(gentle music) (bright music) - Welcome to "Capitol View".

I'm Brian Sapp.

Earlier this month, candidates started filing their petitions to get on the ballot for the spring primaries.

The Democrats have been busy, it seems like all summer after we've had a few long time legislators decide that they were going to retire this year.

The Republicans seem to have been a little quiet this summer, but the State Fair seems to bring everybody together and we have some movement on the Republican side with some more statewide candidates talk about that.

And then we'll also talk about some of the bills that Governor Pritzker has signed recently.

This week we are going to talk with these stories with Brenden Moore.

He is the State House reporter for Lee Enterprises.

Brendan, thanks for joining us.

- Always a pleasure, Brian.

- Good to see you.

We talked about this a little bit last week and last week's "Capitol View", and it was kind of uncertain who was going to step in.

We heard Tracy and Dabrowski stepping into their roles.

You were there at the Democrat and Republican days at the State Fair.

Where does the, let's just kind of throw it out there a little wide, and then we can dial in.

What does the Republican field look like?

- Yeah, Brian, so as you mentioned, I mean, it's been kind of a quiet summer so far on the Republican side of the aisle.

And you have an open senate seat with Senator Dick Durbin's retirement, and obviously you have all the statewide constitutional officers up for reelection.

Next year, Governor Pritzker's running for reelection.

And we just hadn't really been seeing a lot of candidates emerge.

And part of that is because the bench for Republicans is not all that deep.

You know, they only have three members in Congress in Illinois.

They don't have any of the constitutional offices, statewide offices.

They're a super minority in the legislature.

So there's really been a kind of a recruiting struggle this summer.

And there really was some urgency to get moving because candidates could start passing petitions earlier this month to get on the ballot.

And the deadline is in October this year.

So they had the Democrats and Republicans had their political days at the State Fair last week, and that's kind of the unofficial kickoff of campaign season.

And we started to see some of these primary fields form on the Republican side.

So in the senate race, Don Tracy, the former chair of the State Republican Party, announced that he's running in that primary, that gives the party at least a serious name.

He'll be a heavy underdog against whoever the emerges from the Democratic primary, but at least gives republicans a familiar name, somebody that can raise a little bit of money and you know, someone maybe more from the establishment wing of the party, somebody who can maybe appeal or attempt to appeal to voters in the Chicago suburbs that you need to win a statewide election in Illinois.

In the governor's race, it's more of an open field, if you will.

So, as you mentioned, we've seen names starting to emerge, like Ted Dabrowski who runs kinda conservative research institute called Wirepoints.

He's kind of more of a wonky guy, you know, does a lot of stories on Illinois policies and runs like on the numbers on the budget.

And then in the race since February, you've had DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, who's, you know, kind of running on his record in the state's second largest county and you know, focusing on public safety.

And then, you know, we have a couple of other names that are out there, Cook County Republican party chairman Aaron Del Mar is gonna make a decision soon on whether he'll run for that office.

You know, he told me that he has some, you know, some big money backers that are willing to support him.

We'll see if they come through.

And then a familiar name for a lot of people, Darren Bailey, the former state senator and the 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee who lost to Governor Pritzker by about 12 and a half percentage points.

But he is making some noise this week, me throwing out a trial balloon saying that he may consider running again.

There was a comment made by Sheriff Mendrick at the fair last week, basically because he was asked like, well, "Darren Bailey ran on crime and he couldn't address, or, you know, didn't address it, you know, what makes you think you can do it?"

And Sheriff Mendrick said something along the lines of, "Well, Darren Bailey is a farmer and that's why he couldn't do it," didn't sit well with with Darren Bailey.

And so we'll see if maybe that goes him into the race and, you know, he'd probably already been kind of thinking about it.

He would certainly have a decent shot if he were to run in a primary.

So we're starting to see kind of these fields emerge a little bit, not what I would consider maybe the most, the candidates that could win a statewide race per se.

I mean, usually you look at maybe a, like a member of Congress or like a sitting state legislator, someone of that nature.

But again, the bench is not that deep for the Illinois Republican Party.

So, you know, they may have to make due with some candidates that are maybe a little bit more unconventional.

It's gonna be an uphill sled in a very blue state in a midterm year with Republican president in the White House.

But, you know, we'll just have to see how that race continues to develop.

- Okay.

Yeah, I think and have to work through that and figure out who's gonna come ahead.

The primary looks to be like, it's gonna be loud and maybe raucous.

Just lots of people seem to be having not quite a purity test on the Republican side, but we talked last week about the MAGA people and then maybe people who are trying to be maybe a little more pragmatic and understand that the state might not be that way with its progressive leaning.

Any thoughts on that?

- Yeah, I mean that's the continual challenge facing Republicans in this state is how can you win a primary that is increasingly dominated by downstate conservatives and appeal to voters more moderate voters in the suburbs that you need to win that general election.

And, you know, it is difficult.

And nowadays when, I mean there used to be kind of this, I guess more moderate wing and I guess maybe establishment wing and then the Trump wing, well, the Trump wing is now the party that is the establishment now.

- [Brian] Yeah.

- And you know, there was a lot of this talk last week about how Republicans did better in 2024, vice President Kamala Harris, you know, won the state only by about 11 points instead of, you know, 17 points as the Democratic nominee had won previous presidential elections in the state.

But again, that's still a double digit loss.

and you still have a long way to go to win a statewide race.

You know, there's no way you can do it without winning back some of those voters in DuPage County, in Lake County, in suburban Cook.

And you know, Republicans, you know, some of 'em believe that MAGA is the way to go, that, you know, Trump is gonna bring more people into the party and that, you know, some of the gains that they made, you know, maybe are an indicator of that.

But then you have the more traditional view that, you know, I mean, look at the past governors of this state that were Republicans that won.

They kind of all came from that more, you know, fiscal conservatism, but more social moderation and that's historically been a recipe for success for Republicans in this state.

They haven't done that in a while.

And then maybe if they go back to that, you know, perhaps they would have, you know, a better shot.

- Okay, well we've got a long time until March and we'll have to see, and Trump isn't on the ballot in the Primarium, so to see what his power is to pull people in.

Anything else you were at the fair both of those days.

Any other things that you noticed or wanted to talk about that you noticed there?

- Yeah, I mean, it was definitely a split screen between the Democrats and the Republicans just in terms of, you know, Democrat Day.

You know, you had all the constitutional officers on stage, you had Hakeem Jeffries give a keynote speech at their big brunch event in the morning.

And then the other side of the Republicans, I mean, you had, you know, basically house minority leader Tony McCombie and House Senate minority leader John Curran, the keynote speaker was a Fox News analyst.

So it just kind of really encapsulated kind of where both parties are in this state.

I guess I quickly on the Democratic side, there are a couple open races.

Obviously there's that competitive primary for Senate.

So you had Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, Congresswoman Robin Kelly, and Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton all down kind of politicking, you know, for votes, you know, meeting with supporters, kind of getting their message out.

And then open race for controller because a controller Susana Mendoza is not running for reelection.

So, you know, at the various events, you know, the previous night and then the actual fairgrounds, you had, you know, some of the candidates passing their petitions.

You know, you have State Rep Margaret Croke, State Rep Stephanie Klick, State Senator Karina Villa, and the Lake County Treasurer Holly Kim.

- [Brian] Yeah.

- So that should be an interesting primary as well.

And that could be fascinating.

That's another statewide race that doesn't get as much attention, but it, you know, gives you statewide name recognition potentially.

And, you know, could set one of those candidates up for higher office potentially, if, you know, if they do win.

- Let's move on from that and talk a little bit.

It was a couple weeks ago, we had Texas Democrats in our state.

It looks like they're heading back and that redistricting is moving forward there, but I wanted to stay here in Illinois on Tuesday this week, Former William Daley and then Ray LaHood both talked about a, is it Fair Map Illinois, a plan to push for kind of an independent redistricting plan?

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Yeah, they're taking another bite at the apple of this issue that's just kind of been out there for a few years now.

There have been multiple efforts in the past to take the map drawing out of the hands of politicians, at least out of the direct hands of politicians.

So this year, this effort would deal with the state legislative maps.

It would not touch the congressional maps as past efforts have.

Basically it would create a 12 person commission that, you know, each of the leaders in the legislature would appoint, you know, somebody, a member of their caucus, and then two members not in their caucus to basically draw the map.

They would not be able to use partisan data to draw these maps.

And if they end up deadlocked on a map, the 12 person commission, then the Supreme Court would pick two names of opposite parties and randomly select one, which is kind of similar to the current process, 'cause if they deadlock, now the legislature can't pass a map, it goes to a commission and- - Okay, - You know, they draw it out of a hat.

That hasn't been an issue the past couple of cycles because the Democrats have had a trifecta.

They've controlled the legislature, controlled the governor's office.

So they've been able to basically ram through their gerrymandered maps and that has put Republicans in a pretty precarious position.

So this effort, like you said, is bipartisan.

Will Daley, the former Obama chief of staff, former Congress or commerce secretary, and then Ray LaHood, longtime congressman and former transportation secretary, are kind of spearheading the effort.

It seems like it has a decent chance, but I will caution that, you know, it's challenging to get a ballot initiative, a citizen ballot initiative on the ballot in Illinois.

You know, you need to get more than 300,000 signatures, first of all.

And then also the Illinois Constitution is very, very narrow in terms of what they allow, you know, in terms of an initiative.

You know, that's kind of what tripped up the effort in 2016 with some of the wording.

And, you know, we've had our constitution in Illinois, our current constitution since 1971, and there's a reason why only one citizen initiative got to the voters.

And that was the cutback amendment from Pat Quinn back in like 1977, that cutback the size of the state legislature got rid of cumulative voting.

They make it very hard.

And undoubtedly the Democrats that control the process now are probably gonna challenge this, the Supreme Court's in the hands of Democrats, partly because they redrew those districts and ensured that their, you know, party would have more favorable chance of keeping the court.

So there are some hurdles ahead for this effort, but I think the general feeling though is that this might have legs where past efforts, you know, got tripped up.

- Okay.

Again, just a lot of getting things rolling and seeing what the next few months have in store and the high bar there of the get the ballot initiative, we'll see what they're able to pull off.

Maybe they've got, see if these legs can carry it.

Governor Pritzker has been busy recently signing a bunch of bills, a couple of his emails, press releases he sends out, just a list of 100 or so bills that he signed at a one time, excuse me, a couple of the bills that were more talked about, one was Senate Bill 328 that was the, allowed more lawsuits or they could be filed lawsuits for, I believe toxic substances.

Was that was kind of talked about.

- Yeah, so yeah, Governor Pritzker, I mean, Friday afternoon last week, he gave us a gift of a new stump he signed, I believe it was 266 bills, which we knew was coming, by the way, 'cause he has 60 days to sign bills after the legislature sends them over.

And so the timeline was, it was coming up, so we knew it was coming, but it was not a lot of bills that you would write about per se, but there were a few, one of 'em, as you said was Senate Bill 328, which basically has to do with litigation involving toxic substances under state law.

Basically the change means that lawsuits are basically allowed to continue if a company operates in Illinois but is headquartered somewhere else.

So basically this would open up, you know, businesses to litigation in Illinois state courts, even if they, you know, are not headquartered here.

It was an initiative that was pushed by the trial lawyers who are a very powerful interest group in this state.

You know, and business groups kind of lambasted this as, you know, it's gonna create kind of a culture of litigation tourism, you know, people are gonna use Illinois as the venue to file lawsuits, but I mean, the supporters say it's very narrow and that mean it has to deal with toxic substances and that, you know, it's not gonna be a boondoggle like for instance, the Biometric Privacy Act was a long time when dealing with data and the legislator had to fix that a few last year.

But, so that was probably the big thing that he signed.

And then obviously he issued a couple of vetoes.

- Yeah.

- One was more technical in nature, but the big one basically had to deal with, it was Senate Bill 246 and basically what allowed for Treasurer Mike Frerichs 'cause Mike Frerichs office to create an investment pool for nonprofits.

And so basically the treasurer would kind of invest in those funds and provide returns back to those nonprofits.

Governor Pritzker said in his veto message that basically would have kind of unintended consequences as it would be allowed, allow kind of fringe extremist groups to benefit from state returns.

And that's not something that he wanted to, even if it's a small risk, he did not wanna sign on to that.

You know, he pointed out to like the Oath keepers, for instance, kind of an anti-government group that was involved in the January 6th attack on the capital, that they would be a group that would be eligible under this law.

Now, you know, Frerichs and the Bills advocates say that some of these issues can be resolved in rulemaking, administrative rulemaking, but the governor kind of shut the door in that argument.

And I guess we'll just have to see if it comes up in the veto session in a few weeks, or a few months when they return and if they decide to try to override him.

- Yeah, I read article on that yesterday and it doesn't look like it didn't pass with a veto proof margin and people didn't seem to think that it had much chance of seeing that override.

Well that's it for Brenden.

Brenden, thanks for joining us today.

We have another interview in a minute.

Thanks for joining us.

Glad that you could be here and share your insight - Anytime Brian.

Thanks for having me.

- Great.

Now we're going to go talk with Deb Barnett.

She is the leader of SI Now.

We're gonna talk about the economic outlook here in the state of Illinois.

(gentle music) I'm here with Deb Barnett, she's the executive director of SI now.

SI Now works to foster economic development in southern Illinois.

Thanks for joining us.

- Thanks.

I'm so happy to be here.

- Glad to have you.

Let's start broadly talk a little bit, what is SI Now, what do you do and who do you serve?

- Sure, so SI Now, or Southern Illinois Now has been around about two and a half years.

It was actually founded out of an idea to really better connect the university SIU Carbondale with business leaders and the business community in the southern Illinois region.

And it really is designed to represent the 17 southernmost counties in Illinois and really foster economic development.

And we do that in three ways.

We have three priority areas.

One is business growth and development, so making sure existing businesses are strong and growing and staying in southern Illinois and the state of Illinois, but also attracting new business to the area.

Our second is workforce, so making sure those businesses have a really strong talent pipeline.

And then finally marketing the region as a whole and really establishing that identity as southern Illinois as a great place to live and work and do business.

- Talking a little bit about is your job hard?

Like, I mean, what is does my guess is live here.

I love southern Illinois.

Is it hard or like how does that work?

- I think it's so easy and it's so hard and here's where I'll divide that up.

So me, my team, our board, our task forces, we all love southern Illinois, so that part of it is really easy.

People think of 17 counties and they think, wow, that's a big area.

And it is.

And so I think that's a little bit of the hard part, but we are very intentional about getting to every community, every county, making sure we're all rowing in the same direction and making sure that those communities and businesses really know that they are such a strong part of the southern Illinois region.

- Okay.

I wanted to move on and talk a little bit, we'll probably come back a little bit, but talk about the economy as a whole, you know, regionally and then maybe a little bit more statewide.

2025 has been full of changes.

We have a new administration, tariffs moves by Congress, our own state legislature.

What does the landscape of the Illinois economy look like from your position?

What can we expect and what do we see?

- Yeah, I would say earlier in 2025, so much uncertainty as you mentioned and a lot of changes and businesses like certainty, right?

So I think there was some just, again, just uncertainty and sort of this feeling of where do we go from here?

But I think folks have settled in to that now and regardless of, you know, any administrative changes, any policy changes, business needs to keep going.

Our region needs to keep going and adapt and I think we're doing that really well.

So we're settling into that and just adjusting and really seeing tremendous growth just in upward trajectory over the last couple of years.

And I see that continuing into this next year.

- So let's talk about that growth.

What are some of the hotspots, other trends, again, hopefully statewide, what are we seeing?

- Yeah, we're seeing a lot of growth.

So I'll start statewide.

Most people might be surprised to know that the state of Illinois has ranked number two in the nation for business expansion and relocation.

- [Brian] Wow.

- For several years in a row.

And so you don't get to number two without doing some really good things.

Certainly there are always things we can improve and I think at the state level they're really working hard to listen and try to make those improvements.

But at the same time, I think we're doing really great in that regard.

Workforce we're always really strong in workforce and Illinois has, and southern Illinois specifically has one of the top workforces.

It's why a lot of companies come and stay.

But, you know, over this next year and as we move forward, tourism has also been a really strong driver in southern Illinois and especially post pandemic, we saw a lot of folks really discovering the southern Illinois region for the very first time.

And they're continuing to come back and visit and spend those dollars here, which we like.

- Okay, we've got about a minute left.

2026 is, it's hard to believe it's three and a half months away.

You guys always have to be forward looking, you know, evaluating the past, looking forward what do you see on your radar for next year?

- I see continued year over year growth, that continued upward trajectory.

We have really strong interest from companies looking at the state broadly and Southern Illinois specifically.

And of course many of our local businesses are also looking to grow and expand.

So that's what we're here to help them do and work with partners to do that.

So I see bright days ahead.

- Great.

Well thank you for joining us.

Glad to have you here.

- Thank you, Brian.

- That's it for this week's "Capitol View".

Join us next time as we look at what's going on around the state of Illinois.

And on behalf of Brendan Moore, I'm Brian Sapp.

Thanks for watching.

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