(upbeat music) - Welcome to Illinois Lawmakers, continuing coverage of the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly.

I'm Jak Tichenor along with Amanda Vinnicky of WTTW's Chicago Tonight.

Great to have you on the program.

- I'm so glad to be with you, Jak.

- We always say it's an unusual here in Springfield and this session has been nothing but that-- - So maybe it's become usual.

- I think so.

I think so.

It's a compressed schedule here.

They're trying to get in the same number of days that they normally would during a spring session, but they wanna get out of town by April the 8th so that lawmakers can go back in both parties and running their respective primaries.

What's still on the table to be done before lawmakers adjourn on April 8th?

The budget of course leads everything.

- Exactly.

So first of all, I wanna point out that people are saying, "Hey, are they actually gonna make that April 8th deadline?"

And I think so, or something pretty darn close to it because there is a whole lot of incentive for that.

There's little, I think, that can move the general assembly to act other than looking out for their own futures and interests.

And so certainly they're going to want to be in their districts versus stuck in Springfield campaigning.

So an early April deadline is doable and while there are certainly still some major items left on the to-do list, it's nothing that at this point is insurmountable and nothing thus far that has popped up.

The budget is the big one.

And yes, I don't think that what the governor presented, his spending proposal is going to be inked, voted on, move on exactly as presented, but it's gonna be pretty easy to do so.

He crafted it so that there's a lot for legislators to run on.

You're gonna hear him say, "We gave you back money.

"We're trying to help you make it through economically."

Even if a lot of these don't have, even if some of these tax breaks might not make a big dent in people's pockets or would be one time very temporary, there's still something that are gonna be great as a campaign message, as a commercial and in a brochure.

And so they're still working on that, but you have so much more money, this isn't the sort of budget where it's difficult to pass because what are we gonna cut?

How are we gonna make concessions?

In fact, it's almost more the opposite when you have this much money, everybody is going to want a piece of that pie and it's a matter of keeping it constrained.

But the budget is the big to do sort of an offshoot of that, Jak, that's really one of the major components left is what to do about this unemployment insurance trust fund.

So I don't know, do you wanna explain what that is?

- We're actually gonna get to that with Leader McConchie in just a minute on the show, but that is something that Republicans are very concerned about as we move forward.

The other thing, politics always drives the agenda in Springfield and violent crime this year is something that Republicans are hoping to use that as a wedge against Democrats, because as they look at their situation going into the midterms, Democrats are facing some really strong headwinds.

- They most certainly are.

National headwinds is part of it.

And yes, crime is of concern.

I'm in the city of Chicago.

How can it not be?

There are some pretty perfect stats and there has been a lot to do about this major crime bill that was signed into law last year.

Republicans are going to try and run on that.

I'm not sure how much that's going to resonate with voters, how much they're aware of it, much of it in reality hasn't been implemented yet.

Although Republicans say it doesn't have to be, part of this is a tenor of how those who are looking to commit crime perceive they will be treated within the system.

Democrats have clearly recognized this.

We have heard since before session even began from the speaker and Senate president that they were going to do something about crime.

In particular, they talk about carjackings and retail thefts.

And those are some, again, at least in Chicago, that are getting a lot of the attention because it seems even more much of crime is random and unfortunate.

And we can get into a whole thing about neighborhoods, economies, all that it goes into it, but really the carjackings and the retail theft I think is what, clearly I'm guessing polls, but also has become these newer types of crime.

And so what we don't have an answer yet and I think this gets to the difficulty of it is what exactly Democrats are planning to do.

You ask and they say, "It's shaping up."

But we don't have any true inkling yet of what can be done either A, that will make a difference, or B, that can pass the general assembly, because there's certainly a wedge issue.

This isn't just with voters, it creates a wedge or a divide in the Democratic party, because there are some progressives that say, "Hey, wait a second, "we made this major move, "we don't wanna mess it up at all."

Well, perhaps more moderates that had a hard time getting on board with the black caucus SAFE-T bill is what it was called, they had a difficult time with it are saying, voting for it in the first place and some have been pretty open that they have some regrets and that they want to do something, that's creating a wedge within the party.

- It's a volatile situation and one that we're gonna watch in the next next few weeks.

Thanks, Amanda Vinnicky, so much.

- Oh, thank you, Jak.

- Senate Republican leader, Dan McConchie of Hawthorne woods joins us now on Illinois Lawmakers.

Great to have you back on the program, Leader.

- Good to be on with you, Jak.

- We're a little less than a month away in wrapping up the spring session on April the 8th.

What are the big items in your view that still need to be addressed before lawmakers go home and start working on the June primaries?

- Well, the biggest thing obviously is the budget.

We have all of these extra funds that have come into the state either directly through ARPA, or indirectly where people received those kind of direct resources or increase in the ability of them to be able to spend money.

People got direct monies, then they turn around and spent those items, ended up with an increase in tax revenue.

So we have a lot of money that's come in, but what we haven't really resolved is how and which we are addressing some of the key problems in the state.

I would say that my biggest frustration is the fact that we have a number of systemic problems in the state that the legislature has continued to avoid addressing where we would have had a great opportunity right now because of the influx of money from the pandemic to address that.

And in fact, we have some new problems.

I would say the number one issue there has to be with the unemployment insurance trust fund.

The deficit there is around $4.5 billion.

If we were just to take it to where it was cash neutral, it would cost almost $7 billion.

And that is gonna, if we don't do something in order to really be able to address that shortfall, it's gonna result in a massive tax increase on every single business in the state.

And that is something that I think our business owners and their employees simply can't afford right now.

- So as you kind of score what needs to go into the unemployment insurance fund, what are you talking about in terms of actual dollars in this fiscal year and going forward?

- Well, my personal position is we need to put every possible dollar we can into that to try to stave off that tax increase.

We're not gonna be able to get us to cash neutral, which would be around 6.5 or $7 billion.

It's just not gonna be possible to get there.

And there are other entities that are out there that have suffered because of the pandemic who would also like some relief.

We've had hotels that were dramatically affected by being closed or by having people just not traveling.

I just yesterday had a meeting with the Arts Council from the state, a lot of entities, whether it be theaters or whatever, they continue to suffer even now.

And there's a lot of others as well, the hospitals and et cetera.

So there's a lot of people at the feeding trough, if you will, and trying to figure out how to best take the remaining ARPA funds from the federal government and make sure that we can equitably spread those out, and so that everybody benefits who was harmed by the shutdowns is gonna be a tall order.

- You mentioned the ARPA funds, that's a one time cash infusion for the state of Illinois.

But Governor Pritzker says, overall, the state economy seems to be rebounding, the wall street bond houses are happy with the fact that we're making our pension payments, there have been some upgrades in the state's credit rating.

Is this a one time thing, or would Republicans agree that we're actually starting to turn the corner on some things?

- Well, I think that this largely comes from the influx of federal dollars that came at all levels, whether it be government or two individuals.

That has really caused a great deal of that increase of funding to become available for the state.

And here it is, just a couple of years ago, the governor was all doom and gloom if we didn't pass his progressive income tax, talking about the cuts in state services that would be necessary.

Now, he's touting the good financial circumstances.

And the only thing that has changed in this circumstance really has been the COVID relief dollars that have come in.

- Gotta turn to paying at the pump.

Governor Pritzker proposed some temporary tax relief for Illinois residents by delaying a scheduled tax increase on the motor fuels tax.

That was part of the 2019 capital plan.

All of that of course, was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, gas prices have been jumping incredibly, something like 90 cents a gallon since the governor's budget address.

What can the state do to help folks out when it comes to paying for gas to get to work and school?

- Yeah, the number one thing that I think people don't realize about the reason why the price at the pump is so much higher than it is at our surrounding states is that we're one of only a few states in the country that actually levies a sales tax on top of gasoline.

So as the price of gas goes up, that amount that you pay in sales tax goes up, and the vast majority of that tax, 80%, does not even go to support roads.

It just goes into the state's general revenue fund.

And so what Senate Republicans have proposed is actually capping that sales tax at what we were paying last fall before any of this stuff that was happening overseas began.

Because we don't believe that government should get a windfall based on this kind of global situation that's been going on that is hurting everybody's wallet.

So we believe in capping that and to helping return those prices back.

We believe that that's something that could be acted on now and in a bipartisan fashion, and we're encouraging our Democrat counter parts and the governor to get on board with this immediate relief that could help people right now.

- So where's the sweet spot in this?

The governor has one proposal on the table, the Senate Republicans have another, is there a point where you can reach some common ground?

- Well, the interesting thing is, so what the governor has proposed is simply limiting the amount of money that's actually going into the road fund by not having that increase that's currently scheduled that inflationary increase go into effect.

What we're actually talking about is returning to the levels prior to any of this stuff that was going in at the global level to those prices by capping that sales tax so that we don't have these, the government isn't getting this huge benefit whenever the price at the pump goes up.

That's the kind of solution.

And we're proposing that on a go forward permanent basis, when the governor is only proposing one time relief that would actually harm the road fund to an extensive degree.

- Now, correct me if I'm I'm wrong, but I think the Republican proposal would generate something like a billion dollars or more in savings for consumers.

There would be, it seems, since you mentioned earlier that part of this goes back into the state's general revenue fund, what would be the impact on other aspects of the budget going forward if this is passed?

- Well, the nice thing about this is that it wouldn't affect the general revenue fund because this would go back to the numbers that we were using last fall, that everyone predicated our spending on, our state spending on.

So right now what we're seeing is the increase in gas prices is causing a massive increase in the amount of money that government is taking in that we were not planning on.

So what this would do is actually cap that windfall from coming in, but it wouldn't harm any of the things that we had made plans for or any of the services that we had expected to fund at the first of the year.

- I have to ask about criminal justice reform and violent crime, major concern for Illinois voters as well as voters across the country.

From everything I've read, Democrats are polling poorly in that respect.

What are Senate Republicans wanting to put on the table this spring, above and beyond, possibly trying to repeal the SAFE-T Act that majority of Democrats passed last year?

- There's a whole bunch of provisions that were in that bill that a lot of people didn't realize, it was passed in the middle of the night.

We need to actually, and this is coupling along with the stuff that is going on across the state, we're seeing crime spike.

And one of the things that we are saying is that, look, we need to actually support our police, put additional funding and training into our police forces.

We actually need to make sure that some of the limitations that, cash bail and so forth, that those things do not go forward.

We need to address those kind of issues so that at the end of the day, when I go out and I have a town hall, one of the questions I will do is ask people, "How many of you," because I'm up in the suburbs, "How many of you have avoided taking a trip downtown "or to a significant metropolitan area "out of concern for your safety in the past year?"

And every single hand would go up.

And so we have a large number of proposals that we're putting on the table to try to help address this issue, as well as helping embrace our local police so that they actually, one of the issues that we're seeing is a lot of them are leaving.

They're leaving some of our big cities going to the suburbs or they're leaving the state and going to other states.

That is something that has to stop because at the end of the day, we need the police to be everywhere in order to actually help enforce the laws.

Because if we don't have an officer who's there to actually be able to observe and arrest somebody when they do something wrong, they're gonna continue to be out there and causing trouble for law abiding citizens.

- Senator, Dan McConchie, thank you so much for your time on Illinois Lawmakers.

We really appreciate it, sir.

- Good to be on with you today.

- Violent crime is a major issue for Democrats and Republicans heading into the midterm elections on both the national scene and here in Illinois.

We're joined now by democratic senator, Robert Peters of Chicago, the chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee, and chairman of the Senate Legislative Black Caucus.

Also joining the discussion, Republican state representative, Patrick Windhorst of Metropolis.

He was the Massac County state's attorney before being elected to the house.

Gentlemen, thanks for being here today.

We certainly appreciate it.

- Thank you for having us.

- Definitely.

Thank you.

- Let's kind of sketch this out a bit.

You've both got the global view on the criminal justice system in the state from both ends of the state, from Chicago all the way down to Massac County, and everything in between.

Let's get into last year, of course, the legislature passed the SAFE-T Act, which is safety, accountability, fairness, and equity act known as SAFE-T.

Senator, you were the author of the Pretrial Fairness Act that became a key part of the SAFE-T Act.

So what are the major components of the act and what you hope to get accomplished there?

- Yeah, so under our current status quo, the act doesn't actually go fully into effect until January 1st of 2023.

Under our current status quo, it's mainly based off of a system of wealth and not on a system of threat or safety, meaning, if you are accused or charged with a crime, or if you're accused with a crime and you come in, then you get, given a bond that you're able to pay and get out.

And what we wanted to do was shift away from that, that says that most people don't need to have to pay to be able to have their freedom and to be able to get out, that they can go back into their regular life.

And that if someone is a threat to safety, that they then go into, they'll be detained, they'll be held.

And that we wanted to make sure that the system is both fair, equitable, and actually focuses on safety.

One of the things I'm very proud of in terms of the Pretrial Fairness Act when it comes to bond is that it has strong support from domestic violence and sexual assault survivor organizations, organizations that have been doing work to make sure to protect survivors.

One of the things that they wrote was that this is criminal justice reform that put survivor safety first.

And I just did a town hall last week with most of the survivor organizations, especially in Cook, as well as the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence to inform the public for what we did when it came to changing public safety from status quo to public safety for all.

So that is what we've done to make sure that this isn't based off of what's in your pocket to make sure that if you are, if you've been accused and you're not a threat to somebody that you can go home and keep money in your pocket.

- Representative Windhorst, you're a former prosecutor and you file legislation in the Illinois house to repeal the SAFE-T Act and basically start over from scratch.

What are the key points that you're concerned about in the bill as it was passed last year?

- One of the efforts, the reason I brought that effort was because the way the act was passed was essentially a rushed process in the middle of the night that let very little public input.

And my constituents were concerned that they weren't allowed to weigh in on that effort.

And then going through the bill, I believe I was probably one of the only legislators who read the bill before it passed, I saw a lot of problems and concerns that we are now attempting to address through trailer bills.

So my belief is we take that out of the law and then we put a new effort together, bringing everybody to the table and making sure we have reform that will work.

Now, some of the reforms in the bill that I'm concerned with, one of the ones that Senator Peters referenced, the elimination of cash bail, and my concern is next year that will present a large problems for our state.

We saw a bail reform effort in 2017 and '18 that set up category A and B offenses.

At that time, I was a prosecutor and I saw the effects it had on the justice system and I didn't believe they were good effects.

And we've also seen an effort at bail reform in Cook County, which I believe is also not showing great results.

So my concern is when we eliminate cash bail next year, that will be even more detrimental to public safety.

- So you mentioned the possibility of doing trailer bills to adjust some of the areas of concern there.

One of the key proposals in here is to try to help folks who are accused of a crime and may not be able to post cash bond and end up in a terrible situation, losing jobs, losing housing, all that.

Where would you go on the Republican side to try to remedy some of that, if you can?

- Well, under our current system, recognizance bonds are allowed.

And in fact, they're routinely given, meaning an individual is released from custody pretrial without having to post any money.

I've come from rural area in the state.

In a lot of rural counties, it is expensive to hold people in jail pretrial.

So that is limited to people who are either repeat offenders or violent criminals accused of violent crimes.

It costs counties a lot of money to house individuals, as I said.

And so they are very careful about who they keep in custody pretrial.

My experience as a prosecutor, it's routine, in fact, almost a daily occurrence where the prosecutor will agree to and recommend a recognizance bond for individuals who are arrested on either first offenses or low level offenses.

- Senator Peters, your response, is that an area that could be explored?

- I actually think the best way to do this is just focus on threat, take money as a factor completely out.

And that's why we got that done.

What I think the rep is saying and I agree with is that judges can make a determination if someone is a threat to somebody or not.

And so we might as well just get rid of the money component so that you don't have someone in there who has to pay to get out.

Not only that, it creates a two tiered system.

What if someone is a threat but they can afford bond and then they can pay out, whereas someone else on the other hand is held inside?

We might as well shift from the idea that someone can pay themselves out and be able to walk the street and just say, "Okay, you're a threat, you're detained.

"You're not a threat, go back to your life."

There is folks I've worked with who were stuck inside of Cook County jail.

And they were accused of a crime, they turned out to be innocent, but then they got stuck with possibly losing their kids, losing their home.

They got stuck in this economic crisis.

Whether you live in Metropolis, Illinois, or you live in Chicago, Illinois, being put in the position where you might risk losing your home, or losing your kids, or losing your job, is something that we should just take out and say, "If you're not going to be a threat to somebody, "then you could go back to your life, "you can go to your job, "you can put food on your table, "and you can live your life."

To me, this is a conversation about money versus safety.

Let's take out money, let's focus on public safety.

- Senator, the SAFE-T Act was a central pillar in the Black Legislative Caucus's agenda last year.

Many of these issues had been simmering for many years for action.

I trust there's no going back from your perspective at this point?

- Well, no, I think that there's no such thing as necessarily going back and we're always in a constant state of moving forward.

When we think about processes of any future bill, you can always look at it as every bill is a trailer bill to deal with legislation and that you're constantly in an evolving state of situations and crisis.

Fundamentally for me, I am worried about a public safety crisis.

I've constantly been worried about it.

I'm a product of Reagan's war on drugs.

My biological mom was addicted to drugs, was living in a really poor damp housing.

I was born in a community hospital and then I was adopted by a civil rights lawyer.

And I had a whole host of problems.

I was born deaf, speech impediment, struggled as a kid.

Public safety crises have been existing for decades.

We need to shift because the status quo isn't working to something that is new, change that improves public safety for everybody, because for too long, we've had public safety for a few and not public safety for everybody.

So to me, and I'll just say this is, we're constantly working and pushing to make sure we bring the best, most equitable and fair safety policies that can exist so that everybody can feel comfortable walking the street at night, being able to drive their car, being able to live their life.

At the end of the day, the debate that we are having in this state, and to be honest with you, these are issues across the country, is public safety for all versus public safety for a few.

And I am a big believer that everybody, no matter where they live, no matter the zip code, deserves public safety.

I could tell you wanna ask a question.

I should stop talking.

(laughs) - We are a actually out of time.

Thank you so much, Senator Peters, Representative Windhorst.

We really appreciate your time here on the Illinois Lawmakers program.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

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