THE ILLINOIZE: Bailey with big lead in GOP primary, Irvin begins attacks...Expert: General Assembly will have to clarify Governor's emergency powers...Mask rules will vary in the Statehouse

March 1, 2022

Good morning, all. Rabbit Rabbit.

Every March 1, I’m reminded of the 2005 Sports Illustrated cover featuring Illinois basketball star Dee Brown. With Kofi Cockburn looking dominant for my beloved Illini, here’s to hoping for another great March in Champaign-Urbana.

It’s going to be an exciting month in Illinois politics, too. Petition filing begins next Monday, and it’s a good chance to find out which campaigns have their sh…you know what…together. The legislature is still scheduled to adjourn April 8, so there will be a flurry of activity in the Statehouse. And, the contested primaries for Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General for the GOP and Secretary of State for Democrats will continue to ramp up.

Strap in, it’s going to be fun.

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Let’s get to it.

BAILEY LEADING GOP FIELD, IRVIN BEGINS ATTACKS

Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) holds a strong lead in GOP primary polls, sources tell The Illinoize. In response, the campaign of Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin is beginning to focus attacks on Bailey.

In a statewide internal poll, shared with The Illinoize on the condition the full poll not be released publicly, Bailey leads the field with around 25% of the vote, more than 10-percentage points over the nearest competitor.

The conservative lawmaker, who has tapped into an anti-mask, evangelical, pro-Trump wing of the Republican party, specifically downstate, has been in the field as an official candidate for about a year. Irvin, backed by billionaire Ken Griffin, launched his campaign in January and has already spent millions on TV, web, and text messaging ads.

In fact, Irvin’s campaign has begun ramping up its attacks on Bailey, a sign it considers the southern Illinois lawmaker their toughest competition. The attacks focus on Bailey pulling a Democratic ballot in the 2008 Illinois primary. Irvin has pulled Democratic ballots in 5 of the past 6 primaries. The Irvin campaign has also latched on to a comment Bailey made in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic that were deferential to Governor JB Pritzker’s initial steps to mitigate the new threat in March of 2020.

The Irvin campaign has spent in excess of $2 million on television ads already in the campaign while Bailey hasn’t aired a single TV commercial. But, one GOP operative we spoke to said the Irvin campaign probably isn’t panicking about Bailey’s standing.

“This is a group that truly thinks money is the only thing that matters,” the GOP operative said. “They have it, Bailey doesn’t, so, to them, the race is over already.”

Though, Bailey has already received $1 million from conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein and there may be more on the way. But that pales in comparison to the $20 million Irvin has already received from Griffin, Illinois’ richest person.

Read more in our story this morning here.

EXPERT: LEGISLATURE WILL HAVE TO CLARIFY GOVERNOR’S POWERS

Thankfully, Omicron cases, hospitalizations, and general fear among the public (or, at least, those north of I-80) have calmed at the same time Illinois is in a bit of a constitutional conundrum over the powers of our Governor.

Over the last few weeks, a Sangamon Count Court stopped Governor JB Pritzker’s school mask mandate and the legislature and courts refused to side with him, and you could see the challenges chipping away at the executive authority of this, or any future governor.

Scott Szala is a retired Chicago attorney and adjunct professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, where he teaches a course on the Illinois Constitution.

With differing rulings on the Governor’s authority under the Illinois Emergency Management Act and the Illinois Supreme Court passing on clarifying the questions last week, you can call the situation clear as mud.

Szala says while the current law and constitutionality of the Governor’s actions are under debate, there needs to be an understanding of the powers a Governor has in the event of an emergency.

“I think most people would say the Governor, just like the President, has to have certain repository powers in emergency situations,” Szala said. “Sometimes you have to act quickly, and I think most people are willing to give the executive certain leeway in that particular regard. The question is when it goes on and on without explicit legislative authority, does that present a problem?”

Szala says the General Assembly should have worked with the Governor in 2020 to clarify his powers under the Illinois Emergency Management Act to prevent questions and misunderstanding around his repeated Executive Orders. But, with the exception of a couple of days in late May, the General Assembly was gone from Springfield for more than nine months, and many lawmakers seemed unwilling to travel to the Capitol at the height of the pandemic.

“At some point, the legislature is just going to have to deal with this, regardless of what party is holding the Governor’s office,” Szala said. “I think you could have made a good argument and then just clarified the powers and it wouldn’t have taken a lot to do that. Now the Supreme Court looks at this and it still isn’t clear.”

I’ve been fully in the camp that the Illinois Emergency Management Act gives a governor wide ability in the case of an emergency. And you can absolutey argue the first few months of the pandemic, especially without a vaccine along with huge hospitalization numbers and deaths constituted a multi-month emergency. But is it still an emergency 24 months later? That question is a lot harder to answer ‘yes’ to.

Read the full story here.

MASK PATCHWORK AT CAPITOL

If you’re headed to the Statehouse this week, the Capitol building itself is “mask optional,” according to the Secretary of State’s office, which oversees the Capitol Complex.

But, masks will still be required in the House chamber. The Senate is not in this week, but we’re told their policies on testing and masks have not changed.

More details here.

SENATOR PATRICIA VAN PELT FORCED TO PAY BACK NEARLY $150k

From the Sun-Times:

State Sen. Patricia Van Pelt’s embattled CBD business has paid back more than $144,000 to investors as part of a settlement agreement stemming from an investigation by the Illinois secretary of state’s office, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

WaKanna For Life LLC, the Chicago Democrat’s Douglas-based multilevel marketing firm, is touted as a “movement” that has helped thousands of African Americans sell hemp-based CBD, or cannabidiol, a legal and nonpsychoactive compound also found in cannabis that’s used to treat a range of conditions. The company’s “founders” — Van Pelt, CEO Melissa Boston, Dr. Rita McGuire and Phyllis Nash — are all Black women.

Van Pelt began hosting cannabis investment workshops as Illinois’ pot legalization push gained steam in early 2019.

“I’m riding the wave with the rich,” she says in a promotional video that showed her talking to a crowd about becoming “marijuana millionaires.”

Within months of its launch that year, WaKanna For Life started using a network of distributors to sell products containing CBD. Around the same time, Boston said the company planned to seek licenses to grow and sell weed.

But WaKanna For Life and its subsidiaries have since faced multiple consumer complaints and investigations, the Sun-Times has learned.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of those who pay for training to set up online “dispensaries” to sell products like creams and lotions with CBD make an average of only a couple hundred bucks, the Sun-Times found.

Go read the whole thing. It’s a bad look. Don’t forget, she was one of the co-sponsors of the original marijuana legalization bill, but was yanked after the “riding the wave” comments were made public.

BEST WISHES

Congratulations to Jose Sanchez-Molina, who has departed Governor JB Pritzker’s staff as Deputy Press Secretary for a Comms job with Nielsen IQ. Jose was one of the few people in the Governor’s office decent enough to give me the time of day, so I’m sad to see him go.

BEFORE WE GO

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Have a great day.