[MUSIC] >> Welcome to capitol view on.

See you.

I'm Jeff Williams sitting in this week as we take a look at what's making news around the state in Illinois politics.

The midterm general election is now some 68 days away and counting.

And Illinois's campaign season is now more or less officially underway with the Illinois State Fair having just completed in Springfield and getting ready to begin in DuQuoin, we'll take a closer look at at the politicking that took place at the State Fair, plus some other stories as well.

This week on Capitol View to help lead our discussion is Peter Hancock, state House reporter for Capitol News Illinois.

Peter, welcome back to the program.

Good to see you.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> And we I will mention that WBEZ's Mawa Iqbal was to join us today.

She's a little under the weather, so we wish her well.

Hope she's.

Hope she's feeling better.

So Peter, we're going to we're going to carry on and persevere and see what we can what we can do here.

Um, obviously usually the, the state fair in Springfield just just wrapped up and the coin version gets underway on, on Friday.

The fair is, is typically kind of the kickoff of the general election campaign season in Illinois.

The candidates, especially the statewide candidates, I know we're we're out pretty much in force last week in Springfield.

Um, some or many of those will also be in Des Moines in the, in the coming week.

Um, obviously, governor JB Pritzker and his Republican challenger, Darren Bailey were front and center with, with their campaigns.

Um, Peter, you were you were there at the fair.

You covered them throughout the week, various issues and whatnot.

What, um, um, what are we looking at in terms of their message to voters, at least at the fair?

>> Yeah, well, it is kind of interesting.

I mean, these, uh, every year at the state fair, there's, uh, you know, a governor's day, which is the Democrats day and Republican Day and the two parties, especially in election years, that's when they come out and showcase their statewide candidates and really kind of start honing their message for the upcoming election, uh, this year.

It was interesting.

Uh, the Democrats always have this big event, uh, before their day at the fair.

It's, uh, the Illinois Democratic County Chairs Association puts on this big brunch.

Uh, traditionally, it's been organized by, uh, U.S.

Senator Dick Durbin as kind of, you know, his big event.

And this year, of course, they were honoring Dick Durbin because he's stepping down after a, you know, a very long career.

Uh, and they also, they typically bring in a very high profile national profile, speaker.

And this year it was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, uh, which was interesting.

She's always been kind of a leader of, you know, the progressive leftist wing of the party.

Uh, but she's always had more of kind of a populist message of the common folks versus Wall Street and the millionaires and billionaires.

Uh, it's interesting because this year, uh, the friction within the Democratic Party is not, you know, between the populists and the mainstream.

It's more between, you know, people who self-identify as socialists, the Democratic socialists of America, uh, versus the mainstream.

And just, you know, in the weeks leading up to the event, uh, there were a number of high profile, uh, primaries in, uh, including for the US Senate, uh, where either very progressive or even socialist candidates, uh, won contested primaries.

And so Elizabeth Warren came out, uh, trying to unify the party, uh, saying we need to get behind, you know, no matter who the candidate is, the goal is to defeat Donald Trump.

Of course, Trump is not actually on the ballot and never will be personally on a ballot again.

Uh, but their feeling is that his agenda is on the ballot, uh, his wing, uh, you know, uh, the Republican Party as he's kind of redefined it is on the ballot.

And she, you know, in front of a very large crowd, just the big applause line was referring to him as the most corrupt president in American history, which I thought is saying something because we've had quite a few, uh, that, uh, you know, Nixon popped to mind a few others.

So that was her message was trying to unify the party behind, uh, defeating Donald Trump.

Uh, and Trump's allies and winning back control of the House and the Senate, which is, you know, their strategy for blocking his agenda for the final two years of his term on the Republican side.

Uh, they did not bring in any big national speakers this year, uh, which may kind of say something about the Republican Party.

Just a very lower level of energy for them this year, uh, which I think is kind of indicative of the fact that they do not at the state level, uh, have any really high profile candidates.

I mean, it's down to Darren Bailey, who is running again for governor after losing to Pritzker by like 13 points four years ago.

Uh, and former GOP state chairman Don Tracy, who's running for the US Senate on the Republican side.

He's facing Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, who's the Democratic nominee.

And so, you know, uh, they kind of had a very different message, uh, that I think the current chairman, uh, Bob Grogan, uh, stood on the stage out of the state fair and said, this election is a choice between communism and common sense.

Uh, they have kind of even at the national level, I think they've realized that the word socialism doesn't scare people the way it may be did in the 1950s and 60s and 70s, uh, that socialism has become kind of mainstream.

Uh, and so they're just calling it communism.

Uh, and, and whether that works or not, I don't know.

Uh, but their, you know, their message and very little mention of Donald Trump.

By the way, uh, you could probably count on just one hand the number of times that Donald Trump's name was mentioned.

You know, four years ago, Trump had endorsed Darren Bailey.

Uh, Darren Bailey spoke openly about his admiration for Trump.

Not so much this year.

Uh, Trump is kind of staying out of Illinois politics.

And Bailey is not really courting the Trump endorsement very much.

Uh, it's kind of out there with his own message.

So we'll see how that works.

Uh, but that was kind of, you know, the 300 zero foot view of how the parties, uh, this year in Illinois are framing the November elections.

>> Yeah.

Peter, you mentioned Bailey, um, kind of distancing himself from Trump because, you know, in 2022, I mean, he was obviously firmly attached to the to the Trump bandwagon there if he's backed away from from that that messaging, what was he telling voters at the at the at the fair this this year, or what is his message, do you think queuing up to the November election for the for Illinois voters and what they need to be concerned about if it's not more of the national president's coattails, what what is what are.

>> The.

>> Key issues?

>> It's very much, you know, a state centered message, which is that Illinois is in bad shape, uh, that the economy is struggling, that people are leaving the state because of high taxes very much, you know, similar to things that he's been saying for years now.

Um, and that what we need to do is get government off the backs of the people and get it off the backs of businesses, um, and get it out of education.

Uh, so, you know, that's basically his message is that Illinois is struggling, that the people of Illinois are struggling and that JB Pritzker is the person to be held responsible for it.

>> And so on.

Counterpoint here.

Obviously, the governor is getting out a message too, although his messages seem to be more aimed at what's going on on nationally.

What, um, what did the governor have to say in terms of his campaign?

>> Well, you know, it's news to nobody, uh, that, uh, rampant, uh, speculation that Governor Pritzker is angling, uh, to be a, if not run for president himself, then certainly to be a player in the presidential race in 2028.

Uh, he is very much reaching out to a national audience.

But in terms of his run for governor, he's, you know, very much running on his record as Illinois is not struggling.

Illinois, uh, is doing very well on a number of measures.

And he boasts about a number, you know, the, uh, his legislative record of particularly, uh, balancing the budget.

Eight years in a row, which I've always found interesting because in, you know, any other state in America that's considered like the bare minimum that's expected of your government officials is to, you know, operate on a balanced budget, at least at the state level.

Here in Illinois, that's been more of a challenge over the years than it has in other states.

Uh, but he's running on the fact that he's been a good fiscal steward of the state, while at the same time enacting some very progressive policies while also, you know, lowering businesses.

Uh, and, you know, keeping the economy in, you know, relatively good shape.

Uh, so that's essentially his message.

It's very, very positive message about, uh, where Illinois stands right now as opposed to Darren Bailey's message, which is that Illinois faces major challenges that need to be addressed and blaming the Pritzker administration for them.

>> Yeah, there are some administration related things, at least down here in this end of the state.

We had the announcement that the the showed mental Health and development center is going to be essentially cut in half.

They're moving states, moving many of the beds out of there.

We just heard news this week that some of the through the Department of Corrections, that some of the work camps actually the work camp in Des Moines is potentially going to be shuttered or at least severely cut back in terms of that.

So we are seeing some pocketbook issues, at least in the southern part of the state.

We've had several local businesses just recently down down here along the route 13 corridor complaining about about property taxes, which, as we know largely is in many ways a county local issue, but nonetheless a pocketbook pocketbook issue.

Do you think any of these issues will stick to the to the governor or the governor's message or um, or can those be deflected as well?

That's a statewide agency issued not necessarily policies of the of the governor.

>> Well, I think the property tax issue does play statewide because people in Chicago are just as concerned about high property taxes as people in Carbondale and Harrisburg.

That is a statewide issue, and it is largely the result of the way the state of Illinois finances public schools.

That's the biggest source.

You know, that's where most of your property tax dollars go.

Uh, so I think that is a big issue.

I don't think it's any secret that Southern Illinois is probably more reliant on government for a source of jobs and a source of, you know, revenue and capitol to flow through the economy than the rest of the state.

Uh, that's, you know, not uncommon in, uh, parts of the country that are, you know, characterized by small towns and farming communities, uh, that, uh, you know, they're just a little bit more reliant on government spending.

And so yeah, the cutbacks in, uh, you know, the, the correctional programs, correctional facilities, as well as the mental health facility, I think, you know, will be top of mind for voters in that area.

Um, but you have to keep in mind that, you know, in very round numbers, Illinois is a state of 13 million people, 10 million of them live north of I, 83 million of them live south of I-80.

Uh, and so for the 10 million people in northern Illinois, you know, from Joliet on up, uh, that's not that big of an issue.

They have certainly, uh, you know, many issues on their minds.

Uh, but, you know, the closing of a relatively small correctional facility in southern Illinois is not going to, you know, be a big blip on their radar screen.

>> Yeah.

I wanted to circle back to something you talked about education and and a key component there.

And I know you were last time, I think last time we talked, you were, you were watching and looking at the at the adequate funding numbers and how those those all spilled out.

I know you recently did a piece looking at both Governor Pritzker and Darren Bailey in terms of, of, of, of how they would approach education.

You touched a little bit on that already.

But in terms of maybe getting a little deeper into the weeds and how they're looking at education, what are you seeing from those from from those two on that particular topic, which obviously is, is an important topic to, to through all counties of the state.

>> Yeah.

And K through 12 education, just to put it in perspective, is about one fifth of the overall state budget, uh, compared to other states that's relatively small.

Uh, there are some states that where half of the state general fund budget goes to K through 12 education.

Uh, but here it's about 20%, uh, which is still a significant chunk.

And Capitol news, Illinois, we've done stories at over the summer.

This is the 10th year of funding public schools under what was called the evidence based funding model.

Uh, lawmakers adopted that in 2017.

It was signed into law by then Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.

And this was where the state agrees to gradually increase funding by at least $300 million a year, uh, and that that new money would be distributed to school districts, primarily the ones that were most underfunded.

And the funding formula is based on research evidence that shows, You know what it costs, uh, to teach kids in any given area, taking into account demographic factors like the poverty rates, uh, the number of kids in special education, the number of kids who are English language learners, uh, those sorts of things.

Uh, in 2017, everybody knew Illinois had probably the most or maybe the second most inequitable school funding system in the country.

Uh, at the time, maybe new Jersey might have been a little worse than Illinois.

This was supposed to bring back both adequacy and equity in school funding.

There's also gross inequities in the property tax rates that people pay, and the people in the lowest wealth districts, the ones that have the least property tax base to generate revenue from, are, on average, paying property tax rates that are twice as high as those in the wealthiest districts.

And that continues to be true ten years now into the evidence based funding system.

Just a few weeks ago, the Illinois State Board of Education announced the distribution of evidence based funding for this upcoming school year.

The one that just started, uh, maybe this week or last week.

Uh, and it shows that, you know, ten years into the program, we still have more than two thirds of the districts are below adequate levels of funding.

Uh, this was the year when they were supposed to all be up to adequate funding.

Uh, nowhere close to that.

And we're falling backwards.

Uh, part of that has to do with losses in one particular revenue stream.

It's very complicated as, uh, corporate personal property replacement tax.

Um, it's basically a second form of corporate income tax.

Um, that has been dropping precipitously since the end of the pandemic.

Um, a lot of different reasons for that, but essentially the gap between what school districts are receiving both, you know, from combined local and state sources and the adequacy target that's measured by the F formula, that adequacy gap is growing.

It's not shrinking.

And the number of districts that are funded at or above adequacy, uh, they're, it's falling not, you know, um, not growing.

And so at the state fair, you know, we asked the candidates, you know, what do you say about this?

What do you want to do?

Governor Pritzker says, yes, I acknowledge that they need more money and then quickly pivots to the fact that he has been giving them more money.

They have, in fact, you know, fulfilled the 300 $350 million a year each year.

Except for one.

There was the pandemic year that they weren't able to do that.

Uh, and then he starts talking about how, on average, Illinois students are doing better.

The reading and math scores are up.

Uh, the national rankings are up and different things like that.

Uh, when you ask, um, Darren Bailey about it, he immediately points to the test scores to show, uh, show that large percentages of, uh, Illinois students are not performing at grade level in reading and math, as measured by the standardized tests that they take.

Now, he tends to exaggerate the proportions, sometimes greatly exaggerated.

Um, and Illinois did just kind of recalibrate those tests to change, you know, uh, the cut off line between proficiency and not proficient.

Uh.

Nevertheless, the truth is, there are, uh, you know, one half, uh, more or less of Illinois students are not performing at grade level in reading and math.

And, you know, when I asked him, I said, you know, that's, you know, more than half of the students are attending schools that are underfunded.

Uh, and he says, well, money is not the answer.

The answer is we need to get government off the back.

Uh, we need to get government out of it, stop mandating, uh, whatever that means.

But, uh, his approach was not necessarily to put more money into education, uh, but to, you know, reduce the government mandates and also to opt in to this new federal program.

Illinois used to have one, uh, similar to it, uh, offering tax credits for people who contribute to private school scholarship funds.

Uh, that was part of the one big, beautiful bill that passed last summer, uh, the budget reconciliation bill that President Trump, uh, strongly backed.

And so, uh, daily and especially his running mate, Aaron Del Mar, uh, are both supporting that.

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter, we've got about five minutes or so left.

And one thing I wanted to, wanted to get in that's kind of developed over the last few days.

And that is the US Supreme Court has more or less pushed the pause button on a lower court injunction on one of President Trump's executive orders imposing new restrictions on mail in, in in ballots.

Early voting is getting ready to get underway here in in Illinois.

I know you've you've taken a look at that.

What what does that mean for for the voting process in the state?

Is it going to be largely status quo or will we see some may see some actual changes to come come in compliance with that.

>> That's a great question, and I wish I had an equally great answer to it.

Um, the answer is at this point it's kind of hard to tell, uh, what this has to do.

You know, no secret.

President Trump has, uh, always alleged that there was a massive amount of voter fraud in the 2020 election when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Absolutely no evidence to support that.

Plenty of evidence to actually contradict that.

Uh, but nonetheless, he has made the case, and he has also asserted without any sort of evidence and just asserted falsely, uh, that there are huge numbers of non-citizens who were voting illegally in US elections.

So in March of this year, he issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to work with other agencies to develop a list for each state of residents who are over the age of 18, or will be, at the time of the election, who are confirmed U.S.

citizens, and then to tell the U.S.

Postal Service not to pick up or deliver mail ballots to anybody who is not on that list.

So immediately, 23 states in the District of Columbia, states that are led by Democratic attorneys general, including Illinois Kwame Raoul, took part in this.

Filed a lawsuit in federal court.

It.

This one got filed in the federal court in Massachusetts to block implementation of this.

The judge issued an injunction, said, no, this is not going forward under.

The Trump administration appealed.

In the meantime, the Postal Service went ahead, promulgating regulations about picking up and delivering mail ballots, uh, according to the citizenship lists.

And the judge put an injunction on that.

Well, just last week, uh, the Postal Service, despite the injunction, went ahead and finalized their rules.

And then on Monday, late Monday, after hours, the U.S.

Supreme Court, as part of the appeal, issued an emergency order lifting the injunction that temporarily at least lifting the injunction, uh, that the Massachusetts court had put in place, essentially saying that the administration can continue with this for the time being while legal challenges continue in the courts.

The thing we don't know is the states don't have these lists of citizens, uh, whether or not they're going to get these citizenship lists.

You know, is anybody's guess how accurate these lists are going to be is anybody's guess.

Uh, right now, what we're hearing from county clerks and local election authorities is they're not changing a thing.

They're just going ahead.

They're mailing out, uh, mail ballots to the people who have requested them.

I guess they are assuming that the Postal Service is going to pick them up and deliver them.

Uh, we'll see whether or not that happens.

But yeah, I mean, this decision came down, uh, in the evening of August 24th.

September 24th is the day when mail balloting begins in Illinois.

Uh, so just, you know, we're now looking at just less than a month to get ready for this and nobody knows exactly how it's going to be implemented.

>> Yeah.

All right.

>> Peter, let's have the last word.

We are out of time for this edition of capitol View.

But I do have one question that I have to ask you.

What was your favorite state fair food this past week.

>> I didn't actually have time to partake in a lot of food.

There is a brand of French fries and that's all they sell are the French fries and they are so good.

Um, I can't pass those up.

Um, I've always had kind of a state.

Fairs are interesting in that they are on the one hand a big harvest festivals celebrating, you know, our agricultural roots.

And at the same time they are purveyors of the most unhealthy food you could possibly imagine.

Um, it's one of the great things about state fairs.

So, uh, that was my take on it.

>> Absolutely.

I'm getting ready to do that down here in the in the week ahead for Peter Hancock Capitol News Illinois.

I'm Jeff Williams.

Thank you for joining us this week on Capitol View.

Have a great week.

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