Illinois Democrats brace for second Trump administration amid return to Springfield

[November 16, 2024]  By Peter Hancock

SPRINGFIELD – During Donald Trump’s first term as president, Gov. JB Pritzker and Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly spent much of their time enacting laws and policies in direct opposition to the conservative agenda they saw coming from the White House.

Those included the 2019 Reproductive Health Act that declared abortion access to be a “fundamental right” under state law, which lawmakers passed in anticipation that a conservative Supreme Court would eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.

It also included numerous head-to-head confrontations with the Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Pritzker was ordering public health measures aimed at preventing the spread of the disease while openly criticizing Trump for refusing to do the same.

Now, as Trump prepares to take office again, Pritzker and Democratic leaders are bracing themselves for another round of conflict with the White House while planning for legislation and policies to blunt the potential impact of a second Trump administration.

“Over the years ahead, we’ll do more than just protect against the possible reversion to an agenda that threatens to take us backward,” Pritzker said at a Nov. 7 post-election news conference. “We will continue to advance a positive, productive and inclusive agenda of our own, one that brings opportunity to Illinois and helps uplift the nation as a whole.”

On Wednesday, Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, also a Democrat, announced the formation of Governors Safeguarding Democracy, a coalition they say will focus on protecting against “the dangers of authoritarianism and the undermining” of state-level institutions.

That announcement came as lawmakers were convening at the Statehouse for the start of their scheduled two-week fall veto session.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday, Pritzker said he does not yet have a list of specific measures he wants lawmakers to consider immediately, but that some sort of action could come as early as January, before Trump is sworn into office.

“I haven’t heard anything that has to be addressed right now during this veto session,” he said. “Having said that there is time to be able to do that before the Jan. 20 inauguration.”

Likewise, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, said Tuesday, the opening day of the veto session, that it was still too early to know exactly what Trump plans to do in his first few days or how the state should respond. But he said Trump’s record during his first term in office, as well as statements he made during the campaign, offer clues about some of the issues that will be important in Illinois.

“We have to be prepared to continue to defend our values as Illinoisans and do the things that we know how to do to protect workers, protect women, protect LGBTQ-plus communities, immigrant communities,” Welch said.

Welch also pointed to some of the early moves Trump has made since winning the election as signals about the issues Illinois lawmakers will confront. Those include promises to launch mass deportations of immigrants, suggestions from advisors about eliminating federal employee labor unions, and the naming of former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Gov. JB Pritzker speaks to reporters this week, taking several questions about what type of policies he will propose to address the impending administration of President Donald Trump. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock)

“He appointed a former congressman to be head of the EPA who has a 14% record on good environmental legislation,” Welch said. “We have to be concerned about immigration. This country was made and built on immigration. … We have to be concerned with workers’ rights.”

Legislative Republicans, meanwhile, argued that Trump won the election because voters were more concerned about bread-and-butter issues like inflation and the economy.

Citing a recent report showing the state facing a potential $3.2 billion budget deficit in the upcoming fiscal year, GOP leaders said Illinois would be better served if Democrats who control the General Assembly focused more on the state’s own financial condition and less on drawing battle lines with the Trump administration.

“Voters throughout this country have sent a clear message in the last election that they want elected officials to focus on making life more affordable for American families,” Senate Republican Leader John Curran, of Downers Grove, said during a news conference Tuesday.”

He said the task will be more challenging in Illinois due to the impending deficit.

“This budget deficit really is a product of Gov. Pritzker and his allies’, year over year, gluttonous appetite for more spending,” Curran said.

While Democrats have said they are prepared to tackle the deficit, they didn’t give specifics. Sen. Elgie Sims, D-Chicago, who spearheads the budget process in the Senate, told Capitol News Illinois this week there haven’t been any discussions of raising taxes.

Welch acknowledged that Trump will come into office in January with more of a mandate than he had after the 2016 election, when he won a majority of electoral votes but lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“The American people did speak, and if you believe in democracy, you have to accept the results of the election,” he said. “But we didn’t elect a dictator. We elected a president of the United States who has to follow the Constitution of the United States. … That Constitution respects people’s fundamental freedoms. That Constitution protects individual rights. That Constitution protects everyone across this country, not just some people, and we have to make sure that he doesn’t go too far.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.