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

I'm Brian Sapp.

The Trump administration is reportedly developing plans to deploy the National Guard to Chicago to fight what they say is a crime problem in the city.

Governor JB Pritzker pushed back on Monday at an event flanked by elected officials, community groups, and business leaders.

And just like the State Fair in Springfield, the Du Quoin State Fair attracts local and statewide candidates.

Democratic Congresswoman Robin Kelly, she's running for Senator Dick Durbin's seat, made the trip to the fair.

She stopped by the studio to talk about her campaign.

Joining us this week to talk about these issues are Mawa Iqbal, State House reporter with WBEZ Radio in Chicago, and Dan Petrella from the Chicago Tribune.

Mawa and Dan, welcome to the program.

- Thanks for having us.

- Good to see you guys.

Dan, let's just get to it.

It seems like it's soaked up all the oxygen in the room, so to speak, in Illinois this week.

There's talk of plans to mobilize the National Guard into Chicago by the Trump administration, Governor Pritzker pushed back.

Where do things stand as we're taping here on Wednesday?

- Sure, yeah, it's really one of those things where we've seen Trump, throughout his political career, use Chicago as a punching bag and its issues with crime, which are real.

It started sort of late last week again, with him threatening to send troops here to Chicago like he's done in D.C., and like he did previously in Los Angeles.

And then over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon had actually been working on real plans to possibly deploy National Guard troops here in Chicago.

As you mentioned, Pritzker, a bunch of officials, got together on the riverfront downtown on Monday to push back and told them, "Do not come."

At the same time, Trump has been kind of waffling on whether he really wants to or not, saying he wants Pritzker to ask him to come, obviously that would give them sort of legal invitation, 'cause the governor, unless the president federalizes the Guard, the governor of the state is in control of the National Guard in their state.

Obviously Pritzker and other officials here in Chicago and across Illinois have made it clear that they are not asking for the Guard to come in.

They don't need help dealing with crime in Chicago in that fashion.

Crime is already dropping here in Chicago by double digit percentage points in things like shootings and other violent crimes, and even carjackings and things like that that have been a concern are all coming down from their sort of peak right after the pandemic.

And so they've said, "If you really want to help us combat crime in Chicago, you can do things like fund more violence prevention programs, continue the work that we already do with federal law enforcement agencies on gun trafficking and drug trafficking and other things."

Arne Duncan, the former education secretary who runs an anti-violence group here in Chicago now, suggested maybe station federal troops at the border with Wisconsin and Indiana to stop the flow of illegal guns into the state.

But experts and some of my colleagues here at the Tribune I've have talked to, I know lots of reporters across the state have been talking to the same kind of folks who are just saying, "This is not the way to actually address the issues of crime," which are systemic, and generational, and rooted in lack of economic opportunity and all sorts of other big structural problems that aren't gonna be addressed by soldiers in fatigues marching the streets.

- Mawa, reporting in WBEZ, what have you heard?

And what are you hearing when it comes to this, from your point of view?

- Yeah, it's interesting, the same day that Governor Pritzker, with the congressional delegation and all these different business and community leaders, had their big riverfront press conference on Monday, that evening, the Illinois Republican party actually sent out a fundraising email using this event as a way to fundraise.

And it's interesting, if you read the email and it said something like, "The left will try to spin this as an attack on Chicago, but we know the truth, and that Trump is standing up for Illinois families."

So they were asking donors to donate anything between $5 to $2,500.

And they said that every single dollar donated will send this message that Illinois will stand with Trump, and that under Democrat leadership, Chicago has been, quote, "Turned into a war zone."

So it's definitely, it seems like they're almost capitalizing on this event to try to raise more money.

But it's interesting, I mean, given, we were at the State Fair in Springfield a couple weeks ago with the Republicans when they had the Republican Day, and talking to Chairwoman Salvi, it seems like the Republican party really needs money, first of all, to try to run some of their candidates that they want for these big statewide races that are happening next year, but also just like a real direction on like where to go.

And lately, what they've been doing is trying to pin it on, like President Trump, we all support him, and he did so well in Illinois, and people are starting to wake up to him.

So it's interesting 'cause you have that happening and then you also, conversely, had the Democrats, right, when they had their big press conference earlier in the day, sort of calling out Trump, saying that what he's doing, it's not addressing public safety and crime, like Dan was saying, it's just all political showmanship.

Like Mayor Brandon Johnson, it's all a political stunt, meant to invoke chaos and terror in the city.

- Yeah, and I mean, to some extent, I would say that the political showmanship is happening on the side of the Democrats as well, because Governor Pritzker acknowledged, both on Monday at the press conference and in response to questions from reporters at an event in Decatur on Tuesday, that there's really not anything, or very little, other than speaking out or filing a lawsuit once troops are actually deployed, that the state can do to stop the president from sending the Guard here if that's what he's gonna do.

He's not calling for people to refuse the call to duty if they're called up to their Guard unit.

He's not telling Illinois State Police to stand line at the borders or around Guard facilities to prevent them from deploying, that kind of thing, which would really be an escalation that I don't think that anyone would wanna see.

There's obviously real issues at play here, but there's also a lot of political showmanship happening, not to use the horrible both sides phrase, but there is.

(Mawa laughs) It's limited, unless you're going to go beyond legal means, there's little that officials here in Illinois can do to stop it before it happens.

- Yeah.

- Definitely.

Again, the raw numbers, like you said, the crime is something that they're tackling, but hopefully this trend of it decreasing can continue, and hopefully just everybody, hopefully, can simmer down, and maybe move forward, and I'm sure they'll find their next tete-a-tete to have.

Speaking of that, I don't know if this is it, but this week the president signed, I think, an executive order banning federal funding to states that have eliminated cash bail, and Illinois is one of those.

Mawa, can you kind of give us some background, and then how is that going to possibly affect Illinois?

- Yeah, so essentially, the president, like you said, signed an executive order, basically directing the federal government to identify jurisdictions that have eliminated cash bail and then withhold or revoke funding that's already been appropriated to them.

And so, of course, with Illinois being the first state to fully eliminate cash bail back in 2023, Trump has once again set his sights on Illinois.

And so there was a press conference earlier this week with some of the state lawmakers that were basically at the forefront of pushing this measure through Springfield, which essentially eliminates any sort of money bond when it comes to a person who has been arrested and charged with a crime, and is now before a judge, so now they have their pretrial hearing.

And in the old system, you would have to essentially pay your way out of jail.

A lot of criminal justice reform advocates thought that this system disproportionately discriminated against people who were lower income, who couldn't afford to pay their way out of jail.

And so now we have this system where if you're, a judge will look at sort of the severity of your charge, they'll look at if you're a flight risk, they'll look at your ties to the community before they make a decision whether to detain you pretrial or not.

And according to these Democrat lawmakers who pushed for the reform, they say that it's doing, the law is doing what it was intended to do, where they're able, judges are able to detain people charged with violent offenses, and they're taking more time in these pretrial hearings, and people who are charged with lower level offenses but are lower income aren't just languishing in jail for months and months and months.

This is another one of those things, like we were talking about with the previous topic, that the Attorney General could definitely file a lawsuit, as he has done.

I think at this point his office has filed over 30 legal challenges against the Trump administration.

And so, if they do end up actually revoking the funds, or withholding federal funds and grants from Illinois, then they've said that they will definitely consider legal action.

But at this point in time it's not clear exactly what, I guess just 'cause it hasn't happened yet.

- Dan, what have you heard about this, and where do you think this might be resolved?

- Well, it's interesting 'cause this is not a coincidence that it's happening at the same time as the threat of sending the National Guard here, because we've seen in Washington D.C. where Trump has deployed the Guard because he has more power over the federal district.

He's also issued an executive order the same day, ending cash-less bail policies in Washington D.C.

So this is obviously an indication that Republicans are going to be talking a lot about crime, again as they did in 2022, as we head into the midterm election next year in 2026.

And really, it is, I think it speaks to what democrats here in Illinois are saying, that if the administration was really interested in combating crime, they wouldn't be threatening federal funds that help cities and states combat crime, targeting a cash-less bail process that, so far, appears to be working, despite whatever anecdotes opponents want to cherry pick to try and show that bad things are happening because of it.

- I think we're gonna have to see kind of where this plays out legally, and where they hold it, and kind of what the Constitution says.

In our federal system, states have their rights to tackle things locally, and I guess we're just gonna see where the courts kinda come down on that and agree with that.

One more story dealing with Washington D.C. and some interactions with the state, the Department of Justice requested voter data from Illinois, the State Board of Elections.

It gave them some data, but apparently it wasn't enough.

They've asked for a delay, a pause in that, and the DOJ has said no.

Can you give us a little bit of background on this, Dan, and then what's next?

- Sure, this is a request that the Department of Justice has been making to many states throughout the summer, started contacting the Illinois State Board of Elections back in late July, asking for full voter rolls, full voter data.

The Board of Elections provided some.

As you said, they provided the list that is available to political committees and to other government entities, which has registration data but doesn't have things like Social Security numbers, or dates of birth, or images of folks' signatures, and things like that.

And the Department of Justice has said, "No, that's not enough.

We want the full thing with all that information."

They haven't really said what they're going to use it for.

They're claiming that they're trying to enforce federal voter registration laws.

But the question is whether, again, that they're targeting jurisdictions where they disagree with the leadership, and trying to knock people off the voter rolls to improve the Republicans' chances of holding onto offices in elections.

They've given the State Board until September 1st to turn over what they've asked for, which is actually a state and federal holiday.

So the board has said that it's going, they're discussing whether to comply, and they would provide an answer by September 2nd, the day after Labor Day.

So I guess we'll know by early next week what has happened.

Worth noting that Trump had set up a Voter Integrity Commission in his first term, and that group had made requests for similar data, and Illinois never ended up turning over the data then.

So we'll see whether that changes this time, or I think this is yet another instance where we might expect to see the state and the federal government facing off in court.

(Brian chuckles) - Like Mawa said, the Attorney General's been pretty busy since the term started.

Turning just a little bit, still talking about candidates, the Republicans, the field seems to be shaping up.

We're in the time where they're trying to collect signatures to get on the ballots.

Last week we talked a little bit about the Republican field shaping up.

But Darren Bailey, who ran for governor, dropped a very innocuous hint, I guess, "I might be running."

Mawa, where does this stand?

- Yeah, I talked to Darren Bailey about it.

He said that, it was kind of funny, he said that he had been hearing from his supporters and other people in his circle that, "You should run, you should run."

And I noticed too that in a lot of the live videos that he does on Facebook, much of the comments are, "Oh, you should run for governor again, you gotta give it another go."

Like, "You need to save Illinois," and all this stuff, right?

So he told me that he decided one night to just kind of throw it out there, like what you said, like it's sort of an innocuous post and just see what people say.

And he says, I talked to him like 12 hours after he made that post, and he says just in those 12 hours, he's been like swarmed by supporters calling his phone, like it's been ringing off the wall, saying that he should do this, he should do this.

And he seems to seriously be considering it now.

I think, it'll be interesting because, of course, this would be his second time running against the governor, if he does become the party nominee, running against the governor.

Last time he lost by double digits.

And when I asked, "What are you gonna do differently this time if you were to win the Republican nominee?"

He said, and he, similar to Chairwoman Salvi, kind of said that like we're in a different time now, people are waking up to what's been wrong with Illinois, and I think he's feeling very motivated by President Trump, and how President Trump did in Illinois.

So it'll be interesting.

We have Darren Bailey.

We have DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, who's also wanting to throw his hat in the ring.

We have Ted Dabrowski, who's the president of Wirepoints, which is a more right-leaning political research sort of group online.

I'd be very interested to see who ends up getting the nominee from the state GOP.

But I will say it's important to note that Darren Bailey did not come to the State Fair during Republican Day to kind of make the rounds because he said that he was so dissatisfied with the Republican party leadership and the direction that it's going in.

- Yeah, and it's really interesting.

I mean, if a guy who lost three years ago by, I think, 13 percentage points is your top contender, obviously the political situation may be a little different than it was, but I would be interested to see what actual data or information they're seeing to show that he's got a better chance this time around.

The other interesting thing is he's reportedly in discussions with Aaron Del Mar, who ran for Lieutenant Governor in the GOP primary last time, is now chair of the Cook County Republican Party, about running for Lieutenant Governor on a ticket with former Senator Bailey.

Although there was an awkward situation yesterday at the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, where Bailey kind of denied those rumors, and then his team kind of walked back and said, "Oh no, no, no, we are meeting later this week."

So not exactly a great start out of the gate if this is the relaunch of another campaign for governor.

- Well, it's a long, for us people that pay attention, things that we remember, it's a long six months until March, so we'll have to see.

And I think also the, as we've talked about previously on the show, Republicans are gonna have to figure out if they're gonna lean MAGA, if they're gonna have to be aware of the more progressive nature of the state and these numbers.

We have time for one more question.

We have about two minutes left.

State Senate President Dan Harmon, last week, had a hearing, an appeal hearing on a fine that he had.

I want to kind of give you time, can you give us a little bit of background, in these next two minutes, background and where things stand with that, Dan?

- So the State Board of Elections determined this spring that Senate President Harmon had violated contribution limits that apply when, for all campaign fundraising committees.

He had done a maneuver where he contributed $100,001 to his campaign back in January of 2023, lifting those caps, in dispute is when they should have gone back on.

His attorneys are arguing that they should stay off the contribution limits until after the March 2026 primary.

The State Board of Elections says, "No, they went back into place after the March 2024 primary.

So you took $4 million in contributions ahead of the general election in 2024, when you weren't on the ballot even, that exceeded the limits."

And they've proposed an almost $10 million set of penalties, which he is appealing.

That was argued before a hearing officer, who now is working on determining whether to recommend approving that fine.

And that'll go to the board to sort of debate and decide whether they want to reduce that fine, or as Harmon's lawyers have asked, overturn that fine.

So we're all kind of waiting to see what the determination is there.

It's really an interesting in-the-weeds kind of case, but it speaks to the power of these, or lack of power, I guess, of these limits and loopholes in state campaign finance laws.

- We've got about 30 seconds left.

How long 'til we get this appeal or find out what the outcome is?

- There's possibility that it could be done before the board's September meeting, although the hearing officer, who's an outside attorney who heard the testimony, wouldn't give a timeline for when she expected to issue her recommendation.

- Okay, well it's been a busy week, busy couple weeks, and so I guess summer's done, and we'll keep having more stories.

Mawa and Dan, thank you for your insight and sharing all that you've done and joined us today.

- Thanks for having us.

- Glad to be here.

- The campaigns for Senate continue to gather signatures to get on the March primary that's six months away.

The candidates visited southern Illinois last week to talk with voters at the Du Quoin State Fair.

Robin Kelly is Illinois's second district congresswoman, and that covers Southeast Chicago, south to Danville.

She sat down to talk with us before visiting the fair, and she took off, took part in the kickoff parade.

Congresswoman Robin Kelly, thank you for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

- Glad to have you here.

Currently you're serving in the second district of Illinois.

I'd like to give people a chance, you said you, before we started recording, you talked about traveling the state, but I'd still love people to get a chance to know you a little bit.

What are you currently doing and what's your background?

- I represent the second congressional district of Illinois.

It's a very diverse district, really a microcosm of the state of Illinois.

I'm urban, suburban, and rural.

I have 4,500 farms in my district.

In fact, I just finished doing my ag tour, a farm tour.

And I always have a barn hall meeting in my district, and farmers come from far and near, some in my district, some not, to have discussions and things like that.

I've been in Congress 12 and a half years, and currently I serve on energy and commerce, big health portfolio, very big gun violence prevention, not against guns, I know where I am, not against guns, but for gun safety and done a lot of work around that, and work around economic opportunity, workforce development, some artificial intelligence.

I pride myself in our constituent services for our constituents that we represent.

- Okay, so moving on, now that we know your background, what made you decide to run for Senator Durbin's seat?

- Well, it's been on my mind, and I feel that I'm very ready and able.

I've accomplished a lot in my district.

But I always feel like we all do better when we all do better, so I wanna do more for the whole state.

So I'd look at we're all healthier when we're all healthier.

We're all safer when we're all safer.

And as I said, I already represent, on the federal level, a microcosm of Illinois.

And my approach is really five things, that most people want a good-paying job, they want access to quality healthcare, good education for their kids, a roof over their head, and they wanna feel safe.

And I'll venture to say, and people want their pensions.

And that's the way I approach my job and what I do.

No matter where you live, I think most people can relate to those things.

- So you've touched on it a couple of times.

One of the things that I've heard talked about, the three top Senate candidates are from the Chicagoland area.

What are you doing, people downstate want to be connected, what are you doing to make that connection?

- Sure, my entree into Illinois, I wasn't born and raised here, was Peoria, Illinois.

So I lived there for the most part of 20 years.

And so I'm very connected to central Illinois, still connected.

I worked at Bradley, in fact, I just was on a search committee to help them pick their new president.

I was the party chair, so I was up and down the state.

I worked for Alexi Giannoulias, I was his chief.

And so we were up and down the state.

And so I do have connections up and down the state.

I've kept in touch with people.

And again, because of what my district looks like, I feel like it has given me the benefit of hearing a lot of different views, seeing things from different lenses.

And for me, everybody is important in the state.

Everyone makes this state what it is.

And in 2010, I actually ran statewide for treasurer.

I was the Democratic nominee.

- Okay, let's move on to some of the priorities.

You talked about your five topics.

Is there anything specific that you really wanna make sure that you achieve if you were to get the nomination and become senator?

- Well, people are feeling their purses, so I would really wanna make sure that Americans have the opportunity to live their best life, to have a good-paying job, to have a pension when they retire, that it's not so costly to live in the United States.

I have a huge healthcare portfolio, and I would definitely want to carry that into the Senate.

There's a lot of concern because of legislation that was just passed, so I wanna be a part of seeing how we can pull some of that back around Medicaid, around food supplement, even what's happened as far as energy because a lot of the solar projects have paused or stopped, and those are good-paying union jobs.

So I wanna make sure that there's economic opportunity, people have healthcare, and also the other thing is we need to bring respect back to government, so some of the corruption and the things that are happening now, we need to deal with that.

- We have just a little over a minute left.

I just wanted to touch on, I've been trying to, when I have these interviews, touch on something that's happened nationally.

And I saw you just, as of recording this, you just signed the- - Block the Bomb.

- Block the Bombs bill.

We're coming on the two-year anniversary of when this all started.

Why did you do that and what do you hope it'll achieve?

- What happened on October 7th, everyone would agree was horrible, but what's happening now is horrible.

I mean, to watch starving children, starving families, starving pregnant moms, that cannot continue.

It is a humanitarian crisis.

We need to make sure food gets in.

We need to make sure medicine gets in.

This is beyond the pale.

And I'm hoping the hostages are released.

I'm hoping there's a ceasefire that leads to the war ending, that leads to a two-state solution.

- We can hope, lots of people are worried about just war altogether.

- Definitely, yeah.

- I understand, I'm gonna wrap up here, but I understand you're going to the fair, so hopefully you continue to enjoy your time at the fair, and thanks for joining us.

- Thanks for having me.

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

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

On behalf of Mawa Iqbal and Dan Petrella, I'm Brian Sapp.

Thank you for joining us on "Capitol View."

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