By: Mark Glennon*
Soaring crime levels have driven new, bipartisan scrutiny of Gov. JB Pritzker’s appointments to PRB, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. That board makes parole decisions and confidential recommendations to the Governor relative to executive clemency petitions.
Pritzker’s board appointments need Senate approval, but for the second time in a week, the Senate on Monday rejected a Pritzker nominee over concerns about excess leniency. A different board member appointed by Pritzker resigned on Monday, and others remain unconfirmed by the Senate.
Amazingly, Pritzker on Tuesday blamed his loss on Republicans, who hold just 18 of the 59 Senate seats. They want to “tear apart this agency of government,” Pritzker said.
In truth, however, Pritzker couldn’t get his own party members’ support, either.
“The governor failed to note that 14 Democratic senators, most of them representing suburban districts, joined 17 Republicans Monday to turn down his nomination of Eleanor Wilson,” reported the Chicago Tribune. The final vote Monday was 31-15, with 12 Democrats failing to vote. Three Democratic senators, Suzy Glowiak Hilton of Western Springs, Bill Cunningham of Chicago, and Meg Loughran Cappel of Shorewood — cited the nominee’s votes to grant early release to two men, each convicted of killing a police officer, as their reason for voting against her nomination, according to the Tribune.
It got much worse. Pritzker linked Senate Republicans to QAnon. Often going by just “Q,” QAnon is an internet conspiracy theory whose followers believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires runs the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children.
Yes, the Illinois GOP is actually the “GQP,” Pritzker wants you to know. He said, “Now, to have Republicans attack [Pritzker’s PRB nominees] and their character and their biographies, to have Republicans essentially trying to tear apart this agency of government — I mean this is what the GQP has been all about, tearing government apart.”
“Pritzker pronounced the GQP acronym slowly and carefully in response to a question about Monday’s state Senate vote, reported the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s been used by some Democrats nationally to label Republicans as the ‘Grand QAnon Party.’”
Not a single lawmaker in the General Assembly has ever indicated the slightest support for QAnon, to my knowledge. For Pritzker to put the Q label on Senate Republicans is, itself, conspiracy theory at its worst.
So now we have the PRB with so few members that it lacks a quorum, indefinitely delaying its ability to conduct any business. More broadly, just two months are left in this legislative session in which we finally may have bipartisan support for at least some reforms to address violent crime. Good luck making progress in this atmosphere.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Prickster has to go! And we know where!
JB is a card-carrying member of BluAnon.
He regularly becomes aggressive when his own plans fail. Still the little rich boy that throws a tantrum when he doesn’t get what he wants.
He’s a billionaire and not used to anyone telling him No. He was born into that kind of money and people do whatever he wants. He pays his staff double their salary because needs them to say Yes to him instead of Yes to the state of Illinois. He hasn’t really had much No from anyone in the state. The legislature is completely beholden to him and his campaign donations. And when someone does say “No” or he loses on some issue, his coping strategy isn’t to look inward, or debate the issues, it is to lash out and make… Read more »
JB is a cancer. His enablers deserve his governance. What a clown in a clown world.
He is America’s most dishonest politician. He lies incessantly.
Pritzker is the poster boy for term limits, public financing of campaigns, and elimination of PACS, lobbyists, and harsh ethics laws with draconian penalties for violation. Why would he spend hundreds of millions of his own money to be governor? He’s already made all of that back and then some, I’m certain. Shaun Thompson has spoken frequently about the Biden crime family, the shakedowns, influence peddling, tax evasion and the like. I think Democrats have over played their hand going after Trump as they’ve done. They’ve put out lots of dirt, and damaged him politically, but have never been able,… Read more »
Pritzker used his family’s trust’s money to fund his campaign. He did it for the same reason every person does it: the will to power. He alone controlled coronavirus mitigation policies statewide for 13,000,000 people for 24 months. That’s king like power when you can close churches and schools because someone has a cough or sneezes. And he froze out both Democrats and Republicans alike for two years. To a guy with a lot of money, like JB, 300,000,000 to be king of IL for a few years is money well spent. It’s not like he earned it or even… Read more »
I call bullshit in your theory. He wants to be able to push parents and church goers around instead of doing any number of things a man of his means could be doing? The infrastructure bill alone was Almost 50 billion. If every contractor peels off 1% and throws him a contribution, that’s 500 million right there.
The state got billions in Covid “relief”. Again the 1% rule would garner him more millions. he’s likely parlayed his initial 300 million into well over a billion in one term!
In theory, yes, that would be great, a $500,000,000 soft corruption payoff, but on the ground, he’s pumping hundreds of millions of his own money into his campaign.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/2022/1/14/22884722/billionaire-gov-pritzker-contributes-90-million-camaign-reelecto-richard-irvin-ken-griffin
Billionaire Gov. Pritzker throws $90M into his re-election bid, with Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin poised to join GOP primary
https://abc7chicago.com/jb-pritzker-prizker-donation-vote-yes-for-fairness-flat-rate-income-tax/6297729/
Governor JB Pritzker has donated another $51.5 million of his own money to a committee working to make the “fair” tax happen.
The contribution to Vote Yes for Fairness, a committee headed by the governor’s former deputy campaign manager, was reported late Friday in a filing with the State Board of Elections, according to the Associated Press.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-pritzker-campaign-donation-20210322-xhmfympbhjayhl6ujq66nr4wnu-story.html
Mar 22, 2021
First-term Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker sought Monday to distance his anticipated bid for reelection from the $35 million he gave his campaign fund, calling the donation a “preventive measure” to counteract unspecified Republican attacks on his party’s agenda.
The State Board of Elections reported the donation Pritzker, a billionaire heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, made to campaign fund on Friday. The cash drop represents the largest signal yet of his plans to seek a second term next year.
Illinois is ground zero for the Democrats agenda from Washington and Pritzker is there go to.
The “Big Guy” and Raggedy Ann give him a damn good run for his money though!