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SPRINGFIELD – Majority Party Democrats had mixed reactions to Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget address Wednesday, with leadership in the General Assembly offering praise amid criticisms from members of the legislature’s Black and Latino caucuses.
The governor’s budget speech – which outlined a $2 billion spending increase without new taxes on everyday Illinoisans – also drew immediate criticism from Republicans, some of whom left the House floor as he drew parallels between the Trump administration and Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
The Illinois Legislative Black Caucus and Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus together include about a quarter of all lawmakers in the General Assembly. Several of them pushed back on the governor’s proposal, which he called “responsible and balanced.”
“This is not a time for celebration,” Sen. Willie Preston, D-Chicago, said at a news conference. “Budgets reveal the morals and the values of our state. In Illinois, Black communities contribute significantly to the economy, yet when the budget is finalized, those contributions are not flowing back into our community.”
At least two Black Caucus members said they wouldn’t vote for Pritzker’s proposal as it stands today – though the February budget proposal only kicks off negotiations each year, with a budget vote coming generally in May after lawmakers make changes.
Sen. Javier Cervantes, D-Chicago, said the Latino Caucus was “profoundly disappointed” in Pritzker’s proposal to eliminate a health care program for many immigrants.
But other Democrats, like moderate veteran House member Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates, praised Pritzker’s address as the best he’s heard in his near-two decades in the General Assembly, saying he was heartened to hear the governor vow to ask for legislators to suggest budget cuts commensurate to spending increases they might propose.
Republicans, meanwhile, took exception to the governor’s tone during his address, accusing him of using the opportunity to further his rumored ambitions for higher office. Still, several Republicans suggested there is room for collaboration on some of Pritzker’s policy proposals relating to economic development and prescription drug affordability.
Black Caucus reaction
Black Caucus members said the governor’s proposed budget does not adequately address “historical disparities” within the state’s Black communities and does not reflect the priorities of Black Illinoisans.
Preston said Black taxpayers are not getting their “fair cuts” of state aid.
Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, said she will not vote for the budget until the Black community receives more resources.
As hundreds gathered around the podium on the Capitol rotunda where the caucus gave its response, Rep. Will Davis, D-Homewood, asked for the crowd’s opinion on the proposal.
“Did you hear something that applies directly to you?” he asked. “Did you hear something in that budget speech that talks about you? And your priorities? And your family? And your employment? And your community? Did you hear it? I didn’t.”
Davis later said he would vote ‘present’ on the budget as of now.
Other Black Caucus members were more supportive. Sen. Elgie Sims, who has led budget negotiations for the Senate Democratic caucus for the last several years, said Pritzker’s proposal is a “great first step.” The Chicago Democrat said he doesn’t have any major issues with the proposal but wants additional details on a few items.
Sims said members need to be responsible and prudent on this year’s budget due to “so much unpredictability coming out of D.C.”
Latino Caucus reaction
Pritzker’s proposed budget would eliminate the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults program that provides coverage to low-income people between ages 42 and 64 who would qualify for Medicaid if they were citizens. Pritzker’s office projected the cut would save $330 million in general fund spending. Its sister program, Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors, was not cut from the proposed budget.
Pritzker said he’d work with lawmakers on his proposal but urged them not to come to negotiations empty handed.
“If you come to the table looking to spend more, I’m going to ask you where you want to cut,” Pritzker said.
Members of the Latino Caucus said they were going to go through the budget “line-by-line” to try and keep HBIA on the table.
“We will be talking about other options, revenue options, and other options that could be on the table to make sure that all of our programs are preserved,” Rep. Lilian Jiménez, D-Chicago, said.
Caucus members said Pritzker did not inform them before the budget address that HBIA was on the chopping block.
“All of us have been hearing that it was going to be a tough budget year. I think that we expected there to be some things in the budget that we weren’t going to be happy with,” Sen. Karina Villa, D-West Chicago, said. “But I think completely removing a program is not anything that we were expecting.”
Republicans criticize message
Republicans reacted angrily to the speech, especially Pritzker’s criticisms of the Trump administration and frequent references to Nazi Germany.
Near the end of his speech, Pritzker used the recent conviction of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on federal corruption charges to call out Republicans who have remained largely silent about actions of the Trump administration that have been challenged or even reversed in federal courts.
“If you applauded that (Madigan) decision like I did, then I expect you to defend and applaud those same federal courts as they check this president in his quest for unrestrained power,” Pritzker said.
He wrapped up his speech with a warning about the dangers of neo-Nazis, comparing the rise of Trump’s Make America Great Again movement with the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s.
“The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame,” Pritzker said. “I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now.”
Some Republicans walked out.
Deputy Minority Leader Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, accused Pritzker of delivering a campaign speech by “playing to what he believes is a national message and feeding his presidential ambitions.”
On the substance of the governor’s budget plan, however, House Republicans said there appears to be some areas for potential for bipartisan agreement, such as calls for lowering the cost of prescription drugs and investing in economic development initiatives.
“There were things that are opportunities for collaboration in government, which is what we’d like to see more of,” Spain said. “But we’re going to have to put aside the insulting national rhetoric in order to do so.”
Democrats have questions
Democrats applauded Pritzker’s invocation of Nazi Germany.
“I thought it was a speech for our moment,” Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said in a statement. “The governor recognizes that our budget doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is subject to the economic winds in Washington and our place on the greater world stage.”
Other Democrats said they wanted to know what the governor’s contingency plans are if there are major cuts to federal funding.
And while members of the Latino Caucus are looking for ways to save HBIA, other Democrats said the governor made the right call in cutting it.
Speaking as the chair of the “New Democrats” caucus, a recently rebranded caucus of roughly two dozen moderate Illinois House members, Rep. Terra Costa Howard, D-Glen Ellyn, said HBIA’s elimination should tell Democrats to think differently about funding requests.
“It’s a positive step toward acknowledging that the accountability of programs and the programs needs to be better before we pass the law,” she said.
Crespo continued his criticism of Democrats for passing bills that are “subject to appropriation” yet not funded in the budget – creating future-year spending pressures and giving “folks a false sense of hope.”
“When we pass legislation or appropriation bills, we need to do a better job on the front end to make sure that we understand potentially how much it’s going to cost,” Crespo said.
Both Costa Howard and Crespo were among a group of Democrats who opposed elements of the FY25 budget last spring, in a rare dissent from Pritzker and their caucus’ leadership.
They both agreed that they’d like to see a return to empowering appropriations committees to better police funding requests. House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, has increasingly relied on internal working groups composed of House Democrats to craft major legislation on key subjects, rather than allowing them to come together through the committee process.
“If we don’t go back and start using our aprops (appropriations) committees, then what is the point?” Costa Howard said. “It’s a waste of everyone’s time.”
Welch didn’t issue a statement himself, though his spokesperson sent one on behalf of his four-person budgeting team.
“Governor Pritzker shared his vision of ways to continue strengthening our state and uplifting working people,” Reps. Robyn Gabel, Kam Buckner, Will Guzzardi and Eva-Dina Delgado said in a statement. “Now the work of creating a budget that invests in Illinois families begins. We know the most important goal is to continue our work of helping people make ends meet, but we also know the biggest challenge in that work will be the chaos and uncertainty in Washington.”
Comptroller Mendoza
Comptroller Susana Mendoza said lawmakers need to assume “a worst-case scenario” if they’ve been planning on receiving funding from the federal government.
“There’s going to be a lot of ‘no’s’ going around,” she said. “If you really want to fight for your project, then you have to figure out where are you going to cut in order to make that revenue a possibility in this year’s budget.”
Mendoza called the $55.4 billion in projected revenue a “conservative” estimate, though she said she worried it does not take future federal funding cuts into account.
“Every day there’s some new level of instability or unpredictability injected into the system, not just here in Illinois, but across the country, and it doesn’t help anyone,” she said. “It doesn’t help Democrats, Republicans or anyone in between. And I do believe that we should be working really hard to find efficiencies everywhere we can, but we also need to be doing it in a responsible and methodical way.”
Interest groups
One focus of Pritzker’s speech was criticizing “pharmacy benefit managers” – organizations which set the price of prescription drugs on behalf of health insurance plans.
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represent PBMs, said the speech “missed the mark” and wasn’t focusing enough on the manufacturers of drugs.
Education unions offered a mixed response. The governor proposed increasing funding for the K-12 school Evidence-Based Funding formula by $350 million – the minimum called for in law.
Illinois Federation of Teachers President Dan Montgomery said the budget exposed “deep, systemic flaws in Illinois’ revenue system” by only chipping in the minimum amount. Montgomery and Illinois Education Association President Al Llorens also criticized the governor for not proposing any large reforms to the state’s two-tier pension system.
Groups representing community colleges as well as teachers and administrators all praised his proposal that would allow the publicly funded schools to offer four-year degrees.
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.