JB Pritzker Gov

Illinois, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, a venture capitalist, defeated Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. Pritzker has said he wants the state to move to 100 percent renewable energy. Rauner supported some renewable energy efforts, including as part of a 2016 law that is now boosting the state's solar power, but he also supported easing pollution rules for coal-fired power plants.

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an 10 24

basically a threat to any who oppose trump

Anger as 'Trump regime' lackey threatens to arrest Dem governor

Jessica Corbett gov prtiz, set up by fox/ question?

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THREAT JAIL PRITZkER CHIC MAYOR

AN 10 25

'Wannabe dictator': Governor dares 'unhinged' Trump to carry out threat to jail him

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an 10 25

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker issued a new warning on Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the American military in US cities against the wishes of local elected officials.

Hours after Trump called for Pritzker’s imprisonment in a Wednesday morning Truth Social post, the Illinois governor claimed in an interview with MSNBC that the president’s ultimate goal with sending troops into US cities was to control the outcomes of future elections.

”He wants to militarize major cities across the United States, especially blue cities in blue states, because he wants us to get used to the idea of military on the streets,” he said. “2026 elections, I believe he’s going to post people outside ballot boxes and polling places, and, if he needs to in order to control those elections, he’ll assume control of the ballot boxes and count the votes himself.”

Pritzker pointed out that Trump considered ordering the military to seize ballot boxes after he lost the 2020 presidential election, but he was met with resistance from officials in his own administration.

However, Pritzker said that “I believe he would do it in 2026” to help Republicans maintain control of Congress.

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Pritzker also struck a defiant tone when asked about Trump’s call to imprison him.

”This guy’s a convicted felon who’s threatening to jail me!” he exclaimed. “This guy is unhinged. He’s insecure. He’s a wannabe dictator. And there’s one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump: If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me.”

Pritzker’s remarks come as Trump and his administration have deployed Texas National Guard soldiers to Chicago over the objections of both Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The state and city are challenging the deployment in court.

Federal immigration officials have been employing increasingly aggressive and violent tactics in the Chicago area in recent weeks, including attacking a journalist and a protesting priest with pepper balls outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility; slamming a congressional candidate to the ground; dragging US citizens, including children, out of their homes during a raid in the middle of the night; and fatally shooting a man during a traffic stop.

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7 25 TEXAS GERRY GAVIN PRiTZKER ILL HOST DEM REP REFUGEE

'This is a war': Hochul joins blue-state push in brewing gerrymander arms race

David Badash

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an 6 25

A House Oversight Committee hearing grew tense Thursday when Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) accused several Democratic governors of breaking federal law.

“You're in violation of federal law. Charges for obstruction should be brought against each one of you for doing this, I'll leave that up to the Department of Justice,” Palmer told New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), who quickly pushed back: “That's 100% false.”

Palmer escalated, calling for obstruction charges against the governors. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) pushed back sharply with a point of order to chairman Jim Comer (R-Ky.) : “That was intimidation of the witness ... Raising the prospect of charges against witnesses is a form of intimidation. Is it not?”

Palmer then responded, “I strike those words.”

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Hochul appeared on Capitol Hill alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to defend their states’ sanctuary policies before the House Oversight Committee. Republicans on the panel linked those policies to rising crime tied to undocumented immigrants, while Democrats argued the protections are more critical than ever.

One of the most pointed exchanges came between Hochul and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a longtime critic who has hinted at challenging Hochul for governor in 2026.

Stefanik used her full questioning time to go after Hochul, citing violent crimes in New York City that she blamed on the state’s sanctuary stance.

"You are not advocating on behalf of these victims. You are shielding illegals. Even in your opening statement, you prioritize putting illegals first," Stefanik said.

"That is not true," Hochul responded. "Rather than going after the viral moment, I suggest you look at the facts."

"No, no, no, I'm standing up for New Yorkers," Stefanik shot back.

Watch the video of the confrontation below, or byclicking this link.

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AN 6 25

A Thursday House Oversight Committee hearing in which Republicans attempted to grill Democratic governors over immigration policy grew heated during one particular exchange between a governor and a congresswoman from the same state.

In the exchange, which Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo posted to Bluesky, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) is seen answering questions by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) about Illinois' "sanctuary" status, in which local law enforcement agencies are actively prohibited from engaging in federal immigration enforcement activities.

"Do you stand by your policy of tying the hands of Illinois law enforcement?" Miller asked. "Yes or no, sir?"

"You know, Congresswoman Miller, I am not going to be lectured to by somebody who extols the virtue of Adolf Hitler, or someone who has allowed the pardoning of January 6—"

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"—I am reclaiming my time," Miller said repeatedly while Pritzker spoke.

Pritzker's comment is likely in relation to Miller's comments in early January of 2021 just days after she was sworn in, in which she quoted the Nazi dictator while speaking about the importance of relating to young voters. Miller's office initially defended the comment before ultimately apologizing for quoting Hitler in a positive way.

“Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation,” Miller said at a January 5, 2021 rally (just one day before the January 6 insurrection). “You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized.”

Watch the video of the exchange below, or byclicking this link.

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AN 525

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is scheduled to fly to the Illinois State Capitol on Wednesday for a press conference decrying the state's approach to immigration. Now, the Prairie State's Democratic chief executive is trolling Noem ahead of her visit.

Chicago Tribune political reporter Rick Pearson tweeted Tuesday that Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office issued an announcement ahead of Noem's arrival. The statement asked "all pet owners in the region to make sure all of your beloved animals are under watchful protection while the Secretary is in the region."

That statement is almost certainly a reference to Noem's autobiography in which she recalled taking her family dog, Cricket, into a gravel pit and shooting it to death because it wasn't good at hunting prey. After experiencing severe backlash over the passage, she later defended killing Cricket by pointing out that she also killed three horses in that same gravel pit.

Noem's office has stated that her press conference in Springfield, Illinois will "highlight how sanctuary policies in Illinois have unleashed violence on American citizens — including rape, sexual assault, murder, shoplifting, and more — while shielding illegal aliens responsible from facing consequence."

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However, Pritzker spokesperson Alex Gough told the*Tribune* that Illinois is "fully compliant with federal law" regarding immigration, and that one state law House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) criticized was "was bipartisan and signed into law by a Republican [former Governor Bruce Rauner]."

"Despite the rhetoric of Republicans in Congress, this public safety law ensures law enforcement can focus on doing their jobs well while empowering all members of the public, regardless of immigration status, to feel comfortable calling police officers and emergency services if they are in need of help," Gough said.

Pritzker — who is rumored to run for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination – has said he plans to "voluntarily appear" before Comer's committee alongside Govs. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) and Tim Walz (D-Minn.) on June 12. Comer and committee Republicans plan to question the governors about their respective states' approach to enforcing federal immigration law.

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'Infamous and disgraceful conduct': Illinois gov issues directive against hiring Jan. 6 'rioters' an 1 25

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see abc disney //

an 12 24

President-elect Donald Trump has been spending a bulk of his presidential transition less focused on putting together a governing agenda and more focused on an aggressive campaign of legal intimidation. Now, one of his supporters has identified his next potential target.

Politico is reporting that former Illinois Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich — who endorsed Trump in 2024 after receiving a pardon from him in 2020 — is calling on the president-elect to zero in on current Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Blagojevich tweeted that Trump should pursue the Illinois governor using the same tactic he successfully used against ABC News in a separate defamation lawsuit.

“Now that Trump successfully won his defamation case against ABC for calling him a ‘rapist,’ when will he sue Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for repeatedly lying & calling him the same thing?” Blagojevich wrote on X.

In a June tweet, Pritzer called Trump "a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, and a congenital liar." He added that then-candidate Trump was "a racist, sexist, misogynistic narcissist who wants to use the levers of power to enrich himself and punish anyone who dares speak a word against him." Blagojevich's tweet may be a reference to that statement, or his comments in the wake of the assassination attempt on Trump this summer, when he said the fact that Trump narrowly dodged a bullet didn't change the fact that he was "a convicted felon and an adjudicated rapist."

The incoming president is fresh off of a legal victory in which ABC News agreed to make a $15 million contribution to Trump's presidential library fund in addition to another $1 million in legal expenses in order to settle with Trump over his defamation claim. The lawsuit was filed in response to ABC host George Stephanopoulos saying Trump was found guilty of "rape" in a 2023 verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll. The actual verdict wasn't for rape, but for "sexual abuse."

In a subsequent filing, Judge Lewis F. Kaplan clarified that "sexual abuse" was essentially the same thing as "rape" as the average person understands it, and that Trump was indeed guilty. He was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million for sexual abuse, and then another $83.3 million for defaming her when falsely asserting that she made the story up for financial benefit.

Trump has also filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and retired pollster Ann Selzer for a poll that falsely predicted Vice President Kamala Harris would win Iowa by three points. Trump argued that the poll was a form of election interference, even though he ended up winning Iowa by a double-digit margin.

*Click here to read Politico's report in full.

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an 11 24

In the wake of Republican Donald Trump’s reelection to the presidency, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is helping to lead a new initiative that aims to protect state-level democratic institutions against federal overreach.

Polis, a Democrat with two more years in his term, is co-chairing Governors Safeguarding Democracy, alongside Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat.

“We founded GSD because we know that simple hope alone won’t save our democracy. We need to work together, especially at the state level, to protect and strengthen it,” Polis said during a call with reporters on Tuesday.

The two governors did not offer details on who else is part of the initiative, though they emphasized it’s nonpartisan and said they have engaged in outreach to Republican governors across the country.

The action items are vague. Pritzker described the goal as one to “leverage our collective strength, experience and institutional knowledge to drive policies that protect the rule of law” among the states.

“We’ll design and implement affirmative strategies to protect the rule of law and deliver for people in the states. We’ll work to reinforce key state institutions to protect executive agencies, elections, state courts and other democratic bodies. Then we’ll develop playbooks to enable governors and their teams to anticipate and swiftly respond to emerging threats,” he said.

When fully implemented, the initiative will be a “peer opportunity for governors to learn from one another on best practices and policies,” Polis said.

GSD was born out of anxiety that a second Trump presidential term will erode democratic institutions and roll back federal protections in such areas as the environment, health care and civil rights. Some observers worry about possible threats to the integrity of the nation’s election system, independent judiciary and overall civil society. Trump himself pledged to be a “dictator” on the first day of his term to enact campaign promises, and former top staffers in the first Trump administration, such as John Kelly, have said he fits into the definition of fascist.

The new Trump administration is planning an unprecedented mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, an effort that would involve use of the National Guard. Pritzker said the challenge this poses to states is “exactly the kind of question this group would be considering.”

Polis agreed that such a policy would likely not be allowed under the federal code that governs the National Guard and that, as governors, they would not cooperate.

“In terms of safeguarding democracy, making sure that the U.S. military is not used for police actions domestically and is used to defend our freedoms abroad is very consistent with our Constitution, as well as the law,” Polis said.

GSD will be supported by Governors Action Alliance, a new nonpartisan organization, and funded by philanthropic donations. Neither Pritzker nor Polis disclosed donors.

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an me 1 23

A small faction of sheriffs in the state of Illinois is pushing back against the state's ban on assault rifles, an initiative being enforced by Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker's (D) office.

According to NBC Chicago, a legal battle is brewing in the state as some believe the newly passed piece of legislation —House-Bill 5471, also referred to as the Protect Illinois Communities Act— violates Second Amendment rights.

Per the news outlet, a number of law enforcement officials in the state have weighed in with their assessments of the bill offering relatively critical opinions of it.

McHenry County, Ill. Sheriff Robb Tadelman took to social media with his concerns following the passing of the bill. “Neither myself nor my office will be checking to ensure that lawful gun owners register their weapons with the state, nor will we be arresting or housing law-abiding individuals that have been charged solely with non-compliance with this act,” he said.

Other Illinois law enforcement officials in various counties also weighed in with similar concerns, namely Kankakee County Sheriff Mike Downey, Sheriff Jack Harlan in Boone County, and Winnebago County Sheriff Gary Caruana, according to NBC Chicago.

In fact, Downey released a statement on the sheriff department's Facebook page addressing the new bill. Some Republican lawmakers have also echoed law enforcement officials' concerns.

“We will not comply with this legislation because we don’t have to,” said former Illinois State Rep and Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey “Our Constitution protects us. The sponsors of this bill may have won a temporary victory today, but they will lose because they cannot get around the rights we have guaranteed in our Constitution.”

Despite the critical takes on the new law, Pritzker and his office are standing firm in support of it.

“Anybody who doesn’t comply, there are consequences for that,” Pritzker said. “You don’t get to choose which laws you comply with in the state of Illinois. The State Police is responsible for enforcement, as are all law enforcement all across this state. They will, in fact, do their job or they won’t be in their job.”

Per the news outlet, the governor's office also described the pushback as "'political grandstanding at its worst,' and said that sheriffs and departments that refuse to enforce the ban are 'in violation of their oath of office.'"

“The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois. The General Assembly passed the bill and the governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder,” a spokesperson said. “Sheriffs have a constitutional duty to uphold the laws of the state, not pick and choose which laws they support and when.”

Pritzker’s spokesperson also said, “We’re confident that this law will hold up to any future legal challenges."

an 8 22

Much has been reported on Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attacks on far-right Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, fueling speculation on Newsom’s motivations — including a possible presidential run in 2024 if President Joe Biden doesn’t seek reelection. Polls of Republican voters find that DeSantis’ popularity with the GOP’s MAGA base continues to grow, and more and more of them would prefer DeSantis over former President Donald Trump in 2024’s GOP presidential primary. And some pundits are envisioning a possible Newsom/DeSantis battle in 2024, or perhaps 2028.

Now, another Democratic governor, Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker, is also going after DeSantis with a vengeance, according to Politico’s Gary Fineout.

In a report published on July 13, Fineout observes, “Well, look who’s headed to Florida: a blue-state governor who’s emerging as a potential presidential contender. lllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is running for reelection this year, will be the keynote speaker at the annual Leadership Blue Gala that Florida Democrats will hold this Saturday in Tampa.”

The Politico reporter adds that Pritzker’s visit to Florida “comes nearly two weeks after the mass shooting in Highland Park thrust him into the national spotlight.”

Fineout explains, “Pritzker’s reaction — where he said he was angry and furious about gun violence in the nation — was seen by some as an illustration of the type of passion Democrats need heading into the midterms and 2024…. Pritzker’s decision (to visit) Florida will also be sure to stoke long-running whispers about a possible presidential bid, especially since he’s spending time in the home state of Gov. Ron DeSantis, himself a potential GOP presidential candidate.”

DeSantis, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives before narrowly defeating Democratic former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum in Florida’s 2018 gubernatorial race, is up for reelection this year.

Fineout notes, “Pritzker, a billionaire with a second home in Florida,is visiting when Florida Democrats are bracing for a bad election season as they grapple with President Joe Biden’s poor polling numbers, a growing GOP voter registration edge and a lack of resources…. Pritzker’s keynote speech will come on the heels of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s splashy decision to air ads bashing DeSantis and urging Floridians to move to his state. In that case, DeSantis has fired back and is now even fundraising off Newsom’s attacks. Expect his campaign team to fashion their own greeting for Pritzker.”

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/billionaire-hedge-fund/

Series: The Secret IRS Files

Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

For billionaire Ken Griffin, it was well worth spending $54 million to ensure he and other rich Illinoisans wouldn’t have to pay more tax.

By the time Illinois voters streamed into voting booths on Election Day in 2020, Griffin, then Illinois’ wealthiest resident, had made sure they’d heard plenty about why they should not vote to raise taxes on him and the state’s other rich people. His tens of millions paid for an unrelenting stream of ads and flyers against an initiative on that year’s ballot, which would have allowed Illinois lawmakers to join 32 other states in setting higher tax rates for the wealthy than for everyone else.

In the end, Griffin spent about $18 for every one of the 3.1 million votes against theinitiative. After initial optimism about its prospects, the measure came up hundreds of thousands of votes short and went down to defeat.

Rarely does the public get a clear view of the payoff for wealthy Americans who put their money down to achieve a political outcome. But in this case, ProPublica’s trove of IRS data can provide crucial context for the ballot fight. For Griffin and many of his fellow ultrawealthy Illinoisans, spending even such a vast amount was well worth it when compared with what a tax hike might have cost them.

According to the data, Griffin averaged an annual income of $1.7 billion from 2013 to 2018. That was the fourth-highest in the country, behind only the likes of Bill Gates.

Using that average income as a guideline, the new state tax increase, which aimed to raise the rate from 5% to 8% on the highest incomes, would have cost Griffin around $51 million every year in extra tax. In especially good years — in 2018, Griffin reported income of almost $2.9 billion — he might have been forced to pay more than $80 million more.

A Citadel spokesperson responding on Griffin’s behalf pointed out that, according to ProPublica’s previously published data, Griffin paid the second-highest amount of taxes of any American from 2013 to 2018. “Over the past decade,” he said in a statement, “it is almost a certainty that Ken has been the largest individual taxpayer in the State of Illinois — a state notorious for profligate spending and rampant corruption.” Griffin has said he’s not against raising taxes; he opposed the measure, he added in his statement, because “Illinois needs to put its fiscal house in order before burdening hard-working families with yet more taxes.”

The state’s current flat tax rate of 5% is far below the top rates in other large states run by Democrats like California and New York and comparable to those in some Republican-led states like Utah. Advocates for raising the rates on the wealthy in Illinois say the state needs additional revenue, pointing to its regular budget deficits and deep pension debts.

Not all Griffin’s political bets pay off. A candidate for Illinois governor he supported with tens of millions of dollars went down to defeat in June’s Republican primary. Meanwhile, even though the income tax initiative was defeated, Griffin announced last month that he was moving Citadel’s headquarters to Miami and relocating there himself.

Though no other donor to the anti-tax fight came close to matching the tens of millions that Griffin gave, others made contributions that were more than what most Illinois households earn in a year. ProPublica analyzed the tax data of nine other ultrawealthy supporters of Griffin’s anti-tax campaign. According to our estimate, this group of heirs and business owners, which includes some of the wealthiest people in Illinois, can expect to see a healthy return on their contributions and save millions in taxes over the coming years.

The math behind our estimate is simple: Wealthy Illinoisans will save about 3% of their income, because that was the size of the proposed tax increase on the wealthy. That’s essentially how Illinois’ state income taxes work for Illinois residents. With some adjustments, a state tax rate is applied to the income listed on their federal returns. ProPublica contacted all 10 of the anti-tax donors mentioned in this article and the accompanying chart. None challenged the methodology used to estimate their tax savings.

Richard Uihlein, who along with Griffin has emerged as a conservative megadonor on the national stage, pitched in $100,000 to the anti-tax campaign — for him a modest amount given his average annual income of $492 million in recent years. Through his family foundation, Uihlein has also given millions of dollars to the Illinois Policy Institute, a small-government group that fought the graduated tax plan. Uihlein’s average income would lead to about $15 million of annual tax savings from the defeat of the ballot initiative.

Sam Zell, the real estate mogul known in Chicago for putting together a leveraged buyout of the Tribune Company that preceded its bankruptcy, gave $1.1 million. Based on his recent income, he would save $1.6 million in taxes each year. A spokesperson for Zell declined to comment.

Patrick Ryan made his billions in insurance, and Northwestern University’s football stadium and basketball arena bear his family’s name, thanks to the hundreds of millions he’s given the school. He gave $1 million. His recent income suggests $2.1 million in annual tax savings.

Richard Colburn, whose billionaire family owns the electrical parts maker CED, gave $500,000 to the anti-tax campaign, which would help save him $5.5 million each year in taxes, according to our estimates. In an email message to ProPublica, Colburn said his reasons for opposing the graduated tax were simple: It would have “eaten substantially” into his investment earnings, some of which he passes on to a nonprofit foundation he manages. Like Griffin, he contended the state would not have used the money well.

“Though I enjoy living in the Chicago area, I could save immensely by moving to a lower-tax state, and therefore I ‘invested’ to limit the temptation on me to relocate,” Colburn wrote. “Another element of my ‘investment’ stems from my desire to limit the mis-spending by the State of Illinois that occurs every time Springfield has extra money.” (His full statement is here.)

Donald Wilson, founder of the trading firm DRW, gave $250,000 to the anti-tax campaign. That donation in particular looks modest when weighed against his potential tax savings: Based on Wilson’s average annual income of $114 million, the proposed tax increase would have cost him $3.5 million more every year.

Some of the contributions to the anti-tax campaign came from trusts, special legal entities often used by the wealthy to hide or protect assets, as well as to avoid the estate tax. Richard Stephenson, founder of a chain of for-profit hospitals called Cancer Treatment Centers of America, contributed $300,000 through his Celebrate Life Trust. Stephenson is a longtime Republican donor and such an enthusiast of Ayn Rand’s message of uncompromising self-interest that he was an executive producer on two movies based on the novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

Uihlein, Ryan, Wilson and Stephenson also did not respond to requests for comment.

One $25,000 contribution came from the Philip M. Friedmann Family Charitable Trust. Friedmann made his fortune by selling the greeting card company he co-founded to a private equity firm.

Friedmann’s trust, unlike Stephenson’s, is a personal foundation. That means Friedmann likely received a tax deduction for donating to his own organization, which then used some of the funds to fight an increase in his taxes.

The contribution to the anti-tax campaign by Friedmann’s foundation appears to have violated federal tax law, three nonprofit tax law experts told ProPublica. Personal foundations are prohibited from spending to try to influence legislation, a category that includes contributions to a ballot initiative committee, said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at Notre Dame. Organizations that break that law are required to pay a penalty of up to 25% of the expenditure in addition to attempting to retrieve the money.

Although this prohibition is spelled out on the IRS’ online guide for private foundations, “smaller family foundations don’t always know the applicable rules,” said Ellen Aprill, a law professor at Loyola Marymount University.

Friedmann did not respond to requests for comment.

Illinois didn’t have an income tax of any kind until 1969, when a deal between GOP Gov. Richard Ogilvie and Democratic Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley resulted in a flat statewide tax of 2.5% on individuals and 4% on corporations. Some Democrats said the tax disproportionately punished low-income families, and pushed for higher rates on the wealthy. But Republicans and other critics argued for expiration dates or rate limits, warning that otherwise lawmakers would simply keep hiking and expanding income taxes. The following year, a compromise was encoded in the state’s updated constitution. It clarified that the General Assembly had the power to impose an income tax but only “at a non-graduated rate.”

As the state’s fiscal problems grew in the following decades, governors and legislators repeatedly raised the flat tax rate until it was up to 5% on individuals. In 2014, multimillionaire private equity investor Bruce Rauner, a Republican backed by Griffin, was elected governor after promising to slash taxes, and the rate was lowered to 3.75%. But as Rauner fell into a bitter standoff with the Democratic-controlled General Assembly, the state went without a budget for more than two years, leaving it in an even deeper financial hole.

The General Assembly, including some Republicans, voted in 2017 to raise the income tax again, to 4.95% on individuals.

Democrat JB Pritzker, a billionaire investor whose family founded the Hyatt hotel chain, launched his campaign for governor by casting himself as a wealthy man who would fight for the middle class — and for a graduated tax that was less burdensome for low-income families than the flat-rate system. Rauner vowed to stop him. Their 2018 campaigns spent more than $250 million combined, including $22.5 million that Griffin gave to Rauner, before Pritzker won that November.

With the support of a committed and rich governor, a graduated income tax suddenly seemed possible in Illinois.

“That created a bunch of new momentum,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a think tank that argued in favor of a graduated income tax. “That was enough political support to really get the grassroots groups working on it.”

Outside of a special convention, both the Illinois House and Senate must sign off on a state constitutional amendment by three-fifths majorities. Voters then need to approve it, either by a clear majority of all voters casting ballots in a general election or a three-fifths majority of those voting on the measure itself.

In 2019 the Senate and then the House each met that threshold, passing a measure that would eliminate the graduated income tax ban if voters approved an amendment. Companion legislation laid out what the new tax schedule would be: Rates would either drop or remain at 4.95% for people reporting income up to $250,000; they would climb from there, to a rate of 7.99% on individuals earning above $750,000 and couples above $1 million. The top rate was within the range of those in other Midwest states with graduated systems — higher than Missouri’s but lower than Iowa’s.

Supporters and opponents then had more than a year to make their cases.

Illinois election laws set some limits on campaign donations and spending. But the rules are riddled with loopholes, and they impose no limits on political committees formed to advocate for or against ballot initiatives like the income tax proposal.

Opponents of the graduated income tax formed at least five different campaign committees that raised nearly $63 million altogether. The best funded, by far, was the Coalition to Stop the Proposed Tax Hike Amendment, which collected almost $60 million, including the $54 million from Griffin. The coalition received most of its remaining money from other billionaires and millionaires, according to state campaign donation records.

On the other side, Pritzker created the Vote Yes for Fairness committee, plowing $58 million of his own fortune to support the “fair tax” campaign. Apart from Pritzker’s donations, the committee received just one $250 contribution, records show.

Griffin also launched other offensives. In October 2020, the Chicago Tribune reported that Griffin had lambasted Pritzker as “a shameless master of personal tax avoidance” in an email to Citadel’s Chicago staff.

The bulk of Pritzker’s wealth ($3.6 billion, according to Forbes) is in trusts, some domestic and some located offshore. Pritzker has said some were set up by his grandfather. As ProPublica reported last year, it was common for 20th century patriarchs to set up trusts that passed fortunes down through the generations free of estate taxes.

Pritzker has released his personal tax returns, but has not provided detailed information about the trusts. For 2020, Pritzker’s office released returns showing $5.1 million in personal income for the governor and his wife, MK. The domestic trusts benefiting the governor also paid $16.3 million in Illinois taxes and $69.6 million in federal taxes in 2020, according to Pritzker spokesperson Natalie Edelstein.

ProPublica’s IRS data does not shed light on those trusts. When ProPublica requested further detail, Edelstein said the governor is not releasing documents concerning the trusts because he “is not the only beneficiary, so he does not have authority to release all of the information.” She said that the governor had not personally accepted any disbursements from the offshore trusts, instead giving them to charity. She did not address whether the trusts had been set up to avoid estate taxes, only saying they were “established generations ago.”

At the height of the graduated income tax campaign, advertisements for and against the initiative seemed to be everywhere in Illinois — in mailboxes, online, all over the airwaves.

“You couldn’t even watch TV — it was just one ad after another,” recalled David Merriman, a public administration professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Merriman’s research had found that Illinois received less revenue from income taxes and placed a higher tax burden on low-income taxpayers than neighboring states with graduated systems, including states led by Republicans. But, perhaps predictably, the ads largely avoided policy discussions in favor of political appeals.

“At the worst possible time, Springfield politicians are pushing a constitutional amendment that would give them new powers to make it easier to raise taxes on all Illinois taxpayers,” a narrator in one anti-tax ad declared. “And if there’s one thing we know about Springfield politicians, it’s that you can’t trust them.”

The fair-tax campaign accused the rich of trying to fool middle-class families and claimed, based on the state Senate bill that had already passed, that as many as 97% of taxpayers would pay the same or less under the governor’s plan.

But voters weren’t convinced. Federal investigations of several Chicago and state politicians were making headlines, and Merriman said the graduated tax advocates failed to persuade voters that they would benefit from the amendment. The initiative failed by a vote of 53% to 47%.

“It showed just how distrustful everyone is of the government,” he said.

The big money battle has continued in the Illinois governor’s race this year. This January, Pritzker deposited $90 million into his own reelection fund — the largest single political contribution in Illinois in decades and probably ever. Under state election law, candidates can lift donation limits in a race by funding their own campaigns.

Several of the anti-tax funders contributed large sums to Republicans aiming to unseat Pritzker this fall. Once again, Griffin led the way, spending $50 million, but his handpicked candidate lost the GOP primary last week to Darren Bailey, a right-wing state senator propelled by more than $17 million Uihlein gave to his campaign and an aligned super PAC. Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association also went head-to-head with Griffin, paying for ads attacking his candidate, Richard Irvin.

Bailey received an endorsement from Donald Trump the weekend before the election and finished with about 58% of the vote. Irvin faded to third place with 15%. In his election night victory speech, Bailey ripped Pritzker as an “out-of-touch, elitist billionaire.”

“Do you feel overtaxed?” Bailey called out to his supporters. Their response: “Yeah!”

By then, Griffin had made a big announcement that meant his state tax bill would plummet.

In a letter to Citadel employees, Griffin announced that he was moving the company’s headquarters to Miami and that he himself had already moved his family to the area.

Florida does not have a personal income tax. Experts told ProPublica Griffin will still pay some personal income tax in New York and Illinois since Citadel has offices there. But his bill is sure to shrink dramatically, likely saving him tens of millions a year.

In response to ProPublica’s questions, Citadel did not address whether taxes motivated his move. Instead, in its statement the spokesperson cited crime concerns as the prime motivator: “Ken left Illinois for a simple reason: the state is devolving into anarchy. Senseless violence is now part of daily life in Chicago.”

Griffin’s letter to Citadel staff also made no mention of taxes as being a reason for the move. Instead, it rhapsodized about how Miami “embodies the American Dream — embracing the possibilities of what can be achieved by a community working to build a future together.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/illinois-governor-chartering-flights-from-china-in-a-herculean-effort-to-prevent-trump-from-snatching-millions-of-masks-and-gloves-report/

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llinois Is Poised to Crack Down on Hazardous Coal Ash Waste to Protect Health and Rivers

BY: NINA PULLANO

Lawmakers targeted coal ash after testing showed Illinois was the No. 1 state for the most coal-fired power plants leaching unsafe levels of contaminants like arsenic into the groundwater.

Illinois is poised to become the latest state to crack down on power plants' coal ash waste, a hazardous byproduct of coal burning and source of groundwater contamination.

The state has more coal ash ponds leaching unsafe levels of contaminants into groundwater than any other state in the nation, a recent analysis of federally mandated water testing showed. That pollution can pose health risks for humans: Coal ash can contain chemicals and heavy metals, including arsenic, mercury and lead, that have been linked to cancer, heart disease, reproductive issues and brain damage in children.

Lawmakers passed legislation this week that, once signed by new Democratic Gov.J.B.Pritzker, would amend the Illinois Environmental Protection Act to set stricter requirements for coal ash cleanup and to mandate public comment periods prior to closing coal ash sites. It also would give the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency funding to run cleanup programs through permit fees.

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The Clean Energy Jobs Act that was introduced Thursday would move Illinois to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 and make the state a national leader in clean energy and climate action.

Clean Energy

The bill (SB2132) would rapidly ramp up renewable energy in Illinois towards the 100 percent target by 2050, starting with a target of generating 45 percent of our electricity from renewable sources — and none from fossil fuels — by 2030. That rapid expansion of clean energy would place Illinois at the forefront of job growth, investments, customer savings and health benefits from renewable energy.

The bill would also grow the Illinois Solar for All Program by as much as 500 percent, expand cost-saving energy efficiency programs, and help us plan our electric grid in ways that avoid unnecessary costs and take advantage of increasingly cheap renewable energy.

Clean Transportation

Putting more renewables on the electric grid also makes it easier to clean up our transportation sector, which is now the largest source of carbon pollution in Illinois. Although electric vehiclesalreadypollute less than gasoline-powered vehicles, as the electricity we use to charge those vehicles gets cleaner, we can reduce pollution even more. At the same time, electric vehiclespaired with smart charging technologies can help our electric grid run more efficiently. The Clean Energy Jobs Act aims to take advantage of these opportunities while removing the equivalent of one million gasoline-powered vehicles off the road.

New incentives and infrastructure to support electric vehicles would help spur this process, including support for "light duty" electric vehicles like cars and trucks, which can save drivers money and create 70 percent less pollution than similar gas-powered vehicles. It would also include incentives to transition towards electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which is critical in part because many of today's heavy-duty vehicles run on diesel and cause serious health problems for people in communities with heavy truck traffic. The bill also pairs electric vehicle incentives with smart charging programs to ensure that electric vehicles can charge at "off-peak" hours (such as late at night) when electricity is relatively cheap, plentiful and clean. Finally: in addition to expanding electric vehicles, Illinois should expand non-motorized transportation options like walking, biking and mass transit, which could be included in a capital bill.

Jobs and Equity

The transition to a clean energy economy promises benefits to our health (as we saw in 2016), our climate and our pocketbooks. It also creates jobs: Illinois is already home to nearly 120,000 clean energy jobs. Statewide, about one in every 50 workers is in the clean energy sector. In rural Illinois, clean energy already employs twice as many people as fossil fuels, and those jobs are growing at 5 percent a year even as the total number of jobs in rural areas has declined. The massive expansion of renewable energy envisioned in this bill would grow those impressive numbers even further.

But the benefits of our energy transition must be equitably distributed, and the jobs it creates must be good-paying and accessible. The transition must prioritize economic opportunity for people of color, people who live in environmental justice communities, and workers impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels.

The Clean Energy Jobs Act centers these priorities through Clean Energy Empowerment Zones, which allocate economic development resources to communities impacted by the transition away from fossil fuels, and the creation of Clean Jobs Workforce Hubs. These hubs are workforce development pipelines that begin with recruitment conducted in partnership with community groups, unions and others, and which prioritize recruiting people of color, people from marginalized communities, and displaced fossil fuel workers. They include training programs with stipends to help trainees meet living expenses, transportation, child care, and other needs while they develop their skills. Renewable energy developers will be incentivized to hire diverse workers, including graduates of these training programs.

What's Next for the Clean Energy Jobs Act

The Clean Energy Jobs Act was developed with the input of people all over Illinois, in nearly 70 public discussions across rural, urban and suburban communities, from Chicago to Carbondale, with participants of all ages and racial backgrounds.

With a newly-elected governor who supports 100 percent renewable energy, recent national polls showing that 85 percent of registered voters want to move their states entirely to renewable energy by 2050, and the ambitious Clean Energy Jobs Act gathering sponsors in the legislature, Illinois is poised to be a model for clean energy leadership — not just in the Midwest, but in the world.

Beyond the numbers and the policy details, that would mean cleaner air and water, more jobs, healthier people and a livable world for our kids.

Michigan: Challenging a Pipeline – and Trump

The new dynamic was on display on Jan. 2, when newly elected Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer started a legal fight against Enbridge Line 5, an aging fossil fuel pipeline that passes under the Great Lakes at the Straits of Mackinac.

She sent a letter to state Attorney General Dana Nessel seeking a legal opinion that could help to undo a plan to replace the pipeline. Nessel is also brand new to the job, and, like Whitmer, very different from her Republican predecessor.

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Wisconsin: Changing the Tone After Walker

At a renewable energy conference last week, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers also spoke about the need to address climate change.

"We shouldn't have to choose between investing in new industries and protecting our natural resources like our land, rivers and waters," Evers said.

His predecessor, Republican Scott Walker, was criticized during his tenure for ignoring climate change and for downplaying humans' role in causing it.

Evers, however, is limited in how much he can do. The Democrat faces a legislature controlled by Republicans and the added constraint of a widely derided bill Walker signed after losing reelection that reduces the power of the governor's office in several ways.

Illinois: Joining the U.S. Climate Alliance

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a Democrat, has replaced Republican Bruce Rauner, who talked little about climate change and downplayed its effects while also supporting expanding the oil and gas industry in the state.

"There was both the perception and the reality that (Walker and Rauner) were moving their states backwards when it came to core environmental policies and values that were broadly supported by people of the state," said Howard Learner, president and executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center.

In his inaugural address, Pritzker made a point to say: "I believe in science."

On Wednesday, Pritzker officially signed onto the U.S. Climate Alliance, becoming the 18th governor to join the group and commit the state to the principles of the Paris climate agreement. His executive order also directed the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to monitor the Trump administration's environmental proposals and identify ways to protect Illinois residents from environmental harm.

"While the president is intent on taking us backwards, I will work hard every day to move our state forward," Pritzker said. "We know that climate change is real. We know it's a threat. And we know we must act."

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