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* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…
“If we didn’t pass something, we wouldn’t have gotten anything from law enforcement. We wouldn’t have gotten a serious conversation,” claimed state Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, recently about why the SAFE-T Act was originally written and passed the way it was.
Ford was speaking about the cash bail provisions within the SAFE-T Act during a public event in suburban Forest Park, according to the Forest Park Review.
Lots of folks on the other side of the negotiations were taking a hard “no” position, so a decision was essentially made to jam the bill through to eventually force the other side to the bargaining table.
The cash bail provision is the most discussed aspect of the law. But the original legislation also prevented police officers from using their body camera footage to write reports. The provision wasn’t designed to be permanent but was specifically inserted to make the other side adopt a good faith position at the bargaining table. It worked, and the provision was removed in a subsequent trailer bill.
The difference between these two topics, of course, is the end of cash bail has caused big public relations headaches for the Democratic Party in the lead-up to the general election, as state’s attorneys, sheriffs, police chiefs and others have denounced the law in a way that has put the majority party on the defensive.
But the Democrats have such large supermajorities with a new and more favorable legislative district map they apparently believed they could assume the risk.
Ford and others have said privately and publicly that some components of the law will have to be changed. But they are sticking with the overall concepts. And with less than three months before the elimination of cash bail and other provisions of the law take effect, maybe the gambit will work.
But it hasn’t come without political trouble for people like Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
I saw Pritzker at an event not long after he refused to answer a question from my associate Isabel Miller about what specific changes he would like to make to the SAFE-T Act. I warned him that, since he agreed the law needed to be changed, Isabel’s question wasn’t going away.
Well, the governor dodged the same question again and again during and after last week’s televised gubernatorial debate, saying only he wants unspecified “clarifications” to the law.
The governor likely didn’t want to insult the Black Caucus or have any sort of negative impact on the trailer bill discussions by publicly negotiating against his own side. He probably also didn’t want to cave to pressure from disingenuous actors and instead wanted to tough it out through the election and then deal with the issue in the post-election veto session.
Even so, campaigns ought to be about the exchange of ideas, and the governor’s refusal to engage deserved to be called out.
Besides, this shouldn’t be that difficult. For example, some are making wild claims about the law’s trespassing language.
Hinsdale Village President Tom Cauley recently said, according to the Hinsdale Patch, “I guarantee you that we’re going to find ourselves with people just camped out in parks, and we cannot ask them to leave. They may be in your backyard or in your shed living there.”
Nonsense.
The Illinois Supreme Court’s Implementation Task Force has officially advised law enforcement they “do have discretion to remove the person from the location of the alleged criminal activity, and then cite and release the person from another location.” Repeated refusals to comply could then easily be interpreted as being a threat, which would allow an arrest.
It just seems to me that tightening up the law’s language to fully reflect the task force’s guidance and resulting inference about arrests would be a no-brainer response to the question about changes he wants to make.
The list of forcible felonies that trigger provisions to hold people without bail could and should also be expanded, which even some proponents are saying behind the scenes.
And so, not long after I challenged Pritzker in my subscriber newsletter to step up, he did finally tell reporters on Friday he thought former prosecutor and now-state Sen. Scott Bennett’s, D-Champaign, proposed changes were worth a look but stopped short of endorsing any specifics in the Downstate Democrat’s bill.
Baby steps, I guess.
*** UPDATE *** Pritzker was asked again on KMOV what he’d like to see changed…
Some of the Republicans and the State’s Attorneys are misinforming people, I think for political reasons. And as a result I think we need to clarify in the law so that those State’s Attorneys don’t let people out of jail. That in fact, they should be kept in jail. And that there are no such things as non-detainable offenses. That’s just not a thing. It’s not accurate to say that it is in the SAFE-T Act. It’s not. But I think we can clarify it more so that the State’s Attorneys aren’t using this as a political ploy, and instead it’s just plain English for people to understand.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 8:31 am
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Elected law enforcement and the FOP seem to have done a real good job of insisting it is impossible for them to do their jobs without murdering innocent and unarmed people while also needing to hold people indefinitely without a trial based off of whatever crimes they have imagined that person committed. Instead of engaging in a process that recognizes a majority of state and the country believed that their industry of murdering people needed some reform, they said no to everything without reason and then ran to the fascists that cuddle their egos and tell them they’re perfect and make support for the police a part of their awful right wing campaigns, even though plenty of GOP nominees are fine with cops dying if they’re trying to stop a coup attempt by their orange dictator.
Comment by Candy Dogood Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 8:38 am
Why wouldn’t you want police officers to review body camera video before writing police reports? The video is what actually happenend. I don’t think it was a great idea to put things you don’t actually want in the bill just to try to encourage negotiations.
Comment by Three Dimensional Checkers Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 9:01 am
Bail pipeline shut down, dependent upon collection payment
Comment by Rabid Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 9:11 am
I can’t be the only one confused here:
“has officially advised law enforcement they ‘do have discretion to remove the person from the location of the alleged criminal activity, and then cite and release the person from another location.’ Repeated refusals to comply could then easily be interpreted as being a threat, which would allow an arrest.”
Having the discretion to remove people, repeated refusals could be interpreted a certain way which would allow for an arrest…is not the same as a per se violation. Right??
Comment by Torco Sign Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 9:23 am
Rich gets to the heart of the matter here …
“But the Democrats have such large supermajorities with a new and more favorable legislative district map they apparently believed they could assume the risk”
Comment by Donnie Elgin Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 9:41 am
Passing and signing sweeping, controversial “reforms” as a negotiating tactic? That’s so Illinois.
Comment by Captain Obvious Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 9:56 am
I believe you have to obey a policeman’s lawful order. Therefore I don’t know why a trespasser told to move and doesn’t move can’t be arrested for disobeying a police officer
Comment by DuPage Saint Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 9:59 am
My take is that the Dems were dealing with bad face law enforcement negotiators and pushed it. I don’t have a problem with that. However, in doing so, they needed to have a plan for the expected disinformation campaign. That is the Dem failure on this issue. A failure similar to that we saw on the Fair Tax initiative.
Comment by Norseman Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 10:04 am
If the states largest police union Fop 7 had someone at the helm that legislators wanted to deal with they could have had a seat at the table and possibly could have drafted a better bill.
Comment by Regular democrat Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 10:05 am
Democrats always think the failure is the messaging but never the message
Comment by Lucky Pierre Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 10:14 am
Considering all the proponents of the bill in its current state are not willing to accept any changes, it seems that Ford purposely misled them.
Comment by City Zen Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 10:47 am
==If we didn’t pass something==
Never a good way to start off legislation.
Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 10:57 am
==always think the failure is the messaging but never the message==
Umm, that sums up you in a nutshell. You are always irritated that nobody buys into your message.
Comment by Demoralized Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 10:58 am
John Oliver had a segment yesterday on the topic of crime reporting and the police being dishonest brokers of information.
I enjoy how law enforcement crows about the SAFE-T Act without first apologizing for their unfounded claims about legalized cannabis.
Comment by Jocko Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 12:15 pm
=I enjoy how law enforcement crows about the SAFE-T Act without first apologizing for their unfounded claims about legalized cannabis.=
What? You mean chinese and Mexican gangs have not moved in to small town USA to mass produce weed?
Next thing you will tell me is that water is wet.
But you are spot on.
Comment by JS Mill Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 12:18 pm
- Democrats always think the failure is the messaging but never the message -
And yet they completely dominate Illinois government. Could it possibly be that most Illinois voters aren’t big on the GOP message?
Comment by Excitable Boy Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 12:22 pm
On June 30th, 2010, there were 47,424 inmates in state custody. Of those inmates, 23,948 were sentenced in Cook County. There are now 29,245 inmates total in the Illinois state prison system and of those, 12,474 were sentenced in Cook County.
Pritzker should have used these stats in pushing for a more moderate SAFE-T act - He can still use them now as a shield against those to the left of him that will not be satisfied until prisons are closed.
Comment by Chicagonk Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 12:30 pm
I’m going to keep laughing at the Dems while hoping that their consistent blunders on criminal justice don’t do damage at the ballot box. stop thinking of offenders first and think of victims first and proceed from there.
Comment by Amalia Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 1:00 pm
“Democrats always think the failure is the messaging but never the message”
Republicans always think the failure is the messaging but never the message.
Libertarians always think the failure is the messaging but never the message.
Greens always think the failure is the messaging but never the message.
Fairly universal, I think.
Comment by Proud Sucker Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 1:04 pm
To the post,
Rich’s work always speaks for itself, so many times I find myself in agreement, and even disagreement, but I can’t argue with the truth to the work.
I say that because this;
===Well, the governor dodged the same question again and again during and after last week’s televised gubernatorial debate, saying only he wants unspecified “clarifications” to the law.
The governor likely didn’t want to insult the Black Caucus or have any sort of negative impact on the trailer bill discussions by publicly negotiating against his own side. He probably also didn’t want to cave to pressure from disingenuous actors and instead wanted to tough it out through the election and then deal with the issue in the post-election veto session.===
This is the ball game. Full stop. Here’s why.
It can be argued, I am one that has, that the governor, attorney general, proponents, they all decided upon signature NOT to hedge, even with such a historical piece of legislation.
“This is a first step”, “This is a historic beginning”, “Today marks the base of where we need to begin with this law”
None of that. Zero.
There seemed to be, even that day, a nod or tip that trailer bill(s) are gonna happen, the wait before it began was always going to be problematic because… waiting for a bill to become actual law is the hobgoblin of the hand ringers and worry warts.
It’s not that messaging was lost, though the case to that is pretty strong if not sit tight, it’s that the framing of what was done, and what could be done, and what was left to be done… became all that was undone.
That’s the biggest failure.
Rich’s writing I grabbed crystallized so much of where the effect is of that cause… leaving behind the options to make the strongest case before January…
“Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good”
It was never perfect, but the opponents wanted it to seem that those who favor the Act, find it, well, perfect.
The rest? The rest is Rich. He’s on it, and on it where others might not go that deep, or be as critical to all.
Now we wait, first to “November”, then Veto, January, and beyond.
Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 1:41 pm
=== instead it’s just plain English for people to understand.===
Solid advice, but why wasn’t it that way in the first place?
The Governor’s office has lawyers that don’t get the politics, and political advisors who do not get the law. The best way to avoid that is to write legislation in plain English. Which, ironically, has been a push from the bar associations and legal aid advocates for about two decades.
President Obama in fact adopted Plain English standards for federal regulations in 2010, influenced heavily by advocates in Illinois who, apparently, were not at the table for the SAFE-T Act or Cannabis law.
Every administration needs atleast two people that can read a bill and understand what it says and doesn’t say, and also understand the politics of what it does and doesn’t say. And someone, somewhere, has to understand how it will be implemented.
Was there no prosecutor advising the administration, not even on the down low?
$250K a year doesn’t buy what it used to.
Comment by Lincoln Lawyer Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 3:16 pm
It is difficult to talk about the PFA part of the SAFE T Act without having read it closely, without reading the flow charts and considerations put out by the Implementation Task Force, and without watching the Task Force’s town halls, all of which are on the IL Supreme Court’s website.
There are actually a lot of good faith stakeholders in the criminal justice system who are trying to make the PFA workable while keeping the core tenets of it. They may not all agree on everything, but they are attempting to work together. For example, the “100 State’s Attorneys” have many differing, nuanced views.
It is a complex topic that doesn’t comport well with 60 second debate answers or 30 second sound bites. It is also one where it is very easy for the pols to misspeak often about it. I wonder how many of them have actually taken the time to read the info provided by the Implementation Task Force. Including the Gubernatorial candidates.
This is a smart group here. Don’t take the pols word for it. Go to the IL Supreme Court website and learn about it. I see several comments here made by smart posters who unfortunately do not appear to have actually read the info I am referring to.
Comment by BCOSEC Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 3:27 pm
I read the SAFE-T Act this week, and I do not see anything problematic - certainly, nothing captured in the rhetoric.
But I guess as long as people do not read, then anything is possible.
Comment by H-W Tuesday, Oct 11, 22 @ 4:43 pm