State of the State: 'Growing stronger each day'
Pritzker blasts doomsayers, touts achievements, looks ahead to ethics reform, clean energy, lower property taxes
Gov. Pritzker delivers his annual State of the State address at the Capitol in Springfield. (Illinois.gov)
By Ted Cox
Blasting political carny barkers, doomsayers, and paid hacks, Gov. Pritzker declared, “The state of our state is growing stronger each day” in his annual speech Wednesday to a joint session of the General Assembly.
“Those who would shout doom and gloom might be loud — using social-media bots and paid hacks to advance their false notions — but they are not many,” Pritzker said in his State of the State address. “We’re wresting the public conversation in Illinois back from people concerned with one thing and one thing only — predicting total disaster, spending hundreds of millions of dollars promoting it, and then doing everything in their power to make it happen.
“I’m here to tell the carnival barkers, the doomsayers, the paid professional critics — the state of our state is growing stronger each day.”
Pritzker touted the achievements of his first year in office, including a record number of jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in state history. He said the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois program — the first major capital infrastructure bill in a decade — would create 500,000 additional jobs through the first half of the 2020s, while reviving areas of the state in dire need of upgrades and repairs.
He praised the legalization of adult-use cannabis, again with a gain of 63,000 jobs, and he took special pride in citing his efforts to improve early childhood programs across the state, including restoration of the Child Care Assistance Program, which he credited with reviving Bonnie Brackett’s Heartland Kids Early Learning Center in Marion, as well as other child-care centers across the state.
“Mark my words,” Pritzker said, “Illinois will be the best state in the nation (in which) to raise a young family.” He also touted restoration of education funding for public schools and universities, as well as the $40,000 minimum teacher salary meant to address a statewide teacher shortage.
Pritzker then looked ahead to the upcoming session of the General Assembly, placing ethics reform at the top of the agenda in the wake of a series of indictments and pending investigations that threaten to undermine the legitimacy of state government.
“By almost every measure, over the past year we’ve improved the financial well-being, health, education, and safety of the residents of Illinois — and we did it working together,” Pritzker said. “And now we have to work together to confront a scourge that has been plaguing our political system for far too long. We must root out the purveyors of greed and corruption — in both parties — whose presence infects the bloodstream of government. It’s no longer enough to sit idle while under-the-table deals, extortion, or bribery persist. Protecting that culture or tolerating it is no longer acceptable. We must take urgent action to restore the public’s trust in our government. That’s why we need to pass real, lasting ethics reform this legislative session.”
Pritzker proposed new restrictions on legislators serving as lobbyists, while in office and afterward as well, to sustained applause from state senators and representatives.
“Restoring the public’s trust is of paramount importance,” he added. “Let’s not let the well-connected and well-protected work the system while the interests of ordinary citizens are forgotten. There is too much that needs to be accomplished to lift up all the people of Illinois.”
Pritzker recommitted to the diversity he’s already instilled in government, and he made a thinly veiled reference to sex scandals that have rocked the assembly in recent years, saying, “People need to treat disgusting suggestions with disgust. The old patronage system needs to die — finally and completely. The input of women and people of color need to be treated as essential to decision making, not as some token show of diversity.”
The governor stressed criminal-justice reform, including “phasing out cash bail,” and committed to clean energy while issuing a challenge to entrenched industry lobbyists.
“Our spring agenda must also address the pressing issue of adopting new clean-energy legislation that reduces carbon pollution, promotes renewable energy, and accelerates electrification of our transportation sector,” Pritzker said. “We saw the effects of climate change right here in Illinois last year with a polar vortex, devastating floods, record lake levels, and emergency declarations in more than a third of Illinois’s counties.
“Urgent action is needed,” he added, “but let me be clear. The old ways of negotiating energy legislation are over. It’s time to put consumers and climate first. I’m not going to sign an energy bill written by the utility companies.”
That signaled tacit support for the Clean Energy Jobs Act, which sponsor Rep. Ann Williams touted earlier this month by insisting that industry lobbyists had been left out of the negotiating process completely. Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club’s Illinois Chapter, praised that approach while making an overt pitch for CEJA. “We applaud Gov. Pritzker for highlighting the urgent need for action this spring on comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation,” Darin said in a statement issued after the speech. “We must act this year to seize the jobs and opportunities offered by clean energy, help communities facing a transition away from fossil fuels, protect consumers from Donald Trump's plans to raise Illinois electric rates to bail out dirty coal plants, prioritize communities that need it most for the jobs and opportunities that come with building a 100 percent clean-energy future, and heed the urgent call of science for fast action to cut carbon pollution before it's too late.”
Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, echoed support for CEJA, saying, “At a time when the Trump administration is taking major steps backward on climate, Gov. Pritzker’s commitment to signing community-driven energy legislation — not a bill written by big utility companies — is a refreshing and much-needed departure from the old way of doing things.”
Pritzer went on to insist, “Property taxes in Illinois are simply too high,” and he proposed new legislation to discourage local governments from maxing out their tax levies, while consolidating some of the almost 7,000 local taxing bodies in the state.
Through it all, Pritzker made clear his willingness to hear from all segments of the state and to work in a bipartisan manner. “Perhaps, here in Illinois, we are not as divided in our values and goals as some would have you believe,” he said. “It’s clear that when we stand together in front of the public and talk about what we are doing together to literally rebuild bridges and roads and child-care centers and schools, we restore a little bit of the public’s trust that has been lost in government institutions at all levels in the past few decades.
“We stopped bad-mouthing the state and started passing laws that make Illinois more attractive for businesses and jobs,” he added. “Working across the aisle, we brought tax relief for 300,000 small businesses through the phaseout of the corporate franchise tax.”
Pritzker concluded, “It’s time for us to recommit ourselves to the hard work of bringing prosperity and opportunity to all communities in Illinois through a fairer tax system, job creation, education and job-training programs, child care and preschool, and a focus on building essential tools of success such as high-speed Internet in all corners of our state.”