Pritzker increasingly in national spotlight
Apr. 28—National attention
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is still a nobody on the national political stage, but national media outlets are starting to pay increased attention to his unannounced 2028 presidential campaign.
On the same day last week, both The Wall Street Journal and Politico published lengthy profiles of the governor.
"America's Second-Richest Elected Official Is Acting Like He Wants to Be President," headlined the Journal.
It described him as "one of the top Democrats being watched as his party searches for a way out of the political wilderness."
"J.B. Pritzker burnishes his national brand as one of Trump's fiercest critics," Politico reported.
Pritzker's Trump-bashing is nothing new. But Politico noted that "the fiery progressive Democratic ... (is) making high-profile appearances across the country, using his vast personal wealth to bankroll Democratic causes and pillorying the divisive policies of President Donald Trump."
This kind of publicity is always helping in establishing candidate name recognition with voters as well as establishing credibility when the governor introduces himself in states outside Illinois.
During his appearances, Pritzker feeds his audiences a heapin' helpin' of anti-Trump invective.
"Take it from an actual billionaire. Trump is rich in only one thing: stupidity," Pritzker said.
Both stories profiled Pritzker's tenure in Illinois as well as his prospective decision on whether to run for a third term or focus solely on the White House.
One problem for the governor is that Illinois' financial state is not one other states would want to duplicate.
As noted by Pritzker's fellow Democrat and former Chicago schools Superintendent Paul Vallas, "people are voting with their feet."
"The state is an absolute disaster," Vallas told the Journal.
That may be. But those gloomy words are not part of Pritzker's sales pitch. He's selling unflinching progressive politics to welcoming Democrats across the country
Hallelujah, sing to Jesus
There's good news on Illinois' job front. Or is there? It depends on how one views the numbers.
"Illinois payroll jobs climb to a Record High," screamed the headline of a press release put out by the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
The bureaucracy announced April 17 that "non-farm payrolls increased +14,800 (+0.2%) over-the-month to a record high of 6,172,300 in March." It said the "previous record was set in December 2024, with 6,161,000 jobs."
State officials, naturally, went out of their way to pat themselves on the back.
"The new high in job growth underscores the resolve of our state labor force and shows that working and doing business in Illinois pays off," said Deputy Governor Andy Manar.
Not so fast, responded Wirepoints analysts. They insisted the new numbers "means almost nothing" because job growth in Illinois is increasing at a snail's pace.
Wirepoints contended the job numbers were "6,137,700 in 2019 and 6,056,500 all the way back in 2000. So, Illinois has had essentially no growth in six years and not much in 25 years."
"Perhaps more distressing for Illinois, recent job growth has been entirely government jobs. Illinois private sector totals shrank by 1,900 jobs over the past five years ...," Wirepoints reported.
Pay up
If Illinoisans think their property taxes are high, it's because they are.
If the residents of Rockford, the Chicago area, Peoria and Champaign-Urbana think their property taxes are among the highest in the nation, they also are correct.
The four metro areas finished one through four in the 2024 top 10 list of metro areas with the "highest property tax in (the) nation," according to a study conducted by Irvine, Calif.-based ATTOM Data Solutions.
The organization, which describes itself as a "leading provider of nationwide property data," recently conducted the property-tax study that found Illinois counties and metro areas "dominate the list of the nation's highest property tax rates."
Rockford residents reportedly pay 2.1 percent of their homes' value in property taxes every year. The numbers were 1.91 percent for Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, 1.89 percent for Peoria and 1.88 percent for Champaign-Urbana.
The average property-tax bill in Champaign-Urbana was reported to be $4,640.
Springfield took the No. 7 slot. Other metro areas on the top 10 list were from Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
When it came to counties, the study said 27 of the top 50 nationwide are from Illinois. Knox County had the highest property taxes as a percentage of home value.
Champaign County came in No. 34 with an average property-tax bill of $4,919.
Among other local counties in the top 50 were Macon, No. 17, with an average of $2,874; McLean, No. 27, with an average of $5,294; and Vermilion, No. 44, with an average of $2,008.
Residents of affluent Lake County in northern Illinois had the highest average property-tax bill in dollars: $10,370.
What's next?
Editorial writers at the conservative Wall Street Journal gave a salute to retiring Illinois U.S. Senator Richard Durbin.
"Give the man credit for calling it a career, considering how many others in power seem to want to spend their last lucid hours on Earth taking roll call votes," the Journal said.
But the paper wondered who will succeed Durbin. Will it be "a chastened legislator who learned something from the Democrats' drubbing in November," or an advocate of "more combative leftism, in the style of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez."
It noted that just prior to his retirement announcement, Durbin had been lambasted by his fellow Democrats for opposing a federal government shutdown in opposition to President Trump. Among those accusing Durbin of displaying "an immense amount of cowardice" were Democratic activists, as well as labor and climate groups.
"Is that what the median Democratic primary voter in Illinois wants to hear? ... others, including former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, seem to think the party's best move after losing power is to listen to the electorate and triangulate carefully. But with President Trump back in the Oval Office, progressives are raring to fight fire with fire."
Haze is clearing
It's been nearly two years since the Northwestern University football program was blown sky high by a team hazing scandal.
Now lawyers for 20-plus players who claimed to have been victimized by upperclassmen abusers have reported reaching a "provisional settlement" with the university.
So far, no details have leaked about the financial terms of the settlement. But lawyers Patrick Salvi and Parker Stinar say they will "fully resolve the student plaintiffs' claims against the school and former football coach Pat Fitzgerald."
There's no question the hazing occurred, but Fitzgerald has adamantly denied any knowledge of the mistreatment of younger players by older players.
The 17-year head coach was dismissed by Northwestern after a wave of negative publicity hit university higher-ups who had initially ordered Fitzgerald to serve a brief suspension.
The former head coach has filed a multimillion-dollar breach-of-contract lawsuit that alleges he was wrongfully terminated. That case is pending in the face of a tentative Nov. 3 trial date. The closer the trial date gets, the better the chances are for an out-of-court settlement between Fitzgerald and Northwestern.
Story withdrawn
Ambitious politicians are always trying to pull fast ones on the public to burnish their public standing, particularly when it comes to opinion polls.
A couple weeks ago, Chicago Democratic U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood released carefully drawn polling results that purported to show her leading when compared to specific potential Democratic opponents.
The results presented were too clever by half. That's why readers were advised in this space to be skeptical.
"Underwood got some good publicity last week when a poll showed her 'leading in two different scenarios' against different groups of opponents. Don't put much stock in it though. It's way too early, and the poll results look carefully engineered to boost Underwood," stated an April 14 column.
Springfield political analyst Rich Miller, after reporting the Underwood polling results, went even further after he was unsuccessful in trying to learn details of how and by whom the poll was conducted.
In a note appended to his excellent CapitolFax website, Miller recently wrote the following.
"The April 8 Capitol Fax post about 314 Action Fund's U.S. Senate poll is retracted until we receive a response from the organization. Despite repeated attempts to contact them (email, phone, tweets), they have so far refused to respond to my very simple question about what pollster conducted the survey. That alleged poll claimed the group's favored U.S. Senate candidate Lauren Underwood was leading the race and that '77 percent of primary voters identify her by name.' I should've been more diligent at the time. Sorry."
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