By CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS

SPRINGFIELD – On Tuesday, March 29, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board website noted the next quarterly clemency hearings, which were scheduled for April 12 to April 15, have been indefinitely postponed due to “unforeseen circumstances” as the agency looks to “finalize a future date and location.”

On Monday, PRB member Oreal James resigned by way of a letter to Gov. JB Pritzker before going to the Senate for a vote, and Eleanor Kaye Wilson failed to get the required votes needed to confirm her appointment to the board.

With James’ resignation and Wilson’s failed confirmation, the PRB now has just six seated members of a 15-member board. Of those, LeAnn Miller, Jared Bohland and Ken Tupy need Senate approval. Tupy and Bohland were recommended by the Executive Appointments Committee unanimously. Miller was also recommended.

“As we predicted, recent attacks on the Prisoner Review Board left the body short-staffed and without the capacity to carry out April’s quarterly clemency hearings,” said Jennifer Soble, executive director of the Illinois Prison Project in a news release on Tuesday. “This is the result of failed tough-on-crime rhetoric meant merely to incite fear and score cheap political points.”

Last week, Jeff Mears, a downstate Democrat, won a recommendation from the Senate Executive Appointments Committee, but also failed to get confirmed by the full Senate. Two weeks ago, Pritzker pulled the appointment of Max Cerda, a PRB board member who was convicted of a double murder when he was 16 years old and paroled in 1998. It appeared Cerda would not have enough Senate support for approval.

The PRB has been a source of scrutiny from Senate Republicans who questioned the appointment process and the recent decisions on release, including the release of two men, both now in their 70s, who shot an Illinois State Police trooper in 1976.

Pritzker spoke out during a news conference to honor the Illinois State Police on Tuesday, saying Republicans were attacking the “character” and “biographies” in an effort to “tear apart this agency of government.”

“It’s very easy just to say, ‘this person committed an awful crime so many years ago,’ and to say, ‘we’re gonna throw away the key, leave them all in prison,’” Pritzker said. “That’s what you’re gonna end up with. If that’s what people want, well, let’s hear that. But I don’t think that’s what people wanted when we created the Prisoner Review Board.”

Pritzker did not directly respond to a question Tuesday as to how long it would take to get the board to a quorum, but he did note that the recent publicity around the board makes finding replacements more difficult.

The governor could appoint new members before the Senate adjourns, but the Senate would have to act on those appointments before recess on April 8, probably too late to save the April clemency docket. The constitution provides that a governor can make a temporary appointment to a board during a recess of the Senate.

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ISP CENTENNIAL: From his ceremonial office at the Capitol Tuesday, Gov. JB Pritzker proclaimed the 12-month period beginning April 1 as the Illinois State Police centennial year, ordering the ISP flag to fly atop the Capitol dome for the month of April.

The news conference in Pritzker’s office followed an appearance on the Capitol’s east lawn, where a fleet of new black-and-white squad cars and ISP officers lined up in front of the Abraham Lincoln statue.

Pritzker, at a news conference in his office, told a story of an ISP that formed in 1922 to “maintain order and safety on its massive number of newly paved roads.” ISP Director Brendan Kelly said the first class of ISP troopers consisted of eight individuals driving motorcycles “that were left over from the First World War.”

“It’s safe to say the Illinois State Police has changed an awful lot since then, as threats have evolved over the decades. As our understanding of public safety has expanded, so too have the duties of the Illinois State Police,” Pritzker said.

Pritzker said ISP duties now include “forensic testing, crime scene services, investigations, intelligence, cybersecurity, disaster response and a spectrum of support for all local law enforcement throughout the state.”

“The makeup of the ranks of our state troopers has changed too. Women and people of color weren’t allowed to serve 100 years ago. Today they are among ISPs highest ranks,” he said.

At the event, Pritzker awarded retired Illinois State Police Captain Donald Norton with the Illinois State Police Achievement Medal Tuesday to honor his 30 years of service to ISP.

Norton, now 91, served from 1960 to 1990 in the ISP Division of Criminal Investigation and Division of Narcotic Control, and was commander of Illinois State Police District 3, now known as District Chicago.

He was previously awarded the Medal for Honor, which is awarded to Illinois State Police personnel who perform a heroic act that “by its nature results in saving a life, preventing a serious crime, or apprehending a person who committed a serious crime.”

Pritzker said Norton remains committed to ISP, providing military guidon flags for each cadet and recruit class for several years. Norton has also developed flags for the office of the ISP director, first deputy director and each division. Pritzker said those flags will be encased at a 100th anniversary ceremony this Friday.

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CRIME DISCUSSION: The ISP centennial event came amid a political backdrop in which crime and the state’s response to it is top of mind in the early stages of the 2022 campaign season in which every seat in the General Assembly and all constitutional offices are up for grabs, including the governorship.

“I believe that our police are out there trying to protect our communities as best they can, sometimes in extraordinary and difficult circumstances,” Pritzker said. “So we ought to stand up for our police, whether they’re state police, local police. Obviously, where there are police who aren’t doing the job, people who are mishandling their duties, they need to be held accountable for their actions.”

Pritzker acknowledged crime is up across the state and nation, attributing the trends partially to a “pandemic recession.”  The state must support law enforcement in an effort to “put away the people who actually committed crimes,” he said.  

Pritzker’s budget proposal included an $18.6 million increase to the ISP budget to allow for three classes of Illinois State Police cadets. Previously passed infrastructure budgets include crime lab funding as well.

But as Pritzker and Kelly headed out to the Capitol grounds to shake hands with rank-and-file ISP troopers, Richard Irvin, a Republican challenger for governor, issued a news release criticizing the governor’s 2021 signature on a criminal justice reform bill known as the SAFE-T Act.

Republicans have seized on Pritzker’s signature on the SAFE-T Act which eliminates cash bail beginning next year in favor of a system prioritizing the offender’s threat level over ability to pay. It’s to be defined in the courts.

The bill also requires body cameras be implemented by 2025, a measure which Pritzker said would increase accountability and trust. It also changed use-of-force guidelines for law enforcement, created a new police certification system and expanded detainee rights.

The GOP has blamed the SAFE-T Act for resignations in sheriff’s offices and police departments across the state and for making recruitment of new officers difficult.

When asked about recruiting officers, Pritzker pointed to a nationwide labor shortage and emphasized the brotherhood of ISP and strong wages as a recruiting hook. Kelly said law enforcement is a “challenging and difficult job,” but it’s also “a calling” and he’s optimistic recruits will continue to materialize.

Pritzker’s proposed budget also includes $4.5 million to fund body cameras for ISP, as well as providing the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board with $10 million for distributing grants to local law enforcement for body cameras.

Pritzker has also touted $240 million in proposed funding as part of a two-year, $250 million commitment to the Reimagine Public Safety Act, which aims at investing violence prevention resources in some of the state’s most dangerous areas.

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CAMPAIGN FUNDS FOR LEGAL FEES: The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday, March 24, that elected public officials and their campaign committees may, in limited circumstances, use campaign funds to pay criminal defense attorney fees.

The case involved a former Chicago city alderman, Danny Solis, who reportedly avoided federal prosecution by agreeing to cooperate with the FBI and Department of Justice in their investigation of another alderman, Ed Burke, who was indicted in 2019 on federal corruption charges.

Ed Burke is married to Chief Justice Anne Burke, who recused herself from the case. Two other justices, Mary Jane Theis and P. Scott Neville Jr., also did not take part in the decision, leaving only four justices to decide the case – the minimum number needed to issue a majority opinion.

Solis served on the Chicago City Council from 1996 to 2019 representing the city’s 25th Ward and for a time chaired the council’s powerful Zoning Committee. He did not run for reelection in 2019 and was succeeded in office by current Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez.

According to published reports, Solis had been under investigation as part of the federal government’s wide-sweeping probe into public corruption involving state and local elected officials. But in June 2016 he began cooperating with investigators by secretly recording conversations with other public officials.

When he first began cooperating with investigators, he retained the law firm of Foley & Lardner LLP. On May 21, 2019, the day after Sigcho-Lopez was sworn into office, the 25th Ward Democratic Organization – the committee that had backed his campaigns – paid the firm $220,000 for legal fees.

What is known now, but was not publicly known then, is that on Jan. 3, 2019, Solis entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office. That was the same day the public first learned of a sweeping criminal complaint that had been filed against Burke for allegedly using his position to corruptly solicit business for his private law firms from companies involved in redevelopment projects in his 14th Ward.

In October 2019, Sigcho-Lopez filed a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections alleging that the expenditure violated provisions of the Illinois Election Code that regulate campaign disclosure and finance. Specifically, he argued, the payment was made to settle a personal debt that was not related to any of his campaigns or for governmental or political purposes directly related to his official duties or responsibilities.

The board, however, dismissed the complaint on the grounds that spending campaign funds for criminal defense was not specifically prohibited in the Election Code and that Solis’ legal bill was not a personal loan or debt. Sigcho-Lopez then appealed that decision to the First District Court of Appeals which upheld the board’s decision.

In the court’s 17-page ruling released Thursday, the remaining four justices partially rejected the committee’s argument that payment of criminal defense fees is always permissible solely because the General Assembly did not specifically include them in the list of prohibited expenses. But it also partially rejected Sigcho-Lopez’s argument that the legal fees were a prohibited “personal debt.”

Instead, they found that because the General Assembly had not specifically prohibited the payment of criminal defense attorney fees from campaign funds, it is reasonable for the Board of Elections to rule on a case-by-case basis.

And in Solis’ case, Justice David K. Overstreet wrote for the majority, the expense was permissible because Solis had not been indicted on criminal charges but had only worked with federal investigators “using his official capacity to expose public corruption.”

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UNEMPLOYMENT TRUST FUND:

Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday, March 25, signed a measure to allocate $2.7 billion in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay down more than half of the state’s outstanding $4.5 billion Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund debt.

The measure, an amendment to Senate Bill 2803, also included over $1.4 billion in general revenue fund spending to pay down other state debts. Both houses passed it with only Democratic support this week.

Democrats repeatedly called out Republicans for voting against the debt retirement package.

Republicans, meanwhile, said that not allocating greater funding to the trust fund deficit will force some combination of tax increases on employers or benefit cuts to those on unemployment as a solution to paying down the remaining $1.8 billion in trust fund debt.

The trust fund is the pool of money paid into by businesses that funds unemployment claims. The debt accrued as the state borrowed from the federal government at the height of the pandemic to keep the trust fund solvent amid an unprecedented crush of claims.

When states accrue trust fund debt, the ways to pay it down have historically included raising insurance premium rates paid by employers, decreasing unemployment benefits, or seeing a new influx of cash, such as federal, state or private funds.

Discussions continue with business and labor interests on addressing the remaining $1.8 billion.

An employer group including the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Businesses of Illinois, and the Associated General Contractors of Illinois, issued a statement calling the measure a “positive step.”

“We’re hopeful that negotiations will continue to resolve the remaining balance of this unprecedented deficit,” the business group said.

Private bonding, benefit cuts and premium increases are all being considered.

As of Wednesday, the state had already accrued $41 million of interest on the debt and it continued to accrue at a rate of 1.59 percent. That interest was due to be paid by Sept. 30, according to the U.S. Treasury.

By November, without action, that interest was expected to grow to $80 million. Interest can’t be paid through ARPA, so it would require a General Revenue Fund allotment.

The measure also allocated $898 million in general revenue funds to pay off old group health insurance bills, an added $300 million to pension payments beyond statutory levels and $230 million to pay off the unfunded liabilities of the College Illinois savings program – all cornerstones of Gov. JB Pritzker’s debt retirement initiatives put forth in his budget proposal. Those allotments will come from the state’s General Revenue Funds from the anticipated Fiscal Year 2022 surplus.

The pension spending would create $1 billion in savings to the state’s pension system over its life, while the group health insurance payments would save over $100 million in interest and the College Illinois payment would create a $75 million savings, according to estimates from House Democrats.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government that is distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.