(soft music) (dramatic music) - Welcome to "Capitol View" on WSIU.

I'm Brian Sapp, a reporter here in Carbondale with WSIU Radio.

The Illinois General Assembly is slowly getting back into session.

State representatives started on Tuesday after a week off for the Easter and Passover holidays.

Prior to the break, each chamber passed a flurry of bills.

We'll talk about what's being considered as we enter the last five weeks of the General Assembly.

Also, we'll talk about Senator Durbin and whether or not he's going to decide to make that run.

We're still waiting to hear.

Today we have joining us is Dan Petrella of the "Chicago Tribune," and Brenden Moore, the State House reporter for "Lee Enterprises."

Thanks for joining us, guys.

- Good to be here.

As we said, the General Assembly was off last week.

Brenden, the house is back in session, got five weeks left.

What are some highlights that you're looking for as we get closer to May 31st and the end of the session?

- Right, Brian, so the House is back this week.

The Senate will be back next week for really their final push to the end, May 31st deadline.

We'll see if they actually meet that.

But the big discussions right now under the dome, largely center around the budget and what to do with public transportation funding.

So on the budget, there's quite frankly a lot up in the air.

They don't have as much money to work with this year as they have had in past years.

There are no more federal COVID relief dollars.

The revenues that came in after the pandemic have slowed down.

So that is forcing some tough choices.

But even independent of that, there's a lot of uncertainty with what's happening with the federal government.

The state receives a lot of money from the federal government for things like healthcare for the Medicaid program.

And at least there is a signaling that there could be a lot of cuts.

And so there's really a lot out of the legislature's control in that sense.

And so they're kind of monitoring what might come outta Congress.

And depending on what happens at the federal level, they might have to come back and even after they pass a budget and figure out, you know, how to rectify it if there are a lot of those deep cuts.

The other issue is transit funding.

I think we've talked about it on this show, but there's about a $750 million cliff that Chicago area transit agencies will go off of if there is no resolution.

You know, again, COVID money runs out this year, and if they don't find a new funding source to I guess figure out how to fund service at the level it's at now, there'll be cuts or again, massive fare increases.

So they're trying to figure that out.

And on top of that, what the structure of some of those agencies, so we're talking about the commuter rail service, METRA, Chicago CTA, and Pace, which is the suburban bus service.

So, and even in those conversations too, I should mention that downstate transit will be involved in those conversations as well.

Obviously, downstate agencies need money as well.

The governor repeated that this week that they have to be part of that solution.

So those are really the kind of the two conversations that are dominating things here in the capitol this year.

I mean, last week, or a couple weeks ago, I should say, there was a deadline to get bills out of each chamber into the other chamber.

There was about 600 bills that passed out, which is a little bit less than we normally see, I would say, especially in the first year of a General Assembly.

But I think it's kind of a signal that they're not, there's a lot of uncertainty and given again, what might come from the federal government.

And so they kind of put the hammer down a little bit on a lot of legislation getting out this year.

But there are some interesting bills that are working through the General Assembly.

I'll just put out one example.

Governor Pritzker proposed banning cell phones during instruction time for students.

That passed out of the Senate and is now in the House.

So, you know, we're going to see that go through the process over the next few weeks, just as an example.

But there are a lot of bills that are going through the process as well.

- Okay, thanks.

Dan, you cover state politics as as well, and we were talking, tried to take a, that statewide view.

What are some of the things that you're looking for in these last five weeks?

- Yeah, I think one thing that's really interesting to note about that deadline that Brenden mentioned is that it's very flexible, you know.

For your average run of the mill bills, it does apply and it sort of gets people to get their votes rounded up and get their legislation passed by a certain deadline.

But for the really important stuff or for other certain issues, those deadlines can always be extended or worked around.

And one issue that we're watching, for which we haven't even seen legislation filed yet, is one of the proposals that the governor made back in February in his state of the state speech, which is to bring in some of the practices of pharmacy benefit managers, which are sort of these intermediaries that supposedly are there to help insurance companies' employers save money on drugs and make sure patients are getting the drugs that they need.

But the critics of that industry say they're really there to just extract profit out of the system by, you know, cutting independent pharmacies out of networks that they cover by, you know, steering people to pharmacies that the pharmacy benefit managers also are owned by or own themselves.

And so there's been a lot of discussion going on behind the scenes in Springfield about this issue.

We have yet to actually see legislation.

Interestingly enough, last week, President Trump issued an executive order also targeting the practices of pharmacy benefit managers, which is interesting to see the president and the governor who don't agree on much of anything, sort of agree on this issue.

Although the Pritzker administration was very quick to distance itself from what the president might do, and express a lot of skepticism about whether the White House will actually will do anything to reign in these practices.

But then also last week the governor of Arkansas signed a bill who, you know, Republicans, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary during Trump's first term to ban PBMs from owning pharmacies in her state.

So it's really a fascinating issue that kind of cuts across the political divide in these very divided times that we're in.

So that's one issue we're watching.

And obviously as Brenden said, the budget is a huge issue, it's a very tight year.

And we are also watching the fact that the mayor of Chicago is gonna be making a trip down to Springfield next week, which is interesting.

The governor was out in Jacksonville this week and was asked about it and sort of at first maybe pretended not to know which Mayor Johnson, the reporter who was asking about it was referring to and also said that, you know, it's kind of late in the game basically for the governor or for the, excuse me, for the mayor to be coming down to the legislature and making budget requests when, as you alluded to, there's only a few weeks left in the session.

So we'll be watching to see what, if anything, Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago is able to get in terms of, as Brenden was talking about, funding for transit for the Chicago Transit Authority, Chicago Public Schools to help fund their new teacher contract.

So those are really some of the things we have our eye on in these last few weeks of session.

- Okay, thanks.

I wanted to just one quick follow up as we, what could be, so the revenues are down, we're not sure what money we're gonna be getting from the federal government.

What are some of the cuts or maybe less spending that we're looking at in this budget?

I don't know if Brenden, you want to start with that?

- Yeah, well I think one example of if the federal government cuts Medicaid funding that we could see is a significant cut to healthcare coverage for people in the state.

So Illinois expanded Medicaid under Obamacare.

So basically I believe it provided insurance for people up to a certain point above the, I think it was above the poverty line I want to say.

And basically it's 90% cost share from the federal government is funding that.

But Illinois has a law that says that if the federal government's cost share goes below 90%, that the program automatically ends.

So that could cut healthcare for about 770,000 Illinoisans if that goes through.

So that would be one example of a cut in the budget.

Another example, and this came from Governor Pritzker in his budget proposal was a cut to a program that provided healthcare to immigrant adults.

So these people ages think 42 to 64 I want to say.

But it was a very controversial program that was started a few years ago.

It was a legislative initiative that basically provided healthcare to people that are not eligible for Medicaid.

And this is mostly folks that are immigrants, most of them undocumented.

And so the program is a lot more expensive than what was initially projected.

You know, they had to implement cost controls the past few years, otherwise the program would've basically cost the state over a billion dollars.

But the governor cut a significant part of that program.

So the portion that for seniors 65 plus is gonna remain, but the one for younger adults, 42-64 would be cut.

And that is about a $400 million reduction I believe in the budget, you know, just doing math in my head.

But that's just an example of how the state legislators and the governor kind have to make tough decisions in the next few weeks about what gets funded and what doesn't.

- Yeah, and then, interesting point there politically because the governor, although it was not originally his proposal, you know, championed it when he signed it into law, spoke about how spending this money to provide insurance for this population, which also includes folks who have their green cards but haven't yet been here the five years I think it is, that qualifies them for traditional Medicaid, you know, saves us money in the long run by keeping folks outta the emergency room, getting them preventative healthcare.

And also at the same time he's out criticizing President Trump and republicans for trying to take away folk's healthcare.

He's proposing to do that too to about 30,000 folks here in Illinois.

You know, he said that we have to make tough choices and he pointed to the fact that in his budget proposal he also paused the increase in funding for expanding state funded preschool programs, which is a thing that's very near and dear to his heart.

So it'll be interesting to see if that does make it through to the final package as well as sort of his thing to point to that, like, look, this is one of my very, very high priorities and even I am in making sacrifices to the things that I care about 'cause times are a little tougher than they have been.

- Okay, alright, well we've got five weeks and we'll see if we meet the deadline, need to extend it.

I read something today that all bets could be off, the governor didn't want to, but, you know, depending on what the Congress decides to do, it could make a long summer even for the legislature, but hopefully not.

I wanted to move on, stick with the General Assembly.

Emil Jones is on trial for bribery and as we're recording this, the jury has this, so this could change by the time it's published, but I'd really like to maybe get a little bit of background and explain what's happening.

Dan, could you kind of fill us in on just this trial and what Emil Jones III is facing?

- Yes, so this goes way back to 2019 when this ongoing federal corruption investigation that sprawled into many areas of government in the city of Chicago, in the suburbs of Chicago, stretching all the way down to Springfield.

And this particular avenue or tentacle of the investigation had to do with the red light camera industry, which is, you know, these automated cameras at stoplights that give you a ticket if you blow the red light or don't fully stop at the red light as I have personally found one time, and the industry was heavily involved in Springfield, required legislation in Springfield to be able to operate.

And Senator Jones, who is the son of the former Illinois Senate President, Emil Jones Jr., is accused of taking a $5,000 bribe from a gentleman who was an executive at one of these companies who also happens to be cooperating with the FBI at the time.

And so there were lots of meetings at fancy steakhouses and things that were recorded on wires, and as you said, as we speak on Wednesday morning here, it's in the hands of the jury.

As of last night, I think they'd been deliberating for about 10 hours, had sent several questions out to the judge.

And really, it's interesting, this Supreme Court decision that happened in the last, I believe it was last summer, but I forget off the top of my head, based on mayor out in Indiana, really changed the idea of what bribery is under the federal statute.

And so it's sort of this grayer area now of what is a bribe and what's just, I think the term is gratuity, where if it happened after the fact and that sort of thing.

This will be really interesting to see how the jury comes down on this.

It's interesting to see that it went all the way to trial because there had been indications for a while that it looked like he was working on a plea deal.

And I think it'll be interesting to see, you know, whether the jury does convict him.

If he does, he's, I think maybe the 12th or so person to be convicted or plead guilty or go to jail since Governor Pritzker took office from the legislature.

So it's really, you know, sort of an example of the sorry state of affairs that things have been in Springfield over many years.

- Speaking of that, this comes on the heels of former Speaker Madigan's conviction, and I know after that happened there didn't seem to be much movement to maybe look at ethics reforms with these numbers and with Senator Jones's trial, is there still, is there an appetite for this or are we still kind of gonna leave things where they are?

- Well, it's interesting that you ask.

You can look forward to future reporting on that issue in the "Tribune."

But yeah, it's been very quiet this legislative session.

I mean, the Senate President, Don Harmon, has even run into an issue recently with the State Board of Elections, (Dan clearing throat) excuse me, alleging that he took about $4 million more in campaign contributions than he was allowed to under the law.

He's pushing back on that assertion, challenging that, but there really doesn't seem to be a lot of urgency from the legislature.

You know, there's an ethics and elections committee in the House and they've been meeting throughout the session and holding hearings, but they've been mostly focusing on some, I would argue, kind of arcane and technical election related bills and nothing really on ethics so far.

There's been some discussion of a big omnibus package that made it come together at the end of session, which we have seen before, and sometimes we have heard that that's gonna happen and then nothing ever materializes.

So, you know, the governor says that he advocates every year for ethics reforms, but we have not seen any specific proposals out of his office this year.

It was not a topic of conversation in his state of the state and budget speech where he mentioned Madigan, not by name, but by by position and really only to kind of twist the knife in republicans a little bit about, you know, if you support the federal judiciary when it convicts Mike Madigan, then you should also support it in these other instances where it's going against somebody in your party.

So it just continues to not really seem to be a top tier, top of the mind issue for folks down in Springfield.

- Okay, well thanks.

Let's, I wanna change a little bit of gears here and move from the State House and talk a little store statewide, national politics.

Brenden, you had a story about Senator Durbin and what seemed to be some low numbers in fundraising.

He still has plenty in the bank.

What did you find out and is he made any decisions about 2026 yet?

- Yeah, so last week Senator Durbin reported that he only raised $43,000 during the first three months of the year.

It was the deadline that every candidate has to file with the Federal Elections Commission.

They have to basically say what they raised and who they raised it from.

To be blunt, those numbers are not numbers of somebody who is gearing up for reelection.

So there's been a lot of speculation about Senator Durbin's future, he's 80 years old, you know, he's been in the Senate since 1997, obviously he's the number two democrat there.

So he is built up a lot of seniority, but he has not been very clear about what his future plans are.

He has said that he will make an announcement soon, but obviously when you've been around for 30 years in the Senate so soon as a relative term, he was saying that back in March as well.

But he's certainly been kind of dragging out his decision and frankly, the world of Illinois politics is kind of waiting on him because there are a lot of candidates in what I would call a shadow primary that are already kind of gearing up in anticipation that he doesn't run again.

So you have people like Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi who raise over $3 million last quarter and he has $19 million in his campaign account.

He's doing a little tour of the state this week talking about tariffs.

And then you have Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, who's also been doing a lot of political travel.

She started a federal PAC earlier this year.

Then you have congressman or Congresswoman Lauren Underwood and Congresswoman Robin Kelly, and there are a lot of other candidates that are kinda kicking the tires getting ready in anticipation that Durbin doesn't run.

You know, he, as you mentioned, I mean he does still have about $1.6 million in his campaign account, which isn't nothing.

And he can raise money fast if he wants to.

I mean, again, he is a very senior democrat in leadership.

It would not be difficult, but the tea leaves are kind of indicating that it appears that he's not likely to run.

That's kind of the general view of a lot of people in politics and government.

But again, he's taking his time, which a lot of people have kind of given them the space to make this decision.

It's a very big decision to make, especially when you've been around for a long time.

However, I think people's patience is gonna wear a little bit thin the closer that we get to summer and closer to when candidates have to start getting petitions to get on the ballot.

Obviously there's a lot of money it has to be raised to run for a Senate seat in a state like Illinois.

So it is just kind of, people are waiting on him.

I mean, they're also waiting on Governor Pritzker to announce whether he'll seek reelection to a third term as governor.

But to a lesser extent because I think a lot of people expect that he will run for reelection.

Whereas again, Senator Durbin, there's a lot less certainty on that.

More people think that he may retire, but again, he hasn't made that decision yet.

And he is told us that, you know, he acknowledges that age is a factor, that it's an eight year decision, two years of campaigning, six years of service.

You know, he sat next to Dianne Feinstein on the Judiciary Committee.

You know, I think everybody saw kind of how she declined during her last term in the Senate, died in office.

I don't think he would want to go out that way.

But then again, he also, the chairman of the judiciary committee is Chuck Grassley, who's 89 years old and just got reelected to a six year term.

So, you know, he has some options.

If he runs again, he will be, you know, he may get a primary, but he would be the heavy favorite to win that primary and he probably would be reelected in the general election.

But again, we don't know kind of how it's gonna shake out until he makes that decision.

And frankly, the only people that really know what he's thinking are probably him and his wife.

- Okay.

Dan, I wanted to follow up with you, but I think, you know, Brenden, you talked about the length of service and happened to be looking on his website for something yesterday and has just noticed, you know, that he was proud to have taken over for his colleague Paul Simon and so, I mean another institution in Illinois.

So I think, yeah, he can be up there.

Dan, what are you hearing about with, you know, some of maybe the shadow primary or what Durbin's thoughts might be?

- Yeah, it's interesting.

I wonder how much of the, what appears, you know, publicly to be foot dragging has to do with, you know, he's got time left in his current term.

He is, as Brennan said, the number two democrat in the Senate, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, and that really kind of wanting to weaken his position for longer than he has to as a lame duck.

I do think there's a lot that goes into it, like you said, the length of of time in his age.

And I do think in terms of, you know, folks sort of jacking for position, Brenden mentioned that he might draw a primary if he does choose to run, but I don't think it's gonna be from one of those, you know, one of those top tier kind of candidates we're talking about like a Juliana Stratton or Lauren Underwood or somebody like that.

The other thing that's interesting is that some people who might otherwise be thought of as, you know, wanting to get into that shadow primary, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Congresswoman Susana Mendoza, who both are, you know, seen as people who have folks for, who have ambitions for higher office are kind of in their own separate shadow primary for the following year for the Chicago mayoral race.

So maybe have their eyes on that rather than heading to D.C. to potentially be in the minority in the Senate.

I think, yeah, it's sort of one of those things, you know, Durbin said toward the end of last year that it would be, you know, sometime early in the new year that he would make a decision.

And now here we are late April, you know, it's August was really when the decision has to be made so folks can get out and start circulating nominating petitions to get on the primary ballot.

But, you know, we're less than a year out from the primary and he's gonna have to make a decision, I would think, fairly soon because like Brenden said, he can raise a lot of money pretty quickly, but, you know, he's gonna need to get going on that if he's doing that and if not, I think out of respect for people who would want to be his successor, giving them time to organize and things like that.

The other interesting thing is there's not really a lot of noise on the other side among republicans about who their nominee, who their candidates might be.

I've heard that Congressman Darin LaHood has said that he is not particularly interested, so that'll be interesting to see who they nominate out of the GOP as well.

- Okay, well, it sounds.

(Brian chuckling) There's lots of shuffling and I think lots of changes up at the top of the tickets here around Illinois.

Dan and Brenden, I want to thank you for your analysis and discussion today.

That's it for this week's addition of "Capitol View."

We'll be back next week.

Join us next time as we're gonna look at what's making news around the state of Illinois.

Thank you to the crews behind the scenes here at WSIU who work to make "Capitol View" happen.

For Dan Petrella and Brenden Moore, I'm Brian Sapp.

Thanks for joining us this week on "Capitol View."

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