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Governor Pritzker on a third term, veto session, budget forecast, federal grants

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Illinois

* Gov. Pritzker was asked today about what’s next for him politically…

Mary Ann Ahern: What’s next for you? Third term? Run for president? What’s the plan?

Governor Pritzker: As you know, the work that I do now as governor is work that I love doing. And there is in the wake of the Tuesday election, I think back to my first days in office, my first two years in office, where Donald Trump was president and we had to defend Illinois against an awful lot of policies that the Trump administration was imposing, that we needed to make sure we were addressing.

And so I think that work is going to continue. And I don’t have anything to announce today, but I promise you, Mary Ann, you’ll be among the first to know if I have something to announce about running for reelection, and I have no plans for anything else.

Please pardon all transcription errors.

* The governor was asked about his veto session agenda…

Tribune Reporter Jeremy Gorner: Are there any state laws on the books now that you think warrant some kind of review to see as a precaution, to see if they need to be strengthened, that perhaps could be taken up in veto session or lame duck in light of any possible federal action the Trump administration may take against them.

Governor Pritzker: Thank you for asking the question, It’s an extraordinarily relevant question. As you can imagine in months past and indeed, over years past, we’ve thought a lot about what happens if the administration in Washington changes. If the tone changes, would that have a negative effect on Illinois? And how do we shore up and make sure we’re protecting people here? So we’ve done a lot of work on that, and I think you’ve seen that in some of the bills that were passed in the last session and the session before. And even over the summer as we thought about what more needs to be done.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with my senior staff to talk about exactly this. Indeed, I talked to some other governors around the country about the things that they’re looking at doing. And so we’re gathering, I would call it, a list of things that we may need to address, maybe not during a veto session, but maybe [it] can be done in the new year.

There is time to do that, but, but suffice to say that we have a lot of work that that we’re looking at doing, but I feel like a lot of that work has been done over the last five and a half years to protect the people of Illinois from something terrible happening at the federal level or some attack on Illinois residents.

Gorner: Any specific topic areas?

Pritzker: You can imagine what all the- health care, reproductive rights, you can go down the list of, you know, there are areas where I think you can imagine the people who woke up on Wednesday morning and saw the results they didn’t already see them on Tuesday night. And there are many people whose lives and livelihoods are at risk, and there are many people who cried at the result because they know what impact it may have on their families. So think about that.

* Background is here if you need it. Regarding the budget…

Reporter: I want to ask about the GOMB report from last week, the office saying that there could be a $3 billion deficit without some changes. How are you thinking about filling that and is income tax, or other kind of personal tax on the table for this upcoming year?

Governor: The General Assembly and I have balanced the budget every year. When I came into office the projections were that everything was going to go south immediately and we wouldn’t be able to recover from it. We balanced the budget every year. Indeed, we ran surpluses.

So we’re going to balance the budget again. This is a forecast that’s made every year, looking five years forward, assuming no changes in any laws. Forget about revenue, It’s just generally no changes in law, no changes in efficiencies, etc. It’s a kind of a flat projection forecast and it’s been wrong every year. I guess you might say or, you know, we’ve defeated it, you know, every year and so. So I think we’re going to submit abudget to the General Assembly. I know I’m going to submit a budget to the General Assembly in February, like I have every year over the past six years, and it’ll be balanced.

* On to federal grants…

Reporter: What should state do if Trump withholds federal funding for police grants, he goes through the mass deportations?

Pritzker: To the extent that these things are nonpartisan grants that are decided by independent groups within the agencies, which happens for most grants. It would be illegal for the Trump administration to stop those grants from flowing, and so we would take action if we saw that happen. trying to think about any other grant related stuff-

Reporter: He claims that he would survive legal challenges.

Pritzker: I don’t know what to say, except that that it would be illegal if he did it and and I presume that the courts would find it so. We certainly would take action and work with our attorney general to do so.

posted by Isabel Miller
Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:09 am

Comments

We are very fortunate to have Governor Pritzker at the helm during these chaotic and troubling times.

Comment by AlfondoGonz Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:23 am
With the incoming storm, I would not fault any remotely sane person to just throw up their hands and plan to retire.

But Pritzker does have a pretty darn good track record of advancing Dem agendas and serving as bulwark against the GOP, at least when he’s not trying to pass a constitutional amendment, I mean. Hope he does push for a) a third term in 2026, and then b) a run for the presidency in 2028. He can do both simultaneously while not mentioning the latter through simple sane governance and advancing Dem agendas locally while fighting against GOP overreach from above.

Comment by TJ Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:24 am
Response to Election Day results: hopefully NOT doubling down on issues that caused voters to vote against the Democratic agenda. Wishing someone in that meeting he mentioned showed the movement to the Republican candidate

Comment by NotRich Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:24 am
Oh, and guv? Please get with Duckworth and lean HEAVILY on Durbin to not run for reelection in 2026. The Democratic Party flat out needs to absolutely run away from the trend of sticking with 80+ year olds just because. If he wants to be a semi-retired party elder, by all means go ahead, but we need young blood and vigor in the positions to fight against Trump and his cronies.

Comment by TJ Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:28 am
Not Rich, What are those issues?

Comment by very old soil Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:33 am
“Wishing someone in that meeting he mentioned showed the movement to the Republican candidate”

Voters kept the Democratic supermajority and by extension Democratic policies. They just didn’t want to vote for the mixed-race woman.

Comment by Grandson of Man Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:46 am
Third term is his upon announcement.

For those who want to chime in with “what about Tuesday”, well, what ILGOP member disavows Trump to win the suburbs.

Not to mention, the honeymoon with 47 will be so short as to be non-existent.

Comment by Flyin'Elvis'-Utah Chapter Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:53 am
=Voters kept the Democratic supermajority and by extension Democratic policies. They just didn’t want to vote for the mixed-race woman=

Are you referring to the Ill GA in the first sentence and Harris in the second sentence?

Comment by Mason County Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 11:54 am
The reporter on police grants needs to go back to school. The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act and the Anti-Deficiency Act mandate if Congress appropriates money for a purpose, the appropriation must be expended. Trump trying to impose “conditions” on Ukrainian funds was illegal.

Comment by Anyone Remember Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:02 pm
=They just didn’t want to vote for the mixed-race woman.=

@Grandson of Man- I really hope that isn’t the reason. I hope their reason was something else. I can accept policy differences etc. but that would be a genuine indictment of our nation.

Comment by JS Mill Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:06 pm
“I hope their reason was something else. ”

@JS Mill

When you consider Tammy Baldwin won re-election in Wisconsin and Elissa Slotkin won her race in Michigan, it’s hard to believe VP Harris lost those states based on anything more than old-fashioned bigotry.

I share your hope, though.

Comment by AlfondoGonz Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:19 pm
=== I really hope that isn’t the reason. ===

I have studied race a long time, professionally. It would simply be wrong to suggest race did not count for some of the voting pattern. Similarly it would be wrong to suggest gender did not account for some of the voting pattern. We have seen this too many times to ignore it (e.g., Douglas Wilder of Virginia the pre-election polls and exit polling for his candidacy were significantly higher than the actual voting tally showed).

Obama owned the race issue early, and that helped his candidacy. But Harris’s loss was partially about race and gender. Otherwise, Trump would not have declared immediately that he didn’t know she was Black, and not have feign a fear to use the B-word.

That said, there were issues with the candidacy that also contributed to the loss.

Comment by H-W Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:25 pm
Worth noting that globally, incumbent parties in 2024 reduced their vote share relative to the previous election by 10 percentage points. Democrats decreased their vote share by 5-6 points nationally and ~3 points in swing states. Democrats absolutely need to think about what they can do better in blue states (build housing!) but we’re in a period of global anti-incumbency backlash in response to COVID, and you have to acknowledge that.

Comment by NewToSpringfield Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:25 pm
Bigotry? She was an awful, inauthentic and nearly inarticulate candidate who ran a gaffe filled, pandering campaign based on hate for opponent.

Comment by Captain Obvious Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:32 pm
@ Captain Obvious -

That’s “he”, not “she”.

Comment by JoanP Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 12:52 pm
He was an awful, inauthentic and nearly inarticulate candidate who ran a gaffe filled, pandering campaign based on hate for all his opponents and people not like him.

Comment by SaulGoodman Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 1:00 pm
==based on hate==

Trump ran a hate based campaign too. People just subscribed to his brand of hate more.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 1:06 pm
@NewToSpringfield

@NewtoSpringfield

I think there’s real truth to that. Speaking with some (formerly?) moderate friends online and in-person, and they had a hard time taking the Trump as a tyrant attack seriously, saying that Democrats were the ones that “forced people inside and closed businesses” because of COVID. Fairly or not, I think we’re still feeling the political blowback of the pandemic and how it was handled.

Comment by Treefiddy Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 1:08 pm
==Indeed, we ran surpluses.==

Yet when the Fair Tax failed, JB predicted there would be painful cuts. Then we went from painful cuts to surpluses with no tax increase. JB never said what saved the day, so only he knows how to fix things.

So why not just simply duplicate what we did in 2020? Problem solved.

Comment by City Zen Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 1:23 pm
“nearly inarticulate candidate who ran a gaffe filled, pandering campaign”

That inauthentic pandering was worse than a campaign filled with racism against black and brown people, including the MSG rally.

That voters chose this over Harris’ inauthenticity is a statement of values.

But to the topic, hope that JB stays in Illinois. RFK Jr. is going to be in charge of the country’s health. States need to be strong to counteract a major regression, public health wise. Clean energy will be attacked, even as the country experiences extreme weather events due to climate damage.

Comment by Grandson of Man Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 1:31 pm
==Problem solved.==

You continue to amaze me with your flippant arrogance.

Comment by Demoralized Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 1:55 pm
=I can accept policy differences etc. but that would be a genuine indictment of our nation.=

The majority of the country voted for a convicted felon running against a former prosecutor. Sometimes the truth is staring us right in the face.

Comment by Pundent Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 2:11 pm
There’s a comment somewhere up thread about the IL election results for President being closer than in 2020. True of course if you look at the numbers; Harris won by only half of Biden’s margin.

But look at the raw votes and what you see is Trump getting almost exactly the same # of votes as in 2020 in IL. There was no surge of Trump voters in IL. What happened is that Harris is on track to get way fewer votes in IL than Biden got.

I won’t use this thread to discuss my views on why. But anyone who thinks that Biden voters flipped to Trump or Trump turned out new voters is wrong. Margins decreased in IL and other states flipped to Trump because 2020 Biden voters did not vote in 2024.

Comment by IL election results Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 3:30 pm
===But look at the raw votes and what you see is Trump getting almost exactly the same # of votes as in 2020 ===

They’re not done counting yet. Take a breath and wait.

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Nov 7, 24 @ 3:38 pm