Pritzker 'Planning' To Be Governor, Bailey To Wait For Sign From God

CHICAGO — The morning after delivering a decisive victory in his first reelection campaign, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was asked if he would commit to serving out his full term.

"I commit to you that I'm, you know, planning to be the governor for the next four years," Pritzker told reporters Wednesday. "We have too many things that we need to accomplish for the state."

In a victory speech Tuesday night that drew explicit parallel between the present historical moment and the rise of fascism nearly a century ago, the governor's rhetoric focused on national politics.

"My speech was about the values of the two parties. I've tried to make clear throughout the past year in my reelection bid what it is that we Democrats stand for and also to point out what the Republicans stand for," Pritzker said. "They are a party that is run by Donald Trump. My opponent was a Donald Trump disciple, and you know those are values that Illinoisans don't appreciate, don't agree with and we successfully made our message clear and won."

Pritzker denied that his speech was a signal of his presidential ambitions.

Over the summer, the billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune delivered keynote addresses to Democratic Party events in the presidential battleground states of New Hampshire and Florida, leading to speculation about his potential candidacy should President Joe Biden not seek a second term.

"I really believe the Republican Party, and that especially includes the Illinois Republican Party who nominated Darren Bailey, that they stand for the MAGA Republican ideas, Donald Trump," he said. "That party has been taken over entirely and I wanted to make clear where I stand for. That's all. Look, I'm an Illinoisan through and through, and I want to be the governor for the next four years. "

The governor did not mention his own contribution to the Bailey campaign.

On his way to spending more than $150 million on his reelection bid, Pritzker first dropped more than $62 million in the Democratic Party primary, when he was challenged by Beverly Miles, an Army nurse who ran a shoestring campaign that was mostly ignored by major media.

But the governor also gave $24 million to the Democratic Governors Association, which spent at least $19 million to air advertisements in the Illinois Republican Party primary that boosted Bailey's campaign, the Chicago Tribune reported in July, citing industry estimates.

Those ads attacked the better-financed and more moderate campaign of Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who was widely considered a greater threat to the governor's chances of a second term.

Bailey was not the only "ultra-conservative" Republican primary candidate whose campaign was financed by Democratic operatives. HuffPost reported five other "election-denying" GOP candidates supported by Democrats also lost Tuesday, mostly in resounding fashion.

---

At Wednesday's press conference, Pritzker said he was open to working with Republicans in a bipartisan fashion in coming legislative sessions.

"Republicans are complaining, criticizing, and they have no solutions for anything," he said. "And so, you know, I think they should look at their own conduct and think about actually coming to the table to get things done with us."

The General Assembly is set to convene next week, with lawmakers planning to propose changes to portions of the SAFE-T Act that take effect in January.

The controversial law, which includes the end of cash bail and restructuring pretrial detention rules, was a prominent issue in the campaign, as conservative groups sought to make crime a major midterm election issue.

Lawmakers concede changes to the law are likely before the end of the year. There have already been two "trailer bills" amending the 764-page act, which passed in the final hours of the lame duck session nearly two years ago.

Both supporters and opponents of cashless bail have made false, misleading and incomplete claims about the contents of the bill, leading to widespread accusations of disinformation. And a legal challenge to the bill filed by 61 county prosecutors is scheduled to be heard by a judge in Kankakee County next month.

Pritzker has said little about what specific changes to the bill he would approve, other than changes to make sure state's attorneys do not release violent criminals on Jan. 1 because of "their own disinformation and misinterpretation" about the law.

"I'll be watching carefully," he said. "I've made my thoughts clear, and we'll see if we can get something done in the veto session to address the changes that we ought to be making."

Among other legislative priorities for the coming months, the governor also pledged to pursue a ban on certain guns and increasing state spending to improve access to abortion.

"We are going to work on passing an assault weapon ban and making sure that we are protecting women's reproductive rights by expanding capacity and by making the investments that are necessary here in our state to protect women," he said.

Pritzker told reporters he had only a very brief conversation with his Republican opponent, State Sen. Darren Bailey, on election night.

"He said, 'Governor, I want to congratulate you,'" Pritzker said. "And I said, 'Well, thank you very much, that's very kind of you.' And he said, 'OK, then.' That's the entire call."

Bailey took to social media on the morning after his election defeat. With 90 percent of the vote counted, unofficial results showed the Southern Illinois farmer trailing Pritzker by over 400,000 votes and more than 11 percentage points.

The first-term state senator said he planned to wait for divine inspiration before determining his next step.

"I don't think God's done, I think there's a movement that's been birthed," Bailey said. "And we're just going to wait on Him to see what he has in store for this movement, because this movement's been birthed all over the state of Illinois. And we sit, and we wonder what happened last night, and it's out of our hands."

Bailey said he was humbled by how much people sacrificed in support of his campaign. He said he was ready for further adversity.

"Sometimes things get worse before they get better, but we're not going to quit, we're not going to leave, we're going to plant ourselves firmly here," Bailey said.

"We sit here and tell you that in times of history, this is nothing new. This has happened before, and sometimes it takes time before the people truly rise up and say we demand something better, something different," he said. "We're just going to have to endure the next few years and see what lies ahead. But friends, listen, don't you dare give up."

Bailey closed his Facebook Live broadcast with a prayer in which he suggested he anticipated trouble on the horizon for Full Armor Christian Academy, the private Christian school he founded in Louisville in 2016.

"I pray for our children going to schools that are being indoctrinated with woke ideology. Father God protect them," he said. "I pray for the coming adversity against homeschools and private schools. Lord God, protect us."