[MUSIC] [MUSIC] >> Welcome to Capitol View on WSU.

I'm Brian Sapp.

The Illinois State Fair is in full swing meaning concerts, earlier sunsets and politicians visiting the fair.

We'll talk about the gubernatorial race, looking to see how the campaigns are taking shape with just five weeks before early voting begins.

The end of summer also means football is back.

Well, we're not talking about football on the field yet.

We're talking about bears management and what they said during a news conference last week during training camp.

Joining us today are Hannah Meisel.

She's the legal affairs reporter for Capitol News Illinois, and Kent Redfield.

He's political scientist, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, Springfield.

Hannah and Kent, it's good to see you.

Welcome to the program.

>> Thanks for having us.

>> Um, so State Fair is going on today as we're recording on Wednesday.

It's Democrats day.

I've actually got a recording going downstairs in the radio room on the the Democrats day going on there just to see what's going on.

And tomorrow is Republicans.

Hannah.

Can we start?

I'm just going to give you a broad question.

Where are we at in the campaign cycle now?

>> Well, I mean, most regular folks probably have not been paying attention to the fact that we are in an election year.

Um, you know, maybe they are aware that, um, you know, they're, uh, members of Congress are up for reelection.

You know, there's plenty in the news about whether Democrats nationally will take, uh, regain control of the US house.

But you know, other than that, I wouldn't fault, you know, any regular person for not, uh, you know, knowing the ins and outs of what's happening here, much less that there is, um, you know, statewide races here in Illinois.

And that's because they're really just not very competitive.

Um, you know, in the governor's race, of course, we have a rematch between governor J.B.

Pritzker and, uh, one time state legislator and, you know, basically Republican gadfly, uh, Darren Bailey.

And I'd say that that garnered a lot more attention four years ago.

Um, when, you know, Bailey was kind of, uh, riding a wave of the things that, uh, brought him to prominence in the first place, outrage over, uh, you know, Covid restrictions, um, you know, things that were much more, uh, you know, salient than like parents rights, all of those kind of things.

And those things have really calmed down in the years since.

Um, you know, we have, uh, President Trump back in the white House and, uh, Republicans nationally are feeling those headwinds.

Um, you know, where are we at in the governor's race, like you are in the campaign cycle?

Uh, in general, like you said, uh, we are five weeks to early voting, but Labor Day is generally the kick off.

But, uh, you know, the state fair for, uh, those of us who have, you know, been in and around Springfield for many, many years, that's also a big milestone.

Um, and like you mentioned, as we are sitting here recording this on Wednesday morning, uh, Democrats have their, uh, gigantic, uh, county chairs breakfast in Springfield.

It's a production that seems to have grown larger and larger every year.

Uh, certainly since I've, uh, you know, been covering it and, um, Democrats got, uh, Senator Elizabeth Warren to be their keynote speaker today.

And I think that's, uh, you know, an interesting choice, uh, that says a lot about where, um, you know, the party maybe sees itself.

Uh, she's definitely, um, one of those kind of, uh, celebrity progressives in the party.

And, uh, we have certainly seen, um, you know, very, very progressive candidates do, I guess surprisingly well over the last year, uh, and a half, um, nationally.

And, um, you know, it would be really interesting to see, um, what she says, what kind of advice she might give, uh, Illinois Democrats and, um, you know, men Republican day, uh, will be on Thursday and it'll be interesting, uh, to see what, you know, if they have any, uh, new messaging, if they, uh, try, you know, what they kind of, uh, you know, see as There.

Um, you know, uh, their message going forward in what's expected to be a very, very difficult year for Republicans nationally.

And of course, particularly here in Illinois, a very, very solidly blue state.

>> Definitely, like you said, what, what is that message going to be for the Republicans?

Um, Kent, how are you seeing things shape up?

>> Uh, yeah, this is the state fair traditionally has been kind of, you know, particularly when the center of the political universe, uh, was a little more balanced in terms of downstate versus, uh, Chicago and the metropolitan area.

And so the state fair candidates come, and then Labor Day is kind of the traditional, you know, kickoff sort of thing of into the home stretch.

And so, um, you know, this doesn't have a lot of sense of, you know, warring parties coming to, uh, you know, do battle in Springfield because of how dominant the Democrats are.

And, you know, you have incumbents running for all of the statewide offices except for one.

And, uh, the Democrats are in a very good shape in terms of both their traditional funding base.

And then, uh, you know, JB Pritzker, as you know, $1 billion patron of which, uh, the Republicans used to have three, uh, Bruce Rauner, Ken Griffin, and Richard Uihlein.

And they are all pretty much disengaged from Illinois politics, uh, at this point, just, you know, a, uh, FYI footnote, uh, Pritzker put $65 million into his campaign fund, uh, if you count up all of the checks that he's written to various entities in Illinois, uh, not and we're not talking about pass through where he gives money to JB for governor.

JB governor gives some, you know, to, uh, another political committee.

He's very close to $1 billion since he really got involved, uh, in Illinois politics and, uh, the, the 2016 election.

And so, uh, that's just, you know, having incumbency and money and then demographics again, downstate is the base now of the Republican Party, but it's losing population.

The growth area is the suburbs.

And that used to be the center of, uh, you know, Republican politics, Republican politics statewide.

And the, the Republicans really have lost the suburbs.

McHenry County is the only county of the traditional colors.

Those counties around Cook County that still has a Republican controlled county board.

And so, you know, the headwinds are pretty, pretty significant.

And we'll get to the legislature in Congress.

On top of all of that, uh, you know, the you know, those tremendously partisan gerrymandered maps.

I mean, really the only saving grace, I guess, for the Republicans at this point is you really can't gerrymander a statewide contest.

But, uh, you know, and the Democrats would certainly try to do it if they could.

But so it's it's not a good outlook.

And now, you know that you never say never in politics.

And, uh, the Democrats have got a lot of landmines in terms of funding state government and solving problems.

And you know, who who knows what's going to happen, you know, nationally over the next two years and four years.

And so, but right now, uh, you know, if you had to pick a team to root for, uh, you'd certainly be, uh, you know, rooting for the, you know, rooting for the Democrats if you were on the money, the, the prediction markets and stuff, you have to, you know, you got to put a lot of money down to, uh, you know, to get any, any, any, any back in terms of, of backing Democrats these days.

>> You brought up the, the dominance of, um, you know, money, uh, primarily from, uh, Governor Pritzker.

Um, and, you know, you had also brought up, um, you know, before we were recording the fact that, uh, you know, one of the things that the governor, um, you know, self-funded heavily was back in 2020, his, um, uh, campaign for a graduated income tax in Illinois, which is something that he had run on, um, when he first ran for governor, uh, you know, back in 2017 when he announced it was, you know, pretty much his signature campaign promise.

And, uh, despite putting in tons and tons of money, uh, into that, he actually lost, you know, voters at the ballot box.

Um, it did not get the 60% approval it needed to, um, you know, have a constitutional amendment.

And I think about, um, you know, the headwinds that, uh, you know, even though Trump was, um, in the white House at that point in 2020 and, um, Democrats were, um, you know, nationally, there's certainly, um, you know, with electing Joe Biden and, uh, you know, getting the, both the House and Senate for a brief period of time.

You know, in Illinois, we had headwinds on Democrats.

And that came from, you know, having a very one of the things that, you know, Republicans had finally hit on with some success in the previous years was making a former Illinois House speaker, Mike Madigan, you know, infamous.

And to the extent that Illinoisans knew anything about Springfield after that period of time, they might have known Mike Madigan's name.

Maybe they didn't exactly understand who he was or what he did.

Um, but it was, you know, uh, Republicans, um, and opponents of the graduated income tax used him, uh, not only to take down, um, the graduated income tax, uh, campaign, but also, uh, we remember, um, you know, uh, they took out, um, Illinois Supreme Court justice, uh, Tom Kilbride with, you know, these association with Madigan.

And, um, even though right now, uh, the current House speaker, Chris Welch, is kind of embroiled in controversy, uh, himself for kind of similar, uh, themes.

Not, not, you know, not exactly the same.

I don't want to, you know, obviously Mike Madigan was, uh, at that point named public official a, but not yet charged, um, with, uh, you know, bribery in this whole scandal involving, uh, Commonwealth Edison and, um, you know, other entities, uh, which we don't have to rehash.

Now, I spent plenty of months in the courtrooms for those various cases, but, um, you know, when it comes to, uh, sexual harassment scandal and how, um, you know, both of these house speakers handled that, um, you know, their Chris Welch is facing, you know, similar pressures.

Um, but, you know, that's not something that is at all, you know, breaking through to, uh, regular illinoisans.

I just think it'll be really interesting to see how, uh, Democrats try to, uh, you know, on this state fair day when it's all about unity, try to smooth things over and, you know, nothing quite smooth things over with, uh, like a ton of money.

Um, but it doesn't always work, which is my point.

Uh, when I harken back to 2020.

>> Yeah.

No, absolutely.

And so, you know, you have to break through.

You've got to get visible before you can become viable if you are a candidate.

And the Republicans have a huge visibility problem, but the the landmines are out there.

And, you know, I one of the things why that referendum lost is that, uh, for to change to a graduated income tax is one of the main attack points was do you trust these people?

You know you're going to give them the ability to raise your your income tax without limit.

No more flat tax kind of constraints.

And do you really want to trust these people with your money?

And so, you know, when you've got a competitive situation, it really helps if people believe that, uh, the people that are the incumbents are competent, uh, that they are honest, that they are making things work.

And so things that don't look huge at this point, a scandal in a funeral home, and whether we really have good oversight or, uh, a state agency, uh, you know, in this case, Department of Children and Family Services not showing up for court and reminding people of the long history of DCFS as being a dysfunctional agency.

You know, those sorts of things, you know, with the right candidates, with the right, you know, so we we never say never in politics.

And, uh, you know, the Democrats will have another four years to fix things or paper things over or, or make them worse.

Uh, we shall see.

>> I think, uh, yeah, the, they've got the tailwinds pushing them on this.

And the Republicans are facing headwinds.

And we'll see, I don't know, these many of these messages are connecting probably because of other issues that are hitting people like affordability.

I want one last election thing.

I wanted to talk about Kent when we were kind of setting up today.

You talked about, um, municipal elections.

The Chicago mayor's election is in the spring.

Alexi Giannoulias, among others.

He's running a campaign to become the Secretary of State again.

But he also threw his hat in the ring for Chicago mayor.

I've seen lots of concerns about, well, why is he running for the secretary of State office, you know.

>> Well, and, you know, and similar concerns about where is the governor's attention?

Is he really interested in the state of Illinois or has he got, you know, is the is the prize 2028 and running for president?

You know, you are the comptroller, Mendoza said.

I'm not running.

I'm going to run for, uh, you know, for mayor of Chicago.

And so, uh, there's a certain sense in which, you know, being an incumbent in a kind of and not being in the same election cycle, you know, it's, it's, it's a good place to hang out for two years until the next election.

And so we had, uh, one, one secretary of state, uh, who made, uh, drunk driving a really, really important issue to kind of highlight his office.

Uh, Jim Edgar, we had George Ryan when he was secretary of state talking about mandatory, uh, automobile insurance and, uh, lobbyist registration reform and, and so, uh, you know, having a, a, an office to, uh, you know, to draw attention to sometimes is preferable to being out in the wilderness for four years, which is where Darren Bailey is at this point, not having much to, uh, to point to.

So, uh, you know, it, it is, uh, progressive ambitions, uh, seem to be something that, uh, you know, very, very few people get to elective office and say, you know, I've, found my place in life.

Although Jesse White was elected six times as the Secretary of State, so you certainly can, you know, make an office your home.

But generally you're you're, you know, you're you're always a little itchy for is is there some somewhere else I could make, you know, more of a difference?

And so I don't think this is going to go away anytime soon.

It's just interesting that the way that it's lining up in this election.

>> Yeah, I and Mr.

Giannoulias isn't the only person.

There's plenty of people that are running for two offices at the same time.

So I guess we'll have to see that.

I want to move on from elections.

I think our last topic, the bears last week, spring training started.

I haven't been able to watch.

Been busy, but I understand the bears won their first game.

Preseason doesn't mean much but.

But off the field, um, Kevin Warren and Mr.

McCaskey had a press conference and Hammond came up.

Hannah, can you kind of fill us in on a little bit of what happened and a little bit of the response?

>> Yeah.

You know, this is every time, um, you know, this issue, uh, blows back up.

There's obviously a lot of attention, but the bottom line here as, uh, a lot of times previous, you know, when they've issued statements is what they're saying is really not all that different from what they said the last time.

And, you know, here they are saying that they're, um, focus is still on, uh, building a stadium in northwest Indiana and their engagement with Illinois is minimal.

But, you know, nothing's a done deal.

And, um, you know, the fact remains that the bears, um, Really, they didn't work, uh, in good faith, uh, in Springfield.

And that really upset a lot of people who, you know, wanted to help them.

Mhm.

Um, you know, the issue here, just to remind viewers is not to take public money and build a stadium.

Um, you know, kind of like what?

Uh, Indiana, uh, they're giving away a lot, lot more.

Uh, but it's, you know, to, you know, create a plan that, um, the bears can use the, um, the site in Arlington Heights, uh, the site of the former Arlington Park race course that the bears bought back in 2023, uh, you know, raised the entire race course with the intention of building, but, you know, kind of put the cart before the horse, as it were, although that's harness racing and that's a really dumb horse racing joke.

>> That's okay, I like it.

Um.

>> Uh, you know, uh, but then, uh, kind of switched, uh, focus a number of times and said, you know, oh, we want to build by the lakefront, you know, we want to remain, um, in, you know, basically the area where they currently, uh, you know, soldier field field currently is, but that, uh, land is owned by the Chicago Park district at least.

And, um, you know, we'd, uh, we're still paying off that stadium, but basically, uh, what the bears need is, you know, guarantees from the state of Illinois that there will be help with public infrastructure, um, that would be needed to build the stadium.

But, you know, I want to, uh, I want to read what, uh, uh, Kevin Warren, um, you know, Chicago Bears president, uh, said, I don't know why it hit a dead end in Springfield.

We've been very clear for the last couple of years.

The things we've always needed is property tax, certainly certainty.

We need infrastructure certainty.

That's what we've needed.

So that's not changed.

I think a lot of people might disagree that they've been clear what they've needed.

Um and you know, the governor's office who, you know, a couple of years ago at this point, uh, you know, retained a person to kind of help, uh, you know, legally on this deal, um, you know, had said, you know, the onus is on team to put together legislative language that can pass both chambers of legislature.

But, you know, the team still hasn't done so.

Mhm.

And, you know, there's just a lot of bad feelings.

But I, you know, there's time.

I think there's no deadline here all the time.

Pressure is kind of artificial because there's still, I think like nine more years on that lease at Soldier Field.

Um, yes, it does take a lot of time to build a stadium.

Hopefully though not that long.

>> Yeah, exactly.

I think and Hannah, I think you kind of hit on it and it's hard to say because we can't tell what's in their minds.

But when I look at when I kind of try to watch this down here, I mean, I'm a bears fan, but like I'm down here in southern Illinois and it looks like they're courting two suitors and they want to be careful not to upset either.

Is that is that an accurate?

>> Yeah.

I mean, you you keep your options.

You keep your options open number one.

Number two, it's good to play one person against the other.

You don't want to negotiate with yourself.

You want to see, you know, make me an offer sort of sort of thing.

Um, but Hannah is right.

We're not it's not going to happen overnight.

After you have a lease, you got to buy your way out of a lease.

Uh, the Arlington is a much more kind of ready site to deal with than the places they're talking about in Indiana, which are going to require some significant environmental, uh, you know, rehabilitation in terms of, of the area of an industrial area that's, that's got a lot of, of, of, of problems in terms of, of ground pollution, water pollution, those, those sorts of things.

And part of this falls on, you know, the owners, these are, you know, sports franchises are incredibly valuable.

We are, you know, we're part of that.

Los Angeles Lakers may be selling for like $12 billion or 16 or whatever the figure had happened to be.

And so, uh, you know, sometimes, you know, just because people inherit a franchise and have got a lot of money doesn't necessarily mean they're smart businessmen.

And so, you know, we, uh, you know, you look, we still have a horse racing entity down in, uh, East Saint Louis that took advantage of, uh, the idea of putting sports betting in there and kind of embracing the change in the gambling culture.

Uh, that didn't happen in Arlington.

And, uh, you know, he was the owner was more interested in getting involved with the, you know, the, a, another casino.

Uh, I'm forgetting where it was, but and, uh, you know, the harness racing people spent a lot of time in the tracks that used to exist sabotaging each other.

And so, and now we've got no horse racing left in harness or, uh, you know, or otherwise.

And so, uh, it's the, you know, part of this is whether the, the owners really know what they're doing and whether, uh, you know, there's a difference between needy and greedy and, uh, you know, so what they need and what they'd like, uh, you know, may not be matching up at this point.

>> Definitely.

And we'll have to wrap it up here.

We have about 30s.

But I think the thing that I've noticed is nobody is shutting the door on this.

There's lots of time left, and I think we're just going to have to have to wait and see, let the bears figure out what their message is and, and what they want.

That's it for this week's edition of Capitol View.

Hannah and Kent, thank you for joining us.

Good to see you.

>> Certainly.

>> On behalf of Hannah and Kent, I'm Brian Sapp.

Have a great day and we'll see you next week.

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