About a week after the state budget passed both chambers in the dark of night, Attorney General Kwame Raoul spoke to the City Club of Chicago to complain that his budget was cut by $10 million.
“For every dollar of General Revenue Fund spending on the attorney general’s office, we return $21. Anybody who has that in their portfolio is rich, but we can’t do this type of work without adequate investment and, unfortunately, at approximately 3 a.m. in the morning a week ago Monday, we were shorted about $10 million from what our overall appropriation was for fiscal year ’26, and I can’t imagine why what came about at 3 a.m. in the morning.”
During Gov. JB Pritzker’s press conference in June to sign a package of bills supported by Raoul to ban hidden junk fees and prohibiting ticket resellers from offering tickets they don’t actually have, the governor heavily praised Raoul for his work on not only consumer protection, but also for defending Illinoisans against constant attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to take away various rights and funding from people in this state.
So, my colleague Isabel Miller decided to ask Raoul about his budget cut. “Have you talked to the governor about restoring that $10 million in budget cuts from your office?” she asked.
After an awkward pause, Raoul said he’d had “several conversations with members of the legislature, and I’ve spoken to the governor just today.”
“I understand from serving 14 years in the Legislature that come the end of May, there are competing interests, and under this governor’s leadership and this Legislature we’ve been passing balanced budgets consistently, which was not a common thing in the past. That means that come the end of May, there’s some difficult decisions to make.”
But Raoul went on to say, “Our office is burdened, and you know we need to be at least funding to flat level, and I think we’ll work our way through it through these conversations.”
Isabel then asked the governor, “You’ve said at multiple press conferences, ‘AG Raoul is our defense, he’s doing such a great job.’ Are you committed to getting that flat level of funding restored?”
After praising Raoul yet again for attempting to keep the Trump administration in check, and thanking Raoul for recognizing the state’s current budget challenges under this federal administration, the governor said, “We’re not going to let it happen that he can’t go to court or that he can’t do the things that are necessary to protect the people of the state of Illinois, but we’re all tightening our belts.”
Three amendments were introduced to the bill the Legislature used to pass the budget. The governor’s office says it controlled the second amendment, and that amendment prevented a Raoul budget cut.
The third amendment became the actual budget. That amendment, controlled by the Senate, is the one that cut $10 million from Raoul’s spending plan. I haven’t been able to find a satisfactory answer as to why Raoul’s funding was cut, but some have said that Raoul may have upset some senators with the way his office lobbied those very bills mentioned above.
Whatever the case, amendment three was a mess. The governor issued an almost unheard-of 37-item veto reduction to correct mistakes. And some other passages were so poorly drafted that a follow-up supplemental appropriation bill could be needed to fix its many other problems.
This botched amendment is a metaphor for the entire spring session. Everything was deliberately back-loaded to the final week, and the two chambers were kept apart until May so members couldn’t work on fixing problems and, in the end, nobody had enough bandwidth to get everything right.
And if the budget is supposed to be the most important bill passed every year, then everybody clearly dropped the ball.
I do not see why they didn’t just adjourn at midnight on May 31 and call everybody back the following morning. Staff would have had more time to rest and work on the budget.
Instead, both chambers chose to remain in session until nearly dawn during a massive late-night final evening cram session like they were all a bunch of panicky sophomores.
The Democrats are constantly complaining about Trump’s assault on Illinois and other “blue” states. They’ve passed a few bills here in an attempt to rein in some of the excesses, but the only institution truly standing between Illinois and Trump is the attorney general’s office.
If Democrats are truly serious, then they should use the budget to back up their rhetoric.
- Irreverent - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 8:57 am:
If the cuts are necessary to balance the budget, and it’s not coming from the AG, to where should that $10M in cuts be allocated instead?
That said, politicians hurting their state and constituents because one guy hurt their pride isn’t exactly a new state of affairs. Politicians tend to consider their egos more valuable than our lives.
- Dirty Red - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 11:04 am:
Good reporting. Good column.
- Norseman - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 11:15 am:
I concur. IL needs a robust legal support system to fight the MAGA menace. Like IRS enforcement activities, it will bring in more money than spent on it.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 11:24 am:
But still $5M to the AG to fight retail theft.
- Chambanalyst - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 11:48 am:
How the legislators ended the session should be a total embarrassment to them. I cannot imagine how that would go over if I sat on my work until the very last minute, then submitted it, and then my boss had to issue an unprecedented number of fixes for it. And then I go on vacation!
Only the best “public service” in Illinois!
- Shell - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 11:50 am:
> For every dollar of General Revenue Fund spending on the attorney general’s office, we return $21.
Perhaps the other items the legislature funded return more than 21x?
I’d love 21x in my portfolio, unless I could get 28x.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 11:53 am:
===Perhaps the other items the legislature funded return more than 21x? ===
Sigh.
Please don’t argue like a child here.
- Frida's Boss - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 1:14 pm:
My guess is the Senate rightly assumes JB won’t let the AG lack the resources to keep achieving his victories. JB will designate or shift resources if an issue arises later in the fiscal year.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 1:17 pm:
=== JB will designate or shift resources===
He can’t do that on his own.
- Candy Dogood - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 1:26 pm:
Great column.
I don’t think the that the action of cutting the attorney general’s budget is defensible. If no one is going to own it, the governor owns it by default.
This is not the kind of thing I’d want to be trying to spin after a presidential primary debate when it is highlighted as very pertinent example of ‘talking big talk.’
- levivoted4judy - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 1:38 pm:
For a lot of not for profits that use federal grant funding to provide programming and services, the AG has been our MVP and Firewall this crazy year. We need him at full strength.
- Crespo - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 1:45 pm:
Rich, thank you and Isabel for highlighting the cut to the Attorney General’s budget this year. In 2024, your Blog mentioned my comments during the General Services Appropriation committee. Back then I instructed AG Kwame Raoul to go back to the drawing board and ask for more funding to specifically combat the Trump administration’s threats in court. Those were the only battles that we were winning at the time and continue to win today. Thanks to those efforts, the AG’s office obtained additional funding for FY26.
Recently, in response to ICE and Border Patrol presence in Hoffman Estates, I told the Daily Herald that I believe efforts should focus on the judicial system, where cases against ICE overstepping its authority are winning.
In my opinion, the budget cut to the AG’s office is illustrative of the lack of commitment to and awareness of how to effectively fight the abuses of ICE and Border Patrol agents and the Trump administration. Rather than talk tough and confront ICE agents to create content for their social media platforms, elected officials should concentrate their efforts on supporting agency initiatives like the ones championed by the AG’s office. Those are the actions that actually matter and make a difference.
The General Assembly needs to get serious about protecting constituents from ICE and Border Patrol abuses, and I hope the General Assembly corrects the underfunding of the AG’s office.
- Frida's Boss - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 2:31 pm:
Rich- didn’t mean the Governor would do it unilaterally, sorry. My guess is that if it comes to a lack of funds by veto session or the beginning of the next GA, a little supplemental appropriation would come through at the Governor’s behest.
Crespo- do you really think folks running for office would give up opportunities to parade in front of cameras instead of sitting through an entire session of appropriations hearings to know where the budget money comes from and goes to? That sounds like work. It also sounds like something folks being paid over $100k should know. Show ponies are going to show out.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 2:44 pm:
===a little supplemental appropriation===
That gets tricky because those bills are so rarely “little.”
- Amalia - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 2:57 pm:
third time should have been fine toothed by gov people. sometimes I wonder if JB’s law degree stuck with him. the understanding and support of the law a bit out there.
- Dotnonymous x - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 4:22 pm:
“We’re not going to let it happen that he can’t go to court or that he can’t do the things that are necessary to protect the people of the state of Illinois, but we’re all tightening our belts.”
“Tightening our belts” is hard to swallow coming from a billionaire…just saying.
- HUCKLEBERRY1926 - Tuesday, Jul 7, 26 @ 7:23 pm:
I rarely agree with Raul, but he is correct. There is a ROI that cannot be ignored.