the public are against masks.

Even if far more people appear to want them in those polls.

So, you know, they tried to stay ahead of some of the trends in that regard, but as the numbers get lower, it's just something you look at.

That's something we've done as a state.

It's what the governor has done throughout this.

When the numbers get low, he relaxes the mask mandate.

So I know there are a lot of people who want the masks in schools.

The question is, I guess, how dogmatic are those people in their approval?

Certainly the people who want masks lifted are louder.

I did wanna touch on one thing about the general assemblies control, which you had brought up on a previous point was that the governor, I think it was in 2020 when I was a field reporter at one of his news conferences, he actually accused the general assembly of abdicating its responsibility when he had put forth I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something that would've put in law some of the COVID powers he had.

And the general assembly just decided not to take it up.

And I think he would like a little cover from the general assembly, but I used the term hot potato earlier, and the general assembly just doesn't wanna touch any of this.

- Yeah, I mean, I think I remember that was over rules for punishment for, you know, businesses who didn't enforce mask mandates or something like that.

But, you know, at that same time that's when speculation and the feds were getting closer to former House Speaker Mike Madigan.

You know, pandemic was a good reason to not have too much session or public access or scrutiny either from media or his own members of his caucus.

But John, I mean, I think last summer when COVID was really, you know, we had maybe this false sense of security that things were getting better and, you know, it would be over whatever over means.

You know, the governor came out with his reelection campaign, and it was built on, you know, we're done.

Look how I handled COVID and I'm proud of that, and we're gonna move on obviously.

I don't think anyone wants to have to run, you know, while the pandemic is still raging.

But this is particularly fraught for the governor.

And, you know, we have all of these Republican challengers, you know, coming in and criticizing the governor left and right on things of course like, you know, when you look back obviously, some things were maybe ill advised.

But you know what I find interesting about some recent discourse on the Republican side was, you know, Darren Bailey, the firebrand conservative state senator, and Richard Irvin the Aurora mayor who's being backed by Ken Griffin, which we'll talk more about that later, they're having this debate over well, who was more pure, you know, state representative?

Avery Bourne accused Darren Bailey of having a COVID mitigation plan in 2020.

I mean, who cares?

You know, are we really gonna have a debate over who was more pure two years ago when, you know, COVID was new, no one really knew anything about it.

And like, doesn't that just paint people into a corner?

- Well, I think the governor's absolutely going to run on his COVID record and it's still playing out, but it's going to be one of the two centerpieces of his campaign.

The other reelect issue will be his financial management, and he's got to run on those.

Those are major things that have happened on his watch, and he of course will defend his record on both.

Naturally, the Republicans are going to come after him particularly on COVID, and as we've talked about in the past, it's gonna cut both ways.

The governor's going to say the state health department and I followed the science.

We did what was responsible, we took the heat, nobody had any doubts, but what we were in charge, and we're proud of that record and now it's behind us, or now it's at least abated wherever we are then, hopefully behind us.

But the Republicans are having this internal debate to some extent as to who got out front first on being opposed to a whole lot of this.

Two of the major candidates you just alluded to, it came up this past week.

So it's inevitable.

COVID and fiscal management are going to be the centerpieces.

You can hate him and you can criticize him, or you can think the governor did the right thing and support him, but that's going to be the dialogue.

- Sure.

And let's transition into talking about that governor's race.

Jerry, this week, finally, as speculated on for many months now, billionaire hedge fund manager, Ken Griffin, he gave Richard Irvin that $20 million, that first installment of what we expect to be a whole lot.

And, you know, other Republicans who of course expected this too.

They've put on a show of being, you know, angry over it.

I don't know.

Tell us a little bit about how Ken Griffin's official entrance into the race in a big way with money is gonna, you know, change the tenor of things going forward.

- It certainly means Richard Irvin can run a lot more of the ads.

We've already been seeing in the Springfield area.

I think he aired one during the halftime show of the Super Bowl, and I think it also means we're going to see a lot more messaging on rising crime in Illinois, which the governor's been asked to address numerous times.

And yesterday he said, you know, the Republicans are wrong with the message they're going to send, but the Tribune asked him are you going to still be vulnerable because you think the Republican message will stick?

And he said, you know, I'll try as hard as I can to tell my side of the story essentially.

So what the 20 million means is the Republicans are going to have a lot easier time.

Mr. Irvin, especially, getting that message across.

And that's what money does.

I think there's a threshold of money that once you hit, you could be a contender.

As we saw with Rauner and Pritzker, when each side has enough money, probably the message will win and your record will become a matter of what's going to decide the race.

But I think Mr. Griffin has been a long time donor in Illinois politics.

Obviously we know that.

And he's backed winners, he's backed losers so he's on a bit of a losing streak.

So it's not necessarily a coronation or anything.

Mr. Uihlein, Richard Uihlein, gave a million dollars to Darren Bailey, Senator Bailey, for his campaign.

So I think we're gonna see a lot more Republican attacks on each other, and continued attacks on Pritzker on crime with that new money in the race.

- Yeah, I mean, John, what do you think... We're still in February, the primary isn't 'til, you know, late June.

When do you think though, along the way, when does this solidify into this is the clear front runner on the Republican side?

What's that gonna take?

- Well, the early polls, to the extent there have been any, had Darren Bailey ahead by plurality.

That was before Mayor Irvin got in.

So it's not clear to me that we have any polling they don't have.

The money race and the establishment endorsement race has already been easily taken the lead for Mayor Irvin.

And he's got that $20 million.

I think it's interesting though that Darren Bailey's got now a million dollars 'cause he's got some money now to use that big, very big megaphone that he has, particularly in central Illinois to attack the governor again and again.

And apparently, that was working for him early on in the race.

So far, those seem to be clearly the two leaders for lots of reasons right now.

And the other three have been almost forgotten and relegated to who are they at this point?

So I expect it to probably shake out that way, ultimately, and it's certainly clear, as Jerry was saying, that money counts but if you got $20 million for a nest egg, certainly that gets you a huge start.

But Darren Bailey's got a huge megaphone, so he's got a following too.

- Yeah, and, you know, he built up this following since, you know, early days of COVID.

Of course, I mentioned that COVID, you know, getting out of mitigations plan.

But, you know, at the same time he was challenging the governor in court and then temporarily became the only person in Illinois who was not subject to the governor's stay at home orders.

And, you know, he and attorney Tom DeVore teamed up and they became...

I would say that's a lot of grassroots organizing, and a good bull that they built up among conservative voters there.

But, you know, Jerry, I also wanted before we started filming this morning, breaking news out of the secretary of state's race.

You know, Jesse White, the very long time secretary of state, loved wins by the most margins of any statewide elected official by far, finally made his endorsement.

You know, he had been expected to make the endorsement I think a lot earlier, but it's a long primary campaign like we said.

And between former state treasurer, Alexi Giannoulias, who has been out front raising, you know, gobs and gobs of union money, and Anna Valencia, Chicago city clerk, who has definitely raised a lot less money, but has gotten endorsements from, you know, I think groups that are influential too who, you know, also labor.

So Jesse White endorsed Anna Valencia.

What's this gonna mean for that race?

- Yeah, I always wonder what level of attention the general public gives to an endorsement when looking at the voting, but in terms of giving cover to other types of potential donors, potential organizations that do a backing, I think a union, when they endorse someone, that's a message to their members that this is someone who's going to support our policies.

So union endorsements are huge.

But with Secretary White, it is sort of surprising to see him, I guess, a little surprising to see him endorse Anna Valencia.

But the thing about Giannoulias, is he's most recently a loser.

Illinois Senate, or the US Senate in Illinois, he lost to Senator Mark Kirk.

And that senate seat was red for whatever the term was, which was just something new in Illinois certainly in recent history.

And I don't know what level of that went into the decision, but he said, you know, Secretary White has said he had a great relationship with Valencia, and he fully believed in her abilities to take over the position.

So we'll see if it moves.

I haven't seen any polling in that race honestly, and we'll see if it moves the needle for more endorsements at least for Valencia from other organizations.

- And John, we've got about a minute left so I don't have time to get into the last thing I wanted to talk about.

We'll save that for next week, but I know that you have some thoughts about just the, you know, the enormity of the secretary of state's office, and the number of jobs and facilities that that controls.

What does that mean politically for, you know, at least how politics has worked in the past?

- Well, it's a tremendous asset for the party that controls.

It's got the second most number of jobs next only to the governor's office.

It's got those secretary of state offices, and many, many disparate counties across the entire state.

I would add to what Jerry said, Giannoulias ran and lost in that Senate race, but he also has run statewide twice, and that's a tremendous asset.

And all of those things that he piled up, endorsements, money, all of that to me, counts way more than the endorsement.

Jesse White is widely respected, but I am skeptical as to whether his endorsement would be enough to counterbalance, all those assets that Giannoulias already built up.

- Yeah, no, I think, you know, in politics works differently on some levels than it used to.

So I guess we'll see what it means.

You know, as we get forward in the primary, we have a lot more time as I mentioned We don't know what's gonna happen.

There's a lot of crazy things that could happen, but for now I would like to thank my guests, John Jackson, Jerry Nowicki.

I'm Hannah Meisel, and we'll catch you again next time on "Capitol View."

- Thank you.

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