Full Disclosure w/ the Better Government Association - 02/10/25
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Sunshine. Sunshine. Sunshine. Sunshine. Shining a light on Illinois state government. Well, you know what time it is because it is indeed that time. This is Full Disclosure with the Better Government Association. And this is, of course, your host, Trent R. Nelson. And, well, you know what we get up to here. We have the president and CEO of that organization, David Greising.

And we talk about all of the intersecting topics with Illinois politics, the federal government, local innovations. You know, we're anywhere from discussing the Sonia Massey killing to Michael Madigan to what's cooking between the governor of Illinois and the president of the United States. Good morning, sir. How are you today? Good, Trent. Great to be with you. It's always a pleasure, sir. Always a pleasure.

And of course, we're going to get bogeying right now. There has been over our last few full disclosures, a lot of back and forth between the state of Illinois and the 45th and 47th president's

administration. What can you tell us about what's been going on in that relationship since last we spoke? Well, goodness, so much. But the main thing is that the Justice Department sued the state of Illinois, city of Chicago, Cook County, a few individuals as well.

with a claim that, let's focus on the state. The state in particular is impeding the efforts of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service that has staged some capture activity looking for immigrants who may not have proper documentation, et cetera. And the governor and the mayor of Chicago both have advised

public employees not to cooperate, do anything to help these federal authorities, given that both the state and the city of Chicago have laws in force that prohibit them from doing so. And

Governor Pritzker has pushed back against this lawsuit, saying that he is prepared to defend the state law. And we'll see what happens in court, whether this is just some saber rattling on the part of the Justice Department or whether they are serious about prosecuting this case, which could take weeks, months.

in order to get it through the courts. Absolutely. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. Of course, while this is occurring in Illinois, there are other states that have similar leanings.

and in some cases similar laws, and the Justice Department will likely have to go through them as well. And so there turns out to be a whole bunch of actions that you'll have to undertake if you'd like to see the states change a bit. So we'll see how it all plays out. Of course, we will continue to catch up with you as it concerns that, sir. Well, we've heard of the Gulf of Mexico.

It's been named that for several centuries, I believe back to the early 1600s or early 17th century. The president, he'd like to change it to the Gulf of America. Google has already done so from what the host of this program understands. Well, what has Governor Pritzker said about a body of water near us, sir?

Right. The governor's associates have, it doesn't look like it's on the state website. It is a posting that bears the markings of the governor's political activity. But nevertheless, the governor is, I think, poking the bear on this one a little bit. He stands behind a lectern and announces that he is going to name the lake that abuts the state of Illinois. And

no longer Lake Michigan. It will be called Lake Illinois. And he advises that he is going to alert Google that this has happened. And he also notes that he plans to annex...

the city of Green Bay in order to protect the state of Illinois against adversaries, foreign and domestic, and ends his little performance by saying, go Bears. So that seems to be a shot at the Green Bay Packers. He also warns that there will be an announcement this week having something to do with

the river on the western side of illinois so uh... the governor i think is trying to go a little bit lighter in doing this and nevertheless making it a a point that will resonate in a way that maybe some of the dryer rhetoric of recent recent weeks uh... has not penetrated

Well, I mean, not going to lie, the host of this program even chuckled at that. That's funny. One of the positive things, sir, about Annex and Green Bay is that, well, the great state of Illinois finally gets two football teams again.

And, well, wouldn't we all be so fortunate, sir? Wouldn't we all be so fortunate? Sir, we've got to keep on a boogieing, and we know we've got to hit our commercial break. But before we do, well, we've got to hit one more note that resonates between the federal government and our state of Illinois. We spoke recently about what Mayor Brandon Johnson and the mayors of several other states

quote, sanctuary cities, unquote, might have to do with the federal government, with the House Oversight Committee. What can you tell us concerning that, sir? Well, the mayor, after an invitation a couple of weeks ago, he had referred it to the Corporation Council of the City of Chicago to ask if he is compelled by Congress to

who testified and evidently after consultation with other mayors who've been subpoenaed including the mayors of new york city boston and denver he has gone ahead and said that he will testify before this house oversight committee it's expected based on questions that were included in the invitation to testify it's expected this could be quite a grilling at the hands of

anti-immigrant conservative Republicans on the committee. Of course, there will be Democrats on the committee as well, who I no doubt will give Mayor Brandon Johnson the opportunity to defend the sanctuary city's status and the purpose for it. This should be quite a moment. It's March 5th is the schedule, and let's just hope

Brandon Johnson is doing a lot of preparation. The Chicago Tribune ran an editorial talking about how high stakes this actually is for the city of Chicago, because if Mayor Johnson does not come off well, there could be repercussions just in terms of the city's image and tourism and other factors. I don't know if that is accurate or not, but this will be a very high stakes session.

Well, as you noted, sir, perhaps not as dire as was noted, but certainly important because this is going to be a representation of, of course, the city and to very many degrees, the state and the state of the administration of the state. And so we will have to see if Mayor Johnson puts his best foot forward. Sometimes it's

A politician is able to do that and other times not. We just hope that this being one of those former times, not one of those latter times. Sir, well, we've got more to talk to you about, but we need to take our commercial break before we do. Will you hang out with us during that? And we'll come right back and talk about, well, DuPage County.

and the Michael Madigan trial. What do you say, sir? I'll be here when you get back. You're there first, folks. Dave Greising is going to be here when you get back. He's going to be here with me. I'm not leaving, but we have to take our commercial break, so why don't you grab something lovely to eat, something warm to drink, and ensure that your favorite seat is as comfortable as when you last left her, and we'll catch you in a second.

Shining a light on Illinois state government. Well, you know what time it is because it remains the same time as when we left. It is full disclosure with the Better Government Association. And this is, of course, your host, Trent R. Nelson. And David Greising remains here. We have not heard the click on the line. He is here to talk to us about innovations across Illinois. And in our first segment, we spoke about

Quite a great deal about Governor Pritzker, the state of Illinois, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. A little cheekiness from the governor concerning the Great Lakes. And, of course, a discussion upcoming in front of the House Oversight Committee on Sanctuary City Policies.

Sir, well, we've been chatting so much about groups that are at odds with each other. This is an interesting little story. What can you tell us about a proposal to remove former Congressman Henry Hyde's name from the county court billing in DuPage County?

Well, this reflects some of the political changes that have gone on in the western suburbs. DuPage County was Henry Hyde's political base. He was a Republican from Wooddale. He was a fixture in Congress for many years.

He chaired the House Judiciary Committee from 1995 until 2001. He's been dead now since 2007, but he's best known for the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited federal funding for abortion.

And it was a real, I see change in policy at that time. And in fact, President Trump in his new executive order regarding abortion has invoked some of the terms of the Hyde Amendment overturning an executive order that President Biden had put in effect

allowing federal government to support abortion services. And so the DuPage County has become, uh, uh, purplish with, uh, leaning democratic and the, uh, Democrat, uh, County board, uh,

The Democrats control the county board in DuPage now, and there is a proposal that will be voted on this week to remove Henry Hyde's name from the courthouse in Wheaton that is a courthouse as well as some other county offices. Well, you know, sir, as you sort of alluded to right there, the sea change does happen. We think about...

In Las Vegas, the airport was named after the infamous Silver Fox, McCarran, Senator McCarran. And, well, it turns out that as we've learned more about him, well, we didn't think too much highly of him. And so they changed it to...

Harry Reid, and we suspect that eventually one day somebody might want to change that too. It just happens. We're people. We are not bound to the decisions of our forebears, so often at least. And so this is fine. Change it if you want. Keep it if you want. It's all good so long as it reflects our values. I suppose that's all that matters. Sir, well, speaking of reflecting values and somebody that has –

Certainly not. Well, we've got to end this discussion talking about Michael Madigan, and we cannot see us doing it for too much longer. But what can you tell us? We are in the in the throes of deliberation. Can you give us the tea, sir? Absolutely. When the jury started deliberating Monday morning in

in their ninth day of deliberating, more than 50 total hours. That's quite a bit more than we have seen in some recent cases in the so-called ComEd 4 bribery case in which all four defendants were convicted. The jurors were out about 27 hours. And jurors in the Alderman, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke's trial, came back with a verdict

guilty verdict after 23 hours. And so the Madigan jury on Friday sent a note to the judge. Judge Robert Blakey actually was not available. And so another judge pinch-hitted but was texting Judge Blakey. Judge Edmund Chang ended up issuing a ruling saying that a salary that is paid to somebody who gets a job via bribery is

is in fact considered something, a thing of value, which could be found as evidence in a guilty verdict. So this ruling was a victory, it seems, for the prosecution. And the nature of the question also indicated that this jury

is really going deep and some might say deep in the weeds on the law. And when a jury is out for this long a time, there's kind of convulsions

conventional wisdom sometimes is that the longer they're out, the more maybe they're arguing and possibly coming back with a not guilty verdict or a hung jury. But this note that came out Friday sort of changed that discussion. And now people are drawing an inference that

This is one of those juries that's just going being very careful about its work, really parsing the language of the judge's instructions and perhaps going through count by counting considerable detail as to the charges before them. Right. We are sort of predisposed to think differently.

you know, the worst. Well, they're just going to throw it out. Well, you know what? Let's maybe be a bit more optimistic. Maybe there's a 12 angry men moment, right? Maybe, maybe they're really going through it. Henry Fonda, right? He's, he's making his case and, and there's a lot there. As you noted, we've dealt with not only differing opinions, but also the law has to some degree changed. Um, thanks to, uh,

Thank you.

So we're going to let you go. But before we do, can you remind our listeners where they can learn more similar information like that, which we've just been chatting about here today when we are not doing so? Sure thing, Trent. And, you know, I value the time with you. So thanks for being wary of my time. But our website, our news website is IllinoisAnswers.org. And the BGA's policy work is found at BetterGov.org.

Sir, you are the best. You heard it here first, folks. There are a lot of ways to learn. David Greisinger provides you so many of them. Well, you should take advantage of our discussion as well, as Mr. Greisinger noted.

All of our time is valuable. Let's make it the best we can by learning while we're enjoying it. Sir, we hope you have a marvelous rest of your day and week, and we'll catch you real soon, all right? Sounds good. Shining a light on Illinois state government. You've just been listening to Full Disclosure with the Better Government Association, and this is, of course, your host, Trent R. Nelson.

Well, we just got finished speaking with David Greising, the president and CEO of that organization, and we were boogieing all over. We spoke about the state of Illinois, what Governor Pritzker is involved in as it concerns the

state of Illinois versus the Justice Department. Of course, lawsuits coming from the federal government from the Trump administration concerning Illinois sanctuary laws and interference with the federal government's immigration enforcement efforts.

We spoke about the Great Lakes, the Great Lake of Michigan, perhaps the Great Lake of Illinois. Moving forward, of course, that was unjust, but a funny sort of highlighting of the circumstances that we're currently in. We spoke about Mayor Brandon Johnson going to talk to the House Oversight Committee. We spoke about...

DuPage County, dealing with the legacy of Congressman Henry Hyde, and we also got to, of course, Michael Madigan. So until we do this thing all over again with our wonderful friend Dave Greising, we hope that all of our listeners have a wonderful rest of their day, and we'll catch them all real soon, too.