(upbeat dramatic music) - Welcome to "Capitol View," where we discuss state government and politics.

Happy new year.

I'm Hannah Meisel with NPR Illinois.

Joining us this week is Charlie Wheeler, director emeritus of the public affairs reporting program at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Welcome Charlie.

- Thank you.

It's always good to be with you guys.

- And also here for the first time is Brenden Moore, state government reporter for Lee Enterprises, which has five newspapers in Illinois.

Welcome Brenden.

- Glad to be here, Hannah.

- All right, well, we've had two weeks off and a lot has happened.

But of course, you know, probably the most felt thing all around the state, all around the country, all around the globe, frankly, is the rise of the Omicron variant sending COVID cases, hospitalizations, surging all over again.

And of course this is now the third calendar year that we will have to discuss COVID.

And of course, no one wants this to be our continued shared reality, but here we are.

So Brenden, catch us up a bit.

How is the state doing right now the first week of January as we sit here filming with, you know, the availability of hospital beds, of things like that as we face this surge because if I'm not mistaken, hospitals have been asked, not ordered, but, you know, strongly urged to halt or slow elective surgeries, is that right?

- Yeah, that's correct.

So really we're seeing a huge surge in COVID-19 cases in Illinois, record numbers of cases.

I believe we had a record single day total of over 30,000 and the average seven day total is getting north of 20,000.

And a lot of this is because of the Omicron variant.

And what we've learned from the Omicron variant is that it may be a little bit less severe, but it spreads a lot easier.

And because of that, even if it may be less severe, just because it is spreading around so easily it means that you have more people in the hospital.

So Illinois is seeing I believe last week they reported a record number of folks in the hospital, and you're seeing hospitals basically have to halt elective surgeries.

And that's a kind of a catch all.

I mean, it's not just, you know, less serious things.

I mean, it could also be, you know, the appointments for cancer or other very serious things.

So it has a real, real impact.

I know even here in Springfield the hospital systems sent out a letter a few days ago basically asking the community, you know, saying we need your help.

You know, we're inundated.

We're gonna take care of our community, but, you know, we need the community to do its part because this surge is gonna it's only gonna get worse before it gets better.

You know, with some projecting the peak to be sometime in mid January.

- Right.

And, you know, this is against...

If we back up to a few days before the new year, Charlie, finally, the workers covered by AFSCME, the biggest public employee union, the ones who work at prison facilities, at the Department of Corrections, and Department of Juvenile Justice, they finally got covered by the governor's vaccine mandate that he announced on August 4th.

And so it took, you know, five months to make sure that this actually got done.

And then at the same time, the lieutenant governor announced that she got exposed to COVID.

She tested positive, and the governor is gonna be working from home the next several days because he was exposed to an office worker who did test positive for COVID.

So it's definitely, it is around.

It's probably affect every corner of the state.

But Charlie, what do you make of, I mean, the vaccine mandate we spent so many hours talking about, you know, lots of ink spilled over that.

But, you know, the fact that it took five months to get the significant chunk of workers covered, does it even, does it matter anymore when we are now at this late stage of the pandemic, or at least we hope the late stage of the pandemic?

- Oh, I would argue it certainly does matter because the people who are affected by this latest, what would you say this latest development, are the people who work at the Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice.

They had resisted the governor's mandate initially.

And ultimately it went to arbitration, and an arbitrator chosen by both sides agreed upon said yes, you have to follow this.

And so I think that's gonna be very important because these are people who work with a very captive population.

Not to make a joke of it, but they're there with these inmates and then they go back out in the community and there's a real danger of spreading it.

And so I think that it's important that they're being vaccinated.

And as we've remarked, this new variant spreads so much easier.

It's not as deadly as earlier versions, say as Delta.

It doesn't kill as many people percentage-wise, it does not send as many people into intensive care, but on the other hand, it affects so many more people.

And so many more people catch it.

That even if it's only half as deadly as Delta, if it affects four times as many people, you're still gonna have an upsurge.

And so that's why as Brenden said, the hospitals across the state, the governor asks please hold off on elective surgery.

And elective surgery is not...

It's still serious surgery.

It's the kind of stuff that does need to be done, but it's not immediately life-threatening.

It's not going in for a nose job or something like that.

It's serious conditions, but they can be put off.

And the danger is as the number of intensive care units available goes down in terms of beds, staffing for the beds is a big issue.

Someone who has a heart attack, someone who's in a serious automobile accident, someone who's in a fire, they may not get the treatment that they need.

And that in my mind is one of the dangers.

And there's stories in hospitals that now have set up an emergency room in the lobby because there's no space otherwise.

So it's something that's with us.

It's gonna persist.

And the fact that people who've been fully vaccinated still get it, like the lieutenant governor was fully vaccinated, she was boosted, so she's tested positive.

It's not gonna be as serious for her one hopes, but it's still something that's gonna have to be dealt with.

And so as we were talking before the show, this is something that's gonna be with us forever, unfortunately.

- Sure.

And Brenden, you know, we have talked a lot about hospital healthcare worker burnout and the staffing shortages there.

Obviously you can't...

When we talk about ICU beds, we're really talking about staffing.

And, you know, we've seen the number of ICU beds in the state writ large.

There is a web page on the department of public health's website that shows the number of ICU beds on a downward turn for the last year and a half.

You know, it's just a manifestation of this healthcare worker shortage and their burnout.

But, you know, outside of hospitals, obviously when you, you know, just changes in guidance in recent weeks, you know, this is still gonna affect things like schools, for example, because when you have kids who are exposed or test positive, you know, they're gonna be out.

And then when you have teachers and other staff that are exposed or test positive, they're also gonna be out.

And we are seeing real staffing shortages.

You know, I think obviously the most extreme case of this is in Chicago with the Chicago teacher's union voting to try to teach remotely.

Chicago public schools saying, no, we're not doing that.

We're gonna treat this as a strike or a walkout, and we're gonna lock you out of your virtual classrooms.

You know, I don't see that happening in any other part of the state.

But what I am seeing happening or at least hearing anecdotally, is schools trying their best to muddle along and, you know, combining classrooms.

In some cases, you know, a bigger urban school district I heard of canceling school for their elementaries, redeploying those teachers to other schools in the district.

Brenden, you know, we have an existing teacher shortage.

Do you think that, you know, can we make it through this Omicron surge as we're going?

Or are you hearing from local school district leaders that they want more guidance from the state, more help from the state?

- Yeah, as you mentioned, Hannah, it's a...

Teacher shortage is nothing new and it's only being exacerbated by this surge.

You know, we're seeing that across a lot of different industries, but I think in the schools it's especially pronounced because you have a big population of young people that have a low vaccination rate compared to adults.

And so it spreads more quickly and yeah, if you have staff that are out, you know, it can be difficult to make in person learning work.

And yeah, I mean, across local school districts, I suppose it varies across the state depending on where you're at, but, you know, there are I think most, and we see this again, probably the most extreme cases in Chicago, but, you know, there's definitely among elected officials and, you know, a lot of these places and among parents.

I mean, there's a hope to keep, you know, children in the classroom.

You know, I mean, I think we seen some evidence come out recently about, you know, some of the psychological impacts and the learning loss caused during remote learning.

You know, and how important it is for the social aspect to have students in the classroom.

But obviously that's to be weighed against the risks to public health.

And the fact that you have the surge that, I mean, even with the updated CDC guidance, you know, takes people out for at least five days.

So I think that it may be something, especially in the next few weeks if we do continue to see the surge as predicted and we see more and more teachers out and students out that the state is gonna have to issue some clarification's on some guidance to give guidance to some of these local school districts.

- Right.

And, you know, that CDC guidance, I think one thing that I heard and (static cuts off speaker).

Changed over holiday dead week is that it didn't actually apply to educational settings.

And they put that out and said, well, we're gonna issue more education focused guidelines in the near future.

Still hasn't happened apparently, but it's just been a continuation of this problem that, you know, the CDC has had.

And then, you know, how it translates down to individual states and individual departments of education within those states and school districts.

It's just the messaging is so unclear and very confusing.

You know, if it's confusing for us to where we're very plugged in to these things, of course it's gonna be confusing for the average person whose job is not to pay attention to this stuff all day.

And they have kids and they have lots of other stuff to concentrate on.

But I do wanna move on from COVID.

Charlie, over the holiday break, the three...

Finally, the epic redistricting process in Illinois has finally come to an end with a three judge panel upholding Democrats' legislative maps.

The rationale from the court is that yeah, political gerrymandering is, you know, perfectly legal as courts have established through the last decade.

So tell us a little bit about the ruling.

- Okay, well, basically the argument was made by three sets of plaintiffs.

One was the Republican party, who I found it sort of ironic who were arguing for the rights of minority voters.

And historically, the Republican party has not been in the forefront of fighting on those issues.

The other was brought by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund arguing that the proposed maps did not do justice to Hispanic voters in terms of not creating more Hispanic majority districts.

And the third was brought by the NAACP arguing that particularly in the Metro east area, the district boundaries had been gerrymandered to protect a couple of white incumbents at the expense of moving black areas out of an African-American incumbent.

And the arguments were that, well, this is in violation of the constitution, violation of the Voting Rights Act, and so on and so forth.

But the three judge federal panel, two of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, sided with the arguments from the legislative Democrats who said that Illinois' history of racial crossover voting meant the state's growing Latino population could elect their choice of a candidate without the court mandating additional Latino majority districts.

And they also said in the case of East St. Louis, the move was not done to disadvantage black voters, it was rather to shore up white downstate democratic districts and its political gerrymandering.

And of course, as you said, Hannah, the court said, oh yeah, that's gerrymandering, no doubt about it.

But then they also said in sort of their conclusion, they said and I'm gonna quote here.

"Our role as federal judges is limited and does not extend to complaints about excessive partisanship in the drawing of legislative districts.

The Supreme Court has declared partisan gerrymandering claims to present political questions beyond the reach of federal courts."

And one of the things that was pointed out was that there are any number of districts that are not majority people of color that nonetheless have sent people of color to the legislature.

And if you look at the statewide elected officials, our governor is white, our lieutenant governor is black, our secretary of state is black, our attorney-general is black, our comptroller is Latina, and the treasurer is white.

And our two US senators, one's white, the other is Asian-American.

So you can't say that Illinois voters are motivated by race in how they vote.

And that was the argument that the court said.

"The record shows ample evidence of crossover voting to defeat any claim of racially polarized voting sufficient to deny Latino and black voters the opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in the challenged districts."

So it was a total victory in a sense for the Democrats.

Their map was upheld.

In a couple of weeks, I guess less than that now, we're gonna start circulating petitions for the 177 legislative seats for which there will be a primary in late June and then the election in November.

And I guess it's back another 10 years in the wilderness for the Republicans.

- Well, the Republicans are trying to, you know, become more relevant again, of course.

With their foray into having a slate, a slate that is kind of all managed by this same, you know, kind of team.

The same team that brought you Bruce Rauner in 2014 and Mark Kirk 2010, '12?

I can't remember my dates exactly.

But, you know, this team that is very experienced politically, probably the biggest Republican winners in recent years.

You know, more than a decade.

I wanna say it's just this very interesting idea where, okay, we're gonna have money that's gonna be given by folks like Ken Griffin, obviously very well-funded.

You know, well heeled conservative donor.

But this money, you know, they're hoping it won't go down the drain because they're gonna have this whole big strategy and apparatus.

And so this week they've tried it out.

John Milhiser, who's been the former US attorney for the central district of Illinois is gonna run for secretary of state.

Of course, we discussed on this program before the holidays a likely gubernatorial candidate.

The mayor of Aurora, Richard Irvin, and, you know, possibly more.

So Brenden, tell us a little bit about, you know, Republicans chances here and John Milhiser in general.

He's kind of a boy scout, would you say?

- Yeah, I mean that's at least what Republicans that are trotting him out believe.

As you said, he was the US attorney, before that he was the Sangamon county state's attorney for a couple of terms down here in Springfield.

He is in his announcement, he kind of touted up fighting corruption.

I guess one example of that late in his tenure as US attorney is his office brought charges against former state Senator Sam McCann.

The Republican turned conservative who ran for governor.

You know, he was charged with tax evasion, fraud, and a bunch of stuff related to his use of campaign funds for personal use.

So he's really, Milhiser is really gonna tout this, I guess, persona as a prosecutor fighting corruption.

They think that he can make a serious contrast with whoever the Democrats put up.

Right now the front runner on the Democratic side seems to be Alexi Giannoulias, a former state treasurer, who, as folks can remember from his last big campaign in 2010 for US Senate, had some controversies, especially surrounding his family's bank and a few other issues.

And so I think Republicans see an opportunity here.

It's an open seat.

Obviously, Jesse White is retiring after 24 years and they believe they might have a chance with the right candidate and with the right political environment.

It's looking like it's gonna be a good year for Republicans this year.

And Milhiser is kind of a blank slate in a sense.

I mean, yeah, he's run for office before, but only kind of as a prosecutor, as an attorney.

So he doesn't really have like any controversial votes, I guess, on his record.

You know, it'll be interesting to see if there is any ample research on him.

But they think that he'll be a solid candidate.

He hasn't been tested, he's not well known, but again, you know, if you get some of that money, that Ken Griffin money behind you, that can change real quickly.

- [Hannah] And Charlie- - I would mention that before John Milhiser becomes the Republican candidate for secretary of state, there's also a guy named Dan Brady who happens to be a state representative who announced some time ago he was gonna run for secretary of state.

He's got the endorsement of virtually all the Republican elected officials, county officials in the central Illinois area.

He's from Bloomington, and he's represented that district for a number of years.

And so I think we're gonna see a pretty heated primary fight between Brady, who would argue I've been elected by the people, I've been in the legislature, I've got a record.

And here comes this guy out of nowhere who's Ken Griffin's handpicked puppet.

And do we wanna go through another period where the richest guy in Illinois is pulling the strings?

- And Charlie, I guess to piggyback off of that, you know, yesterday or a few days ago when I did the story, I called up Senator Steve McClure who worked for Milhiser in the Sangamon county state's attorney's office.

And he said very nice things about him, but he also said, well, I committed myself to Dan Brady.

I endorsed Dan Brady.

I did not know John Milhiser was gonna run.

So whereas Dan Brady has been out there for the past year or so basically.

You know, behind the scenes drumming up support.

So it'll be interesting to see if the money can beat the endorsements and the grassroots support that Brady seems to have built for himself.

- And in other electoral news, we've been waiting to see what Congressman Adam Kinzinger would do.

You know, he is obviously he's the Republican, he's one of the few Republicans who have really stood up in a big way to the Trump wing of his party.

Of course, you know, serving with Liz Cheney on the January 6th investigative committee.

And of course, we sit here recording on January 2nd a year later after the Capitol insurrection.

Charlie, just 30 seconds here.

Adam Kinzinger announced this week that no, he will not run for governor, which we already knew.

The only question mark really was, would he run against Tammy Duckworth for her Senate seat?

But he says, no, he's gonna concentrate full time on trying to reshape the (static cuts off speaker).

Super briefly, Charlie, do you think that that could be accomplished?

Or do you think that he's just kinda gonna collect the CNN bucks being a pundit?

- Well, I think he's got a noble ambition and whether or not it will be accomplished, I don't know.

There's a lot to be seen.

There are people who would argue that the Republican party has been a cult, has morphed into a cult of hero worship.

People who are only too willing to kiss Donald Trump's missile toe, and that it's bad for the party in general.

It violates the principles on which the Republican party was founded.

And there's other people who say, no, this is the wave of the future.

We have to get behind someone who will make America strong again.

What Kizinger said in his video where he announced he wasn't gonna run for anything, he said, and again I'm quoting, "If the past 12 months have taught me anything, it's that saving America is a fight of our lives.

This time last year, I hope victory would come in a matter of months.

Now I see it will take years.

That's why I'm transitioning from serving just one corner of Illinois, into fighting this new nationwide mission full time."

So whether or not he'll do it on cable TV, whether or not he'll be able to put together some kind of organization of like-minded people, that remains to be seen.

- All right, we'll see how that goes.

Briefly here, we also had Congressman Bobby Rush this week announce that he was gonna retire.

We have a cadre of people lining up for that seat, but we'll see.

We are out of time.

Charlie Wheeler, Brenden Moore, thank you for your time.

I'm Hannah Meisel.

We'll catch you again next week on "Capitol View."

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