THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All...Pritzker's takeover of the state Dems...100 days to go...20,000 revoked FOID cards in Cook County
August 1, 2022
Rabbit, rabbit. Good morning, Illinois.
I may be the oldest 38-year-old guy in the world. Lollapalooza played this weekend in Chicago and not only did I not go, the Tribune posted a photo gallery which got me thinking two things: Who are these bands? The only bands I had actually heard the music of were Metallica and Green Day, (Also Zach Bryan, more on him in a moment) which doesn’t really put me in the Top 40 scene.
Also: this is how guys dress? I’m not saying an outdoor music festival calls for suits and ties, but, goodness, have a little dignity.
Pardon me, I think I have to go shout at some kid to get off my lawn.
Instead, sign me up for the Turnpike Troubadours and Zach Bryan at the Windy City Smokeout this weekend.
Neither Governor Pritzker or GOP nominee Darren Bailey have anything on their public schedules today.
If you happened to miss it, we did our first Wednesday Livestream/podcast last week. We’re going to try to keep doing it every Wednesday at noon as long as you like it.
Here’s the YouTube video from last week. Subscribe to the channel while you’re there:
Or if you’d prepare to save yourself the hassle of having to look at my face for 40 minutes, you can get a podcast version here.
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Gov. J.B. Pritzker solidifies party control with election of state Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez as state Democratic chair (Chicago Tribune)
State Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez was unanimously elected to lead the state Democratic Party on Saturday, a day after U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly dropped her bid for a full four-year term.
The vote by the Illinois Democratic State Central Committee at a plumbers union hall in Springfield took place quickly, but followed weeks of intense lobbying of the 34-member panel by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who backed Hernandez, and by allies of Kelly.
With Hernandez’s election as the party’s first Latina chair, the first-term governor gained control of the state party apparatus after being rebuffed a year earlier when Kelly was elected over his preferred candidate.
“Hernandez is a woman of integrity who cares deeply about fighting for working families, promoting diversity and inclusion, and helping all Illinoisans prosper,” Pritzker said in a statement of his backing for the 15-year lawmaker from Cicero.
“I know she will maintain our party unity, and I am confident in her ability to work with the State Central Committee to elect Democrats at every level of government—both in this midterm election and beyond,” the governor said.
Hernandez and her supporters sought to echo a theme of unity despite a hotly contested campaign that exposed racial divisions in the party before an important November election.
Pritzker’s decision to back Hernandez revealed some animosity toward the reelection seeking governor from Black Democratic lawmakers.
“You know, it’s all about working together but the walk into this wasn’t about working together, unfortunately. But now that we’re here, we’ve got to figure out how to move forward,” said state Rep. Will Davis of Homewood, a member of the committee and the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus.
Davis noted there are concerns that Pritzker has not moved forward on some budgetary spending items that were pushed by the Legislative Black Caucus, and said “Regardless of whatever happened here, I hope the governor is still committed to making sure that Black communities are taken care of.”
Retired state Rep. Al Riley of Olympia Fields, who supported Kelly a year ago but was not on the committee this year, issued a Tweet referencing Kelly’s work to diversify party leadership after decades of Madigan’s one-man rule.
“The more some people claim to want change, the more they really want things to stay the same. Nonetheless, character still matters. Thank you, Robin,” Riley wrote.
Related: Pritzker wins state party leadership battle after U.S. Rep. Kelly exits, clearing path for governor’s choice (Chicago Sun-Times)
Dems seek unity as new, former chair take no questions from media after party vote (Capitol News Illinois)
Some Democrats were annoyed by the drama over the party chair position (The Illinoize)
“[This is] yet another example of Dems taking their eyes off the ball and allowing internal division to keep us from working on the common goal of a successful general election,” the lawmaker said. “It's unfortunate when that happens at local level between the amateurs but inexcusable when the top of the ticket "pros" get mired in it.”
I’ll have more thoughts on Hernandez in the newsletter tomorrow and in my Shaw Media column this week.
100 days: What Pritzker, Bailey need to do for victory (State Journal-Register)
Kent Redfield, a retired professor with the University of Illinois and the Institute for Government and Public Affairs, sees a race playing along three regions in the state: Chicago, downstate and the suburbs.
Two regions − Chicago and downstate − are essentially wrapped up for Pritzker and Bailey respectively. The battleground areas, Redfield says, are the suburbs primarily in the collar counties surrounding Chicago.
"You can make a difference there," he said. "You can grow or shrink."
At a press conference held earlier this week, Bailey stood before the Department of Children and Family Services building to, as he put it, to "discuss problems." This tactic, one where he attacked Pritzker and DCFS Director Marc Smith for the department's shortcomings, is the playbook Redfield projects will carry out in months to come.
"Bailey wants people to focus on what are the specific problems in terms of governing in Illinois and what are Pritzker's failings," he said.
A similar strategy was used by former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, said Redfield, whose campaign attacking Democrat weaknesses lead to the unseating of then-Gov. Pat Quinn in 2014.
What he will try to avoid is past comments on abortion, where he previously supported a complete ban before backing away from that stance.
Growing also requires money, which Pritzker has and Bailey doesn’t. More on that in the big newsletter tomorrow.
Editorial: How does President Pritzker sound? (Bloomington Pantagraph)
Nearly 20,000 Cook County residents hold revoked FOID cards — enough to populate a medium-sized suburb (Chicago Sun-Times)
Nearly 20,000 Cook County residents are walking around with revoked firearm owner’s identification cards, with illegal guns presumably in their homes.
Cook County sheriff’s police told Illinois legislators Thursday that “manpower” issues are the main reason the revoked cards are still in the hands of potentially dangerous people.
Lawmakers heard that and more in a public hearing designed to dig into community-based violence prevention and funding.
The bipartisan House Public Safety and Violence Prevention Task Force, chaired by state Rep. La Shawn K. Ford, D-Chicago, and state Rep. Fran Hurley, D-Chicago, held the virtual hearing on gun crimes, current efforts to curb violence and how the state can take action to help save lives.
The Highland Park mass shooting and gun violence across the state has brought the task force’s mission into a sharper focus.
Arthur Jackson, first deputy chief of police for the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department, told legislators over the years, 33,000 Cook County residents’ firearm owner’s identification cards have been revoked because of violent felony convictions, domestic violence charges or serious mental health issues.
Since 2013, a team of six [Cook County] officers and one sergeant have gone to the homes of those whose FOID cards have been revoked, recovering 881 guns in those efforts.
What good is the FOID system if we aren’t giving law enforcement the tools, manpower, and cash necessary to keep the guns out of the hands of people we can all agree shouldn’t have them?
Scammers still targeting Illinois state employment agency; officials say they’re better prepared now (Chicago Sun-Times)
Internet criminals who have stolen nearly $1.9 billion in federal money intended for unemployed Illinois residents during the COVID-19 pandemic boast online of how they’re still selling stolen personal information and fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits.
That’s what a Georgia State University professor found recently in the dark corners of the Internet, where he monitors criminals who commit unemployment insurance fraud and other scams against government agencies.
David Maimon, a criminology professor, says he often sees Illinoisans’ credit and debit account numbers for sale online, along with fake Illinois driver’s licenses and advertisements for “tuts” — slang for online tutorials on how to commit fraud.
One user bragged about obtaining $354 weekly unemployment benefits from Illinois in May.
Illinois officials — stung by an audit released in June that found flaws in the state’s administration of two federal pandemic unemployment programs — say that, despite the onslaught, now they are ready for the bad guys.
Since the widespread fraud problems of 2020 and 2021, which the Illinois Department of Employment Security blamed on the hurried rollout of federal pandemic aid programs, the state has beefed up its security systems and joined a multistate group that shares information about fraudsters who file for benefits in more than one locale, says Kristin Richards, Gov. J.B Pritzker’s IDES director.
“We have multiple levels of security in place,” Richards says of the new system.
There has been a lot of bipartisan grumbling about Richards as she’s been pretty dodgy in answering questions from lawmakers and the media on the losses the state incurred during the early days of the pandemic.
She was former Senate President John Cullerton’s Chief of Staff, so it’s not like the Pritzker folks are in a hurry to dump her.
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