* Gov. JB Pritzker’s convention speech as prepared for delivery…
Fellow Democrats, welcome to Chicago!
We’re a great American city in a proud blue state. Our patriotism was formed in frost and in fire, and in the steel we forged to survive both.
Our love of country has been a tapestry of faith that weaves from Abraham Lincoln reuniting a house divided to Barack Obama declaring blue states and red states make one United States.
Illinois’ presidential pedigree is unmatched. And given that Vice President Kamala Harris spent some of her early life right here – I speak for the entire Illinois delegation when I say we claim her too!
Now, one president we will never claim is the con artist the Republicans nominated in Milwaukee last month.
Donald Trump once called Chicago “embarrassing.” To quote a great Chicagoan who won six world championships on these very grounds: “We take that personally.”
I had to govern for two years while Trump was President. Let me tell you what’s embarrassing.
In Illinois, we passed a massive bill to fix our roads and bridges. When Donald proposed his own plan, he turned right around and called it “stupid.”
We eliminated the grocery tax. Donald hasn’t been in a grocery store since his first bankruptcy.
Illinois invested in clean energy and the jobs it brings. Donald claimed that windmills in the ocean made the whales “a little batty.”
During COVID we supported small businesses and jobs. And Donald, well Donald told us to inject bleach.
Donald Trump thinks we should trust him on the economy because he claims to be very rich.
Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.
I meet with business leaders all the time, and there is one universal thing they all need: people. They need more workers to fill all the jobs they have – but the anti-freedom, anti-family policies of MAGA Republicans are driving workers away.
Here’s the thing, Americans don’t want to be forced to drive 100 miles to deliver a baby because draconian abortion laws shut down the maternity ward.
Americans want the hope of giving birth through IVF – not the fear it might be taken away.
Americans with LGBTQ kids don’t want them facing discrimination at school because the state sanctioned it.
Americans want to go to their neighborhood grocery store and not have to worry about some random guy open carrying an AR-15.
Americans don’t want their kids to be taught in history class that slavery was a jobs program.
And if Americans are Black or brown, they want to get promoted at work without being derided as a DEI hire for the sin of being successful while not white.
Let’s be clear, it’s not woke that limits economic growth – it’s weird. These guys aren’t just weird, they’re dangerous.
Democrats are for lower taxes and higher wages, less inflation and more business growth. We just think it’s wrong to craft those policies for Elon Musk - and not for everyday working people. That includes a secure retirement and good healthcare. We think the government should help you prosper, not police who you’re sleeping with.
More than anything Democrats want economic policies that are kind, not cruel.
But Trump chooses cruelty every time. After all, everything he’s achieved in his own life has been by hurting - someone else.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz? Well, they’ve spent their lives lifting people up rather than pushing them down. They know that a White House that leads with kindness looks at someone who is struggling and sees not what they might cost society but what they might create for it.
They want policies that give every American a chance to make it to the middle class.
They want to grow small businesses and cut taxes for everyday people.
More than anything – Kamala Harris and Tim Walz want a country where we can all live with a little serenity. The serenity that comes with a balanced checkbook, an affordable grocery bill, and a housing market that has room for everyone.
And if there’s one thing I know about Donald Trump – he’s not bringing anyone any kind of serenity.
We have a choice, America. Between the man who left our country a total mess -and the woman who has spent four years cleaning it up. And I think it’s time we stop expecting women to clean up messes without the authority and the title to match the job.
Vice President was a good title for Kamala Harris. You know an even better one?
President of the United States of America!
Let’s go get ‘em!
* Senate Republican Leader John Curran…
Gov. Pritzker’s DNC speech and his actual record in Illinois could not be more starkly disconnected. He contends to be for lower taxes just months after imposing $1 billion in tax increases on Illinois families and businesses, while presiding over a state with the second-highest property taxes in the country. He boasts of support for low-income families in the same year that he proposed a regressive tax increase that would only raise taxes on low- and middle-income earners. He says he supports policies for working people while overseeing the state with the second-highest unemployment rate in the nation. It’s time for Gov. Pritzker to take a break from his national campaigning and focus on the job he was elected to, and Think Illinois
…Adding… ILGOP…
Wow, the circus is in town this week! Where is the joy they promised us? All we heard last night were negative, false attacks. JB Pritzker is a shill for his ringmaster Kamala Harris amid his own preparations for a presidential run in 2028. Instead of telling Illinois families why they should raise their families here, as thousands flee the state amid billions in new taxes and out-of-control crime, JB Pritzker further divided our state with divisive rhetoric and bad-faith arguments. See for yourself:
• JB Pritzker bragged about being a billionaire, while taking the toilets out of his mansion to defraud Illinois from property taxes.
• Pritzker claims to be a champion for lower taxes, but in reality, he has proposed BILLIONS in new taxes that will hurt Illinois families.
• 85,000 fewer Illinoisans are working than in 2019, and Illinois has the second worst unemployment rate in the country - despite Pritzker’s claims that he is a champion for working families.
“Last night, JB Pritzker not only claimed Kamala Harris as an Illinoisan, but also claimed her horrid record on immigration, the economy and failures for families across the Prairie State,” said ILGOP Chair Kathy Salvi. “Pritzker is a failure for Illinois and families are worse off under his far-left policies that have raised taxes and forced families to flee the state. One thing is clear from Democrats’ divisive agenda and Pritzker’s prime-time speaking spot - the need to vote Republican in November.”
* More from Isabel…
* Block Club | Obamas, Pritzker Bring The Energy — And Clap Back At Trump: Pritzker, who was in contention to be Harris’ running mate earlier this summer, received thunderous cheers for one of his comments. “Donald Trump thinks that we should trust him on the economy, because he claims to be very rich,” Pritzker said. “But take it from an actual billionaire. Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.”
* Tribune | Gov. JB Pritzker hammers Donald Trump in DNC speech: ‘Take it from an actual billionaire, Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity’: In a bit of awkward programming, Pritzker’s speech was preceded by Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who railed against the “billionaire class” and “the need to get big money out of our political process.” “Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections,” said Sanders, who received a more enthusiastic reaction than Pritzker from the United Center crowd. Pritzker spent more than $300 million of his own money to win two elections as governor in Illinois and gave at least $27 million to the Democratic Governors Association two years ago to spend on boosting his preferred opponent in the 2022 GOP primary for governor.
* Capitol News Illinois | In primetime DNC speech, Pritzker leans into role of benevolent billionaire: “Donald Trump thinks that we should trust him on the economy, because he claims to be very rich,” the second-term governor said during a primetime speech at the Democratic National Convention. “But take it from an actual billionaire – Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity.” Pritzker, who is worth an estimated $3.4 billion thanks in large part to inherited family wealth from Hyatt Hotels, is the wealthiest current elected official in the U.S. And in the more than seven years since he declared his candidacy for governor, Pritzker has not shied away from pouring cash into not only his own election bids but campaigns up and down the ballot.
* Crain’s | After years of prep, Pritzker finally gets his DNC star turn: “We have a choice America, between the man who left our country a total mess and the woman who has spent four years cleaning it up,” Pritzker told the delegates gathered at the United Center during his prime-time speaking slot. “I think it’s time we stop expecting women to clean up messes without the authority and the title to match the job.”
* SJ-R | Obama’s 2004 DNC speech kickstarted national rise. Could the same hold true for Pritzker?: Pritzker and Obama took the stage separately Tuesday evening during day two of the Democratic National Convention. U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, and Tammy Duckworth, D-Hoffman Estates, in addition to former First Lady Michelle Obama have also delivered speeches. The vision the 59-year-old governor shared including bolstering support for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris and touting what is possible under Democratic leadership as seen in Illinois.
* It looks like the protest organizers did their part to keep the peace yesterday. From the Sun-Times, which had seven (7!) reporters assigned to yesterday’s protest…
The protesters who hit Chicago’s streets during the Democratic National Convention’s first 24 hours have been lively, passionate and mostly peaceful — and so far defied fears that the city would relive violence etched in so many memories since 1968. […]
Dozens breach security perimeter
All remained peaceful until shortly before 5 p.m., when people broke through part of the security perimeter fence near the United Center. Police officers were soon seen carrying batons and wearing gas masks and riot gear.
Chicago Sun-Times reporters spotted five gaps in the security fence. Dozens of people had breached it — including members of the media. But officers ultimately converged toward the intruders from two directions, squeezing them back out of the perimeter. Some people fell, including a TV camera operator.
The people who breached the fence were not among the organizers of the march. Rather, they had earlier tried to lead demonstrators off of the approved march route, toward the United Center.
Protest marshals working with the March on the DNC urged the crowds to stay on the approved route, and they did.
Later Monday, when demonstrators returned to Union Park, police issued two dispersal orders after some people began setting up a tent encampment. The tension was soon dissipated, and the crowds eventually left peacefully.
Only about 100 people were part of the faction involved in the security breach. The vast majority of people involved in the protest were peaceful and had left the scene by the time the breach happened.
The day was marred by only one fairly minor skirmish. As protest leaders kept marching later in the afternoon, several protesters broke down the first barrier of the security perimeter along Washington Boulevard just north of the United Center. They faced the police officers in a line, shouting, “Quit your job! Quit your job!”
Officers moved in and formed several lines of defense where the fence was down, while some protesters could be seen throwing their wooden signs at the police. Other officers in riot gear came in from behind the protesters and corralled them back into the park using batons, to keep the situation from escalating.
The police put the broken pieces of the fence back into place, then lined up facing the wall of people. […]
Billed as the March on the DNC 2024, organizers said more than 250 separate groups were part of the demonstration. Rally programming in Union Park kicked off around 12:30 p.m. before a crowd of about 2,000 people, including scores of credentialed journalists.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said some of the protesters who took down the fence threw water bottles and other items at police. Police de-escalated the situation without using their batons or chemicals, he said.
“When you have people infiltrate a crowd and they want to commit acts of violence, vandalism we are going to stop them,” said Snelling, who walked in a group of officers ahead of the protesters Monday. “We are not going to tolerate anyone who is going to vandalize things in our city.”
Members of the crowd chanted “End the occupation now” and then “The whole world is watching!” just as anti-Vietnam War protesters did during the infamous 1968 convention in Chicago when police clashed with protesters on live television.
* I posted this yesterday, but one of the defining moments of yesterday’s protest was when the marchers had to pause so they could ask reporters to please get the heck out of their way…
U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) shared his thoughts after protesters broke through the security perimeter.
“We were briefed on the security at the convention multiple times by homeland security, CPD, FBI and so forth. This was what we were told was unscalable, unbreachable fencing. This isn’t supposed to be happening.”
Another big concern Tuesday night is a protest planned outside the Israeli Consulate. That protest is not permitted by the city.
* More…
* Protests threaten to overshadow DNC: The large number of demonstrators anticipated in the city has already evoked comparisons to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, which was also held in Chicago and saw large numbers of protesters clash with police.
The protest zone Chicago set up for the DNC is totally dead today.
A few dozen cops, several journalists, but zero protesters were there around 1:15 pm today. The city gave protesters a make-shift stage & big speakers. Twenty-nine groups signed up for spots this week. pic.twitter.com/1V5Kt6nlcM
* As we discussed, House Speaker Chris Welch was asked yesterday how the Illinois Legislative Staff Association’s lawsuit affects his message on workers’ rights. A reporter asked Senate President Don Harmon this morning why his chamber hasn’t moved a bill that would allow staff to unionize…
Reporter: Could you weigh in, there’s so much talk about labor. We asked Speaker Welch yesterday, does Illinois need to remove its contingents in law that are hindering the ability for General Assembly employees to unionize. There’s so much talk about labor, why not them?
President Harmon: The one thing that’s become crystal clear from this litigation is that the bill the House passed does not accomplish the objectives of either side. I hope that the House leadership and staff will get together and solve their own problems.
[garbled follow up question]
Harmon: Again, I think the bill, as it passed, the House was a nonstarter. I think the staff would agree with that, and did so in their pleadings. I’m hoping the House will get together internally and come up with those solutions.
I think everybody understands, including the staff, that there are fatal flaws in the bill. And again, I hope that the House leadership and staff will get together and work out their own problems.
Downtown Chicago hotels that were counting on a Democratic National Convention bump in business might need a late surge of reservations to pull it off, based on booking data ahead of next week’s event.
As of Aug. 5, visitors have booked between 63% and 70% of downtown hotel rooms during the four days of the convention, which kicks off Aug. 19, according to data tracked by real estate information company CoStar Group. Those occupancy rates are slightly below the numbers downtown hotels saw during the comparable week of August last year, CoStar data shows
I reached out to CoStar and asked if they had any updated numbers. Turns out, those Crain’s numbers compared apples to oranges. Here is what CoStar told me about 2023 hotel occupancy in the Chicago business district for this year’s DNC dates…
On the books (42-45%), Actualized (63-75%)
The most recent 2024 numbers Costar has are for August 12…
On the books (60-68%), Actualized (TBD)
Crain’s was comparing actual numbers last year to pre-booked numbers this year.
However, if past is prologue, we can likely expect that the eventual “actualized” number to be significantly higher than the “on the books” number, which is from a week before the DNC began.
* Meanwhile, this is from the Washington Post yesterday…
The Democrats’ 2024 convention seemed likely to unfold with echoes of the unrest that disrupted the ’68 gathering. And it’s still possible, with an estimated 40,000 demonstrators expected to gather Monday to protest the Biden administration’s position on the war in Gaza.
Organizers of the Coalition to March on the DNC had predicted a crowd of tens of thousands as recently as Monday morning, noting that buses of protesters had arrived from out of state. But by afternoon, spare protest signs littered the ground and fewer than 2,000 protesters filled a portion of Chicago’s Union Park, according to police stationed nearby who had surveyed the area with a drone.
UPDATE: About 2,000-3,000 people are now rallying in Union Park before a planned march past the DNC HQ at the United Center. One speaker called out the “politicians who are sanctioning the mass murder of Palestinians … having a celebration in our city.”https://t.co/lESL85jcNk
The group of protesters marching down Washington Boulevard was briefly split into two groups but have re-organized in the face of a roadblock — the media.
Photographers and a gaggle of media are getting in the way of the protest route. The protest briefly stopped to tell camera crews to get out of the way.
President Joe Biden on Friday designated a national monument to commemorate a 1908 race riot in Springfield, Illinois, that left several people dead, hundreds injured and destroyed dozens of Black-owned businesses and homes. […]
A ceremony held on Friday in the Oval Office featured civil rights leaders and community leaders from Springfield, which is also former President Abraham Lincoln’s hometown.
“We’ve made a lot of progress but we can’t never stop,” Biden said during the event, adding that it was important for people to remember what had happened. […]
“The new national monument will tell the story of a horrific attack by a white mob on a Black community that was representative of the racism, intimidation, and violence that Black Americans experienced across the country,” the White House said in a statement.
The events in Springfield — the hometown of President Abraham Lincoln — were spurred by the July 1908 murder of a white resident, allegedly at the hands of a Black man. Tensions worsened a month later when another Black man was accused of raping a white woman.
The alleged rape victim later admitted to lying to cover up a consensual affair she was having with a white man.
In August, a white mob of thousands terrorized the city’s 2,500 Black residents. Citizens were attacked and brutalized, and the riots resulted in the arson of dozens of Black-owned homes and businesses. Parts of the rampage took place just a few blocks from Lincoln’s family home. […]
“One of the really shocking things about the well-publicized Springfield race riot — and its association with Abraham Lincoln — was that the North had a race problem,” Senechal de la Roche told NPR in 2008.
The crimes against the city’s Black residents so horrified Black people across the country that it inspired the formation of the NAACP, which remains in existence today.
As many as 1,000 people marched to the black business district and destroyed and looted virtually every black business downtown. The crowd moved to a nearby, very large, working-class and poor African-American neighborhood, where most blacks had either hidden themselves or left town.
The white mob “went from one end to the other looting homes, damaging homes and ultimately setting them on fire. By the time they were through, they’d displaced at least 40 families,” Senechal de la Roche says. The state militia arrived and found the mob preparing to lynch a black barber.
On the second day of rioting, the rioters began targeting high-status African-Americans. The mob’s first target was an 80-year-old retired cobbler and real estate dealer named William Donnegan. An excerpt from In Lincoln’s Shadow describes the crowd’s horrific actions:
The old man was dragged outside to the front yard and beaten with bricks torn up from the sidewalk. One rioter produced a razor and cut Donnegan’s throat. Dragging the dying man to the street, the rioters tied a small cotton clothesline around his neck and tried to hoist him to the limb of a small maple tree in front of the school across the street. When the militia and police arrived, most of the crowd had already fled, and the authorities could do nothing but cut William Donnegan down and carry him off.
Senechal de la Roche says Springfield residents resorted to this level of violence to avenge the two alleged victims and, because the “largely working-class rioters were expressing resentment over visible black success and influence in the community.”
* Courtesy of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum…
The monument will be located at the uncovered site of the race riot. The announcement came after several actions by community members and organizations to push for national recognition of the site.
“It’s important to educate the current generation as well as future generations, and this monument will stand alongside Lincoln and everything about Lincoln,” said Ken Page, President of the Springfield chapter of the ACLU and member of the 1908 Race Riot Monument Committee. “So maybe Springfield will eventually live up to Lincoln’s legacy of equality, justice, and all those other things.”
The monument will have national impacts as well, as it is the first time the site of a lynching has been memorialized, according to Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13). She says it’s important that we recognize the bad parts of our history.
“We’re going to honor our history, which is often a complicated history, a dark history, but that we’re going to honor it and tell it truthfully, and we’re going to look forward, and that we have a lot of work to do,” said Budzinski. “We must tell the story, tell the truth, tell the history of our community. And again, it’s about the progress that we still need to make.”
…Adding… Sen. Tammy Duckworth…
U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) today joined President Joe Biden in the Oval Office for the President’s signing ceremony to officially declare the 1908 Springfield Race Riot Site as a national monument to be managed by the U.S. National Park Service through an Antiquities Act proclamation. Duckworth has been a steadfast leader in securing national monument recognition for the 1908 Springfield Race Riot Site, a critical event in American history that spurred the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). With less than a quarter of National Parks devoted to recognizing the histories of diverse peoples and cultures, designating the 1908 Race Riot Site a national monument will help guarantee that public lands reflect the diversity of our country.
“The 1908 Springfield Race Riot site is of extraordinary cultural and historical importance to our state and to this country—a searing, horrific incident that galvanized the creation of the NAACP,” Duckworth said. “I’ve been working for years to designate this site as a national monument to help ensure the painful lessons learned here will not be lost for the generations of Americans to come. I’m proud that President Biden took action to help ensure this history is properly honored and making our national parks better reflect our nation’s people and stories.”
116 years ago this week, a violent mob of white residents murdered at least six Black Americans, burned down Black homes and businesses and attacked hundreds of residents for no other reason than the color of their skin. Duckworth began calling for national monument recognition in 2018, first leading the Springfield 1908 Race Riot National Monument Act, with U.S Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), in 2019 and again in 2021. Last year they re-introduced the legislation, which was reported favorably out of committee, with U.S. Representative Nikki Budzinski (D-IL-13) introducing companion legislation in the House.
During an excavation as part of the Springfield High Speed Rail project, foundations and artifacts from homes destroyed during the riot were uncovered. An agreement with community members was reached in 2018 to excavate the remains and designate the uncovered site a memorial.
Duckworth has made elevating disenfranchised communities and their stories one of her main priorities while in Congress. Last year, after continued efforts from Duckworth, the Biden Administration designated the church that held Emmett Till’s pivotal open-casket wake in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood as a national monument. Duckworth’s leadership was critical in the site designation, originally introducing the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley, and Roberts Temple National Historic Site Act in 2021 and again in 2023.
