THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All...Empty offices across the state...New pot licenses...Pritzker's cash and approval ratings
July 25, 2022
Good morning, Illinois.
I was a guest this weekend on the Heartland Politics program on WVIK, Quad Cities public radio. Enjoyed the chat with Robin Johnson. You can listen to it here. I told you last Thursday about a question Robin asked me about how I would have run Richard Irvin’s campaign for governor differently. I’ll share some of your responses in the newsletter tomorrow.
Speaking of which, I’m working on some good stuff that I hope pans out for morning. I’d appreciate if you became one of our paid subscribers to help support our work. I’m not in the tank for either party or any politician. I’m in the tank for you, trying to find the truth. That’s all I can do anymore.
The Tuesday newsletter remains free (along with the Monday and Thursday “Free for All” emails. But the good stuff comes in the subscriber-only newsletters published on Wednesdays and Fridays. That’s in addition to breaking news updates, video previews, and first looks at whatever I feel like is worth clogging up your inbox with.
A subscription is just $99 for a full year or $9.99 per month. Join us by clicking below:
Thanks for your support.
Let’s get to it.
YOUR MONDAY FREE FOR ALL
(note: we’re not responsible for paywalls and restrictions from other news outlets)
Downtown Chicago is awash in summer tourists. But a key driver of retail activity is missing: office workers (Chicago Tribune)
Tourists have returned to Chicago’s downtown this summer, and anyone looking at the crowds thronging Millennium Park, the Riverwalk and stores on Michigan Avenue might think the city’s pandemic crisis is past. But “For Rent” signs still cover many downtown storefronts, and office workers remain scarce, which means fewer customers for Loop retailers.
“Our customers are primarily people working for financial institutions and law firms, and you no longer see a lot of our customers, guys walking around with briefcases,” said Scott Shapiro, the owner of Syd Jerome, a luxury men’s clothing shop in the Central Loop. “It’s really a lot of young people in khaki pants.”
But all its empty storefronts may also present the Loop with opportunities, according to retail experts. New shops could make the downtown livelier and help entice workers to leave their comfy home offices, especially if landlords reach out to independent, local and creative businesses instead of just national chain stores. That would also make downtown more appealing to others like the thousands of students and apartment dwellers who moved in over the past decade.
“You don’t have to be a corporate executive to enjoy the Loop,” said Michael Edwards, CEO of Chicago Loop Alliance, an advocacy group. “The downtown is not just a business district anymore.”
The problem in the Loop, and even in the office buildings surrounding my neck of the burbs, is that even if you “reimagine” a business district, you still have tens of thousands of square feet that there just won’t be a market for in a new virtual office environment. If businesses aren’t paying rent, developers aren’t paying mortgages (or property taxes), and it’s a potentially terrible cycle.
There are businesses and jobs in Illinois, but does anyone still want to commute two hours each day to work in a stuffy office downtown?
Related: Illinois jobless rate falls to lowest point since start of pandemic (Capitol News Illinois)
State regulators finally pass around new batch of pot dispensary licenses (Chicago Sun-Times)
Illinois regulators on Friday issued 149 cannabis dispensary licenses that promise to more than double the number of pot shops statewide, ending nearly a year of delays for budding weed entrepreneurs who finally have the green light to prepare their storefronts.
The conditional adult use dispensing organization licenses are the first new ones to be passed around by Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration since marijuana was legalized with his signature in 2019 and sales started in 2020.
Illinois’ troubled licensing rollout has hit snag after legal snag since then, with a steady flow of lawsuits amid criticism that a system designed to promote diversity in the industry has given way to corporate pot giants dominating a market with 110 dispensaries currently in operation.
The first companies to get a foothold all had been previously licensed by the state as medical marijuana dispensaries.
The 149 new so-called social equity licensees — meaning they were chosen with an eye toward racial or other diversity — were among 185 such applicants who won a convoluted series of lotteries ending last summer for the coveted licenses.
Pritzker’s office called Friday’s batch of licensees the “first wave” of winners to formally earn the privilege to sell weed. About 41% of the new licensees are majority Black-owned, 7% are white-owned, 4% are Latino-owned, and 38% didn’t share their owners’ races, officials said.
The new licenses do give people of color a footprint in the retail space, but existing players in the weed game and political insiders also scored.
By the way, the marijuana industry had about $130 million in sales in April (the last numbers I could find). About $41 million of that was to out of state residents.
Related: Proposal would prohibit hemp CBD shops in Chicago from calling themselves ‘dispensaries’ (Chicago Tribune)
Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave Democratic governors’ group $24 million to fund ads that helped nominate his GOP opponent (Chicago Tribune)
In addition to spending more than $62 million en route to an easy win in the June primary, Gov. J.B. Pritzker also gave $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association, which then spent millions on TV ads encouraging Republicans to vote for his favored GOP challenger, state Sen. Darren Bailey, financial reports showed.
The reports, filed with the Internal Revenue Service as part of the DGA’s tax-exempt status and covering April through June, show Pritzker’s contribution represented almost half of the roughly $52 million the DGA raised in the quarter.
Pritzker’s intent to enlist the DGA to influence the Republican primary was evident in early April when he gave the group $16 million. He followed up with another $8 million in mid-May, the IRS filing showed.
Pritzker has spent about $30 million on TV ads since announcing his reelection bid last July. Pritzker’s most recent pre-primary ads vilified well-financed Republican contender Richard Irvin and labeled Bailey’s conservatism as “too extreme” for Illinois, themes the DGA mirrored in TV ads the group spent at least $19 million to air, industry estimates showed.
I suppose it helps assuage any Citizens United concerns when you can support your own negative ad factory with more money than you know what to do with.
Poll shows Pritzker’s popularity remains steady as Biden’s slides in Illinois (Capitol News Illinois)
A new poll from the firm Morning Consult showed Gov. JB Pritzker’s approval rating at 51 percent among Illinois voters, or seven points “above water” in polling lingo.
It’s the latest quarterly poll from the firm, and data included 14,258 registered voters polled from April 1 through June 30.
While it’s a truism of polling that any poll is just a “snapshot in time,” Pritzker’s numbers have been remarkably consistent in the Morning Consult measurements since January 2021. His approval has ranged from 50 to 51 percent while disapproval ranged from 43 to 44 percent.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating in Illinois as measured by the same firm, however, is an example of how quickly public sentiment can change.
Our poll last November showed Pritzker at 50% approval and 45% disapproval, though his re-election number was still barely below a majority.
Related: Low voter turnout in primaries should concern everyone (The Southern Illinoisan)
Opinion: More Illinois voters will have choices on the ballot this November (Chicago Sun-Times)
(Note: most of the Republican candidates the Illinois Policy Institute has recruited are in overwhelmingly Democratic districts, likely leaving those candidates as little more than sacrificial lambs. For instance, 4th Ward GOP Committeeman Lori Yokoyama was recruited to challenge Rep. Curtis Tarver (D-Chicago). President Biden won that district by 85 percentage points and Governor Pritzker won it by 84 points. But, hey, choice.)
SOME TOP LINKS FROM LAST WEEK
JOIN US