(tense 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 is John Jackson, a visiting professor of political science at Southern Illinois University's Paul Simon Public Policy Institute.

Thanks for being here, John.

- Thanks for having me on.

And also here is Peter Hancock with a much shorter title, reporter for Capitol News Illinois.

Glad you're here, Peter.

- Thanks for having me Hannah.

- Well in just a few short days, as we are sitting here filming this, the general assembly will be back in Springfield.

They were not gone terribly long if you remember, we were just there, like three times in September to finalize out the energy bill and few other things before that, but it is fall veto session time, a name that doesn't necessarily make sense when governor Pritzker, a Democrat who, you know, works with the democratic general assembly has not vetoed a whole lot of laws, but nevertheless, big, big things happening in veto session, Peter at the congressional maps.

Finally, finally, we might get to see them in a matter of days, maybe in the next week or so.

In the last week we've seen a bunch of hearings kind of similar to the efforts in the spring.

What have we seen there, Peter?

- Well, very few witnesses really.

That's kind of been the hallmark of them and it's hard to tell if it's because the hearings are all taking place on work days during regular business hours and people can't show up, but you know, even a lot of the advocacy groups haven't been showing up and there's some sense, I believe that people were so jaded by the legislative redistricting process, that they don't see a whole lot of point in showing up and giving their input.

We should be seeing some sort of draft map here in the not too distant future, but nobody has seen one yet.

The big question is of course, Illinois is losing one of its 18 congressional districts.

So which two districts are going to have to be merged or realigned somehow, probably in Southern Illinois, which is where most of the population loss occurred.

So just kind of waiting to see how that all shakes out.

- And John, Democrats in Washington, DC, they're kind of depending on your fellow Democrats in states like New York and Illinois to shore up their chances of keeping the US house next year.

What kind of uphill battle, first of all, are Democrats facing on a federal level?

And then how key is it in their eyes that Illinois Democrats do this for them and do this for, I guess, the whole democratic party?

- Well I think that's a stretch on the part of the DNC ambition.

This is at a stage where I think it's fairly clear that to me, at least the probable result would be 13-4, and that would be the Democrats forcing the Republicans to take the loss.

And that would also mean the Democrats successfully defend all of their current 13.

Of course the national Democrats want it to come out 14 and three, I think that's way ambitious.

And I think the state Democrats will say, okay, fine, but our interests take precedent and they'll look after Illinois and look after the incumbents first.

And of course that gets into compliance with all the criteria, which are compact, contiguous, equal in population.

And they don't let allow very much at all in terms of give on the federal level they do on the state level.

And it has to comply with the 1965 civil rights act, which is the big issue and will continue to be the big issue.

The compact is what always gives way.

You get some really ugly districts and the more you try to comply with creating to Latino majorities for example, the less compactness you get, and in Chicago, which just destined not to come out very compact.

So again, I think the Illinois Democrats will take care of the incumbents first, and then they'll tinker around with trying to defend one downstate and maybe pick up another one.

But I think it's a long shot.

- That would be really interesting to see if they do go for that 14-3, but you know, if they feel like that would make them even more vulnerable to litigation, I can definitely see a situation where they play it more safe, but you know, speaking of litigation, Peter, at the state level, the maps that were passed by Democrats this spring, but then redone in the summer because actual census data that was delayed by COVID finally came out that showed those initial maps were just all over the place.

Their populations far exceeded what is legally allowed under the federal voting rights act, you know, diversion in those populations.

And so the two big lawsuits that had already been filed months and months ago, we're starting to see the legal arguments kind of coalesce.

Can you tell us a little bit about the most recent amendments to those complaints?

- One is being filed by legislative leaders, Republican legislative leaders, and they're making kind of an interesting argument.

The Illinois constitution says that maps have to be in effect by June 30th, maps that the legislature draws.

If they're not in effect by June 30th, then it goes to this bipartisan commission.

Well, a set of maps was signed into law.

They are seeking a federal court declaration that those maps were unconstitutional, and therefore not in effect, in which case they can then go to the Illinois Supreme court.

And they're hoping to get an order to send us back to the bipartisan legislative commission, where they would have the 50/50 chance of controlling the process.

There's another one organized by the Mexican American Legal And Educational Defense Fund, MALDEF, that says essentially, that the Hispanic population in Illinois grew substantially over the last decade.

But the maps that they drew actually reduced the number of districts where Latinos make up a majority or plurality of the voting age population.

And so they're saying that it should be declared unconstitutional on that grounds because it dilutes Latino voting power.

And now most recently there's a group of African-American leaders, mainly in Chicago have pleaded with the justice department to conduct a civil rights investigation.

And one of their complaints, and you hear this a lot, especially during census years is it says the census counts people where they live.

And so if you're incarcerated in prison, you're counted as living in the prison.

And they say that that unfairly dilutes black community voting power because blacks are disproportionately represented in the prison population.

So it dilutes their voting power.

And it has the effect of diluting federal funding to their communities, funding that's based on population, which includes transportation funding, community development block grant funding, and things like that.

So they're asking for a civil rights investigation into that.

- We also saw the Republicans kind of coalesced on the issue of Latino voting rights, their new complaint centers around that a lot more than the initial one I find that really interesting and you know, their argument is the same as you just described, the number of districts under the most recent plan that the governor signed last month would indeed cut the number of existing Latino majority districts by, you know, advocates say a lot, Democrats are pushing back on that.

They say that, you know, they're looking toward the future, not this year, not 2020, but you know, six, eight, 10 years from now, when the maps would presumably still be in place if they survive these legal challenges.

And they say that that's where the Latino voting age population, those kids will become young adults and they will be start being able to vote.

So it'll be really interesting to see whether the federal judge, actually judges, in charge of these cases will side with the arguments about what is for now or conjectures about the future.

But John, earlier you had mentioned, what you think is an unlikelihood about being able to create two Latino congressional districts in Chicago, but that's something that the Latino community really, really wants.

And as Peter mentioned, the growth of the Latino population in Illinois, I mean, not just Illinois, many other states, that was the big story of the 2020 census.

So if Latinos don't get that, what do you think is in store politically?

People like Congressman Chuy Garcia has built this coalition over many years.

I mean, he doesn't just back down from a fight.

What happens then?

- I think that will be a fight.

And I will amend that and say I don't necessarily think they can't create two Latino districts in Chicago and outside Chicago, but it'll make it more difficult then for other of those districts, for example, if they carved part of it out of Quigley or others that would make vulnerable on the other side of the equation, it's more and more difficult to protect all of those incumbents if you do that.

And that's why I come back to, I think 13-4 is the most likely outcome and to get to 14-3 is going to be a stretch.

And buying that argument from the group that has filed that Peter was just alluding to, seems to me to be a stretch for the courts, because it argues about what's going to happen over the next 10 years.

And the law really, I think, is focused on what is the case in the census right now.

And so I think it's understandable, but nevertheless, a little bit unlikely to prevail, although you never know what judges will buy.

I think that one's not got a great opportunity to pass muster with the courts.

- And another thing that Peter mentioned, the African-American voting rights group that has petitioned the US department of justice to investigate their civil rights plans over the planned redistricting.

You know, their argument is that the version of the maps the governor signed last month cuts the number of majority black districts in half, you know, leaving them with minority groups.

And, you know, the group that is in charge of this DOJ challenge, their contention is that, well, if white folks band together with another racial or ethnic group, presumably Latinos, they could overpower the will of black voters.

And I spoke with one of the leaders of this group and basically when it comes down to it, she's afraid of the creep of progressive politics, especially as I mentioned from younger Latinos who are following the Chuy Garcia kind of movement, she's afraid that older, maybe more traditional black voters and would be candidates wouldn't be able to get elected anymore.

John, what's your take on that, on the possible erasure of more moderate Democrats and just in general redistricting, especially in this plan, I mean, it's not a secret, it would probably lead to a lot more political polarization in the future when districts are just not competitive anymore.

- Well, to some extent, particularly on the congressional perspective, this is the interest of Hispanic groups butting up against the interest of black groups and representation in Chicago.

And that was inevitable, particularly with population losses and with black losses much greater than the growth on the Hispanic side and so forth.

So that's an inevitable fight, internal mostly to Chicago, but I think you're quite right in the other context, which would be statewide, if you lose both shows, for example, moderate, middle of the road, although progressive on many things, but a very pragmatic Democrat.

That's the kind of position nationally that the Democrats really want to continue to hold on to.

And she was the director of the campaign for the house Democrats this last time out.

And that district is going to be a competitive district.

And what's happened, you intimated is exactly right.

We've become more and more polarized.

We found fewer and fewer of those places where a moderate Democrat can at least be competitive.

And that could be the outcome this time around.

- And same with moderate Republicans who have already been a dying breed.

I mean, people like representative David Welter, you know, a young Republican who has, he voted for legalizing marijuana.

He voted for the gas tax a couple of years ago.

And he also led some of the talks from the house Republican side on the big energy bill that just passed, but he's got at least one challenge from the right and you see him reacting in interesting ways like filing a bill that would kind of do away with vaccine mandates, not just for COVID, but altogether in schools.

But I do want to move on from this.

We have about 10 minutes remaining, Peter, today, as we are filming, the 14th of October, supposed to be the deadline for state workers in congregate care settings to get their first COVID shots per governor Pritzker's executive order that he announced way back in early August, that these state workers would have to get vaccinated because they work with some of the most vulnerable residents who don't necessarily have a choice that they are in, for example, prisons or mental hospitals that are run by the state or veteran's homes.

But we have heard absolutely nothing from AFSCME, the biggest public employee union in the state, even as three smaller unions who represent some of the workers at those congregate care settings have agreed.

So, I mean, things could change by the time this program airs over the weekend, but you know, for now, what are you seeing and how do you take the silence from AFSCME?

- Well, it's kind of interesting.

The union's perspective of course, is that everything has to be negotiated, working conditions, workplace rules, things like that.

They all have to be negotiated and they feel like they weren't consulted on this vaccine mandate.

So I don't know if we're looking at a test of wills going on here between the governor's office and the public employees union.

Of course the unions have been on Pritzker's side for a lot of things, and Pritzker has been very friendly to the unions.

So I'm not sure what to make of this at this point.

Are we going to see a whole lot of department of corrections employees laid off or have to go through testing procedures, you have the department of corrections, you have all kinds of healthcare workers.

The list goes on and on, it's quite a number of employees who are going to be affected by this.

We have seen since these mandates have gone into effect, we have seen vaccination rates ticking up quite a bit, both in Illinois and nationally.

So that's good news.

So I guess we're going to have to wait until the weekend, maybe Monday and see where things stand at that point.

- John, what Peter has mentioned about are we gonna see layoffs or are we going to see these state employees fired if they don't comply.

I mean, where you are, around Carbondale, you know, a lot of places in Southern and Western Illinois, more rural, places like prisons are kind of the big economic engine and have been for decades after factories shut down.

And we've seen that when you were talking about defenses earlier, we've seen the population numbers that they're out too, but I mean, it's not just so easy as going to recruit someone else, especially because in this labor market right now, nationally, employers or employees, excuse me, kind of hold the power.

- Well I think it is true that this has created some strange between the unions and the mayor of Chicago, between the unions and the governor.

They've mostly kept it more tame maybe on the governor's side than on the mayor side so far.

But I think it's worth stepping back from and say, number one, the numbers of people getting vaccinated have gone up remarkably, nationwide, the figures the last I saw was 70 million where we started about three weeks ago.

And all of these vaccine requirements came online, we're down to 66 million.

And a lot of the success is being attributed to the feds and the states and private enterprise requiring these people to get vaccinated.

United Airlines has led the way and last I saw they were announcing, they were at 99 and a fraction, and Tyson food down in Northwest Arkansas, one of the most conservative areas you can find, they require all of their employees and their numbers are almost comparable to United airlines.

And the military is going to do what the military does, that is they give an order and you're expected to comply.

And I presented them with a shoulder and they put a whole bunch of shots in me one day when I went into the army.

So, you know, those things are working and I think ultimately most of the employees will comply rather than lose these jobs.

I'll take prisons in this area, for example, nevermind healthcare, but prisons in this area, those are good jobs in downstate and people want those jobs and they're not going to walk away.

I think some will, if they're really, really committed to their ideological position on their individual freedom, but they're going to think very seriously before they walk away to these kinds of jobs.

- Well, I guess we'll see what happens in the next few days.

Like I said, today as we're filming is the deadline.

And perhaps as you're watching this over the weekend, something would have already happened.

So sorry about that.

But I do want to talk about one final issue before we go.

Peter, in that big energy bill I've alluded to a couple of times now, there was this provision that would give Illinoisans $4,000 tax credit if they buy an electric vehicle starting next summer.

And that $4,000 goes down to eventually $2,000 and then $1,000.

But the point is it's a big incentive for you to go out and instead of getting another gas guzzler, maybe getting an electric vehicle, but as seems to happen a lot, especially last year, we have seen another scribe nurse error that made it so the current bill or the current law would only make that tax credit available to Chicago land residents, those who look at live in Cook County and the Collar Counties.

In the grand scheme of things, yeah, these things happen, but massive errors in for example, the state budget.

And there was another massive error and we just see a lot of things going on in the dead of night.

And that's definitely a talking point that Republicans who are in the minority will accuse against Democrats because they control the process.

But do you think that this is gonna breed any more distrust?

Or do you think that, just kind of look at it and say, yeah, of course that's to be expected of Springfield.

- You know, I think part of it is we've seen a trend, especially in recent years of lawmakers passing these massive, massive omnibus bills that touch on many things in it, like the energy bill.

The thing about the rebates was mentioned in several different provisions and it was written inconsistently probably because you have too many staff people, or many, many staff people working on different provisions of the bill and people just weren't on the same page.

So there are calling that a Scribner's error, Democrats are saying it was fully intended to make that rebate available to all purchasers in Illinois, not just the areas, Chicago land, that are under particular clean air requirements.

- And I wish we had time to get to, I know that John has this story about this sort of thing.

I'll have him tell us after we wrap, but I'd like to thank our guests, Peter Hancock, John Jackson.

I'm Hannah Meisel.

Thanks for watching Capitol View.

And we'll catch you again next time.

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