Free Republic

Illinois has long been a blue state, mainly because of the way Chicagoans lean. But if state Republicans had hopes of gaining, or even maintaining ground last Tuesday, their hopes were quickly quashed. Democrats ousted Republicans in the race for governor and in two key congressional districts, and the General Assembly locked in Democratic supermajorities in both houses. So where do Republicans in Illinois stand today, and what’s to come?

Democratic candidates won governorships in seven Republican-held states on Tuesday as voters rebuked both President Trump and unpopular GOP governors in some of the deepest red territories in the country. Democratic candidates picked up open seats in Maine, Nevada, Michigan and New Mexico where Republican incumbents faced term limits. State Sen. Laura Kelly (D) beat out controversial Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who ousted Gov. Jeff Colyer (R) in this year’s Republican primary. Billionaire hotel magnate J.B. Pritzker (D) easily outpaced Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) in a race that cost both men tens of millions of dollars....

Several hours after announcing their suspensions, two campaign workers have been fired from Democrat J.B. Pritzker’s campaign amid controversy over an Instagram photo of a campaign worker wearing a charcoal face mask that resembles blackface. The campaign on Friday morning insisted the incident was not racial in nature and the employees in question would be suspended without pay for exercising poor judgment. But within hours, the campaign workers were ousted. The post by Carolyn Mehta — which LinkedIn identifies as the campaign’s Deputy Get Out The Vote Director — comes as the Pritzker campaign faces a lawsuit from former campaign...

...They hired the Schulz company, a high-end, family-owned contractor from Evanston. Schulz had worked on the Pritzkers’ vacation home in Lake Geneva, done work for other Pritzkers, and at the time, employed J.B. Pritzker’s second cousin as a carpenter.“ ...J.B. had no intention of ever executing a final contract with Schulz,” according to court filings by the contractor. “During this meeting, J.B. rejected Schulz’s … contract proposal and requested that Schulz submit another proposal without making any counter offer. J.B. also reiterated his demand that Schulz take all necessary action to complete its work on a more expedited basis.”

I’ve covered enough campaigns to be wary of last-minute accusations. So I didn’t think much about the discrimination complaint that was filed by ten JB Pritzker for Governor campaign workers. But then I looked at backgrounds of the people making those allegations. Most of them had experience working on other important political campaigns. There’s no evidence that the lawsuit has had a negative impact on the campaign. In fact, Pritzker’s unfavorable comments about black politicians, captured on a secretly recorded wiretap... caused a bigger uproar. During the conversation, Pritzker mulled over which black politician would be “least offensive” to fill...

A group of employees alleging racism in Democrat J.B. Pritzker’s campaign offices strongly denied Monday any political motivation for their federal lawsuit — with one former worker saying she’d personally spoke to the candidate about discrimination. “He promised me to address it, and I was laid off,” said Kayla Hogan, a former field organizer for the campaign. Eight of the 10 current and former employees appeared with their lawyers Monday at an office on the South Side, saying they felt their side of the story hadn’t been accurately portrayed in news reports about the suit, filed last week. “Since then,...

The plaintiffs — all field organizers — allege that while the campaign has hired African-American and Latino workers, “the vast majority are herded into race-specific positions where they are expected to interact with the public, offered no meaningful chance for advancement, and receive less favorable treatment than their white counterparts who engage with, as the campaign sees it, a more desirable constituency.” “At all times relevant, the J.B. Prtizker for Governor campaign has been cesspool of racial discrimination and harassment,” according to the suit. The campaign also released information designed to poke holes in some of the allegations.

“JB Pritzker for Governor has a serious race problem,” the lawsuit said. “Contrary to the candidate’s many public avowals, rather than working to meaningfully address discrimination, racism is perpetuated, condoned and ratified by the Campaign.” The lawsuit, filed Oct. 16 in Chicago federal court, specifically alleges the black and Latino campaign workers are packed into majority minority neighborhoods, often in unsafe working conditions, and are denied benefits and advancement opportunities available to their white colleagues. Named plaintiffs in the action include Maxwell Little, Jason Benton, Jelani Coleman, Celia Colon, Kasmine Calhoun, Erica Kimble, Nathaniel Madison, Tiffany Madison, James B. Tinsley...

Real estate experts say J.B. Pritzker, Democrat candidate for Illinois governor, may have some serious legal problems stemming from a leaked report outlining how he allegedly manipulated Cook County’s tax system to lower his property tax bill. The leaked report from Cook County’s top watchdog revisits how the Chicago billionaire got tax breaks totaling more than $300,000 by ripping out the toilets and altering other parts of one of his Gold Coast mansions shortly before having it deemed uninhabitable by a private appraiser.

The Illinois Republican Congressional Delegation sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office calling for a full investigation into JB Pritzker’s “scheme to defraud” Illinois taxpayers by ripping toilets out of his mansion to claim the property as uninhabitable. October 3, 2018 The Honorable John R. Lausch, Jr. United States Attorney’s Office Mr. Lausch: We write to call your attention to a recent Cook County Inspector General investigation which concluded that Jay Robert (J.B.) Pritzker engaged in a “scheme to defraud” Cook County of over $300,000 in improper property tax reductions and refunds. The Inspector General’s report concluded that the...

Cook County’s chief watchdog has concluded that more than $330,000 in property tax breaks and refunds that Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker received on one of his Gold Coast mansions — in part by removing toilets — constituted a “scheme to defraud.” Cook County Inspector General Patrick Blanchard also recommends that Cook County should try to recover the money from the billionaire. […] Blanchard writes in the report that the Cook County Assessor’s office was “the victim of sworn affidavits containing false representations.” […] “The use of these affidavits was part of a scheme for obtaining money by means of...

Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker Monday pledged if elected to lead Illinois as a resistance state to President Donald Trump's policies and said Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's silence on federal issues demonstrated he was "complicit" with the president. "I'm proud to be part of the resistance," Pritzker told a group of supporters, using downtown's Trump Tower as a backdrop. "When I'm governor, we're not going to be silent like Bruce Rauner. Illinois will be a firewall against Donald Trump's destructive and bigoted agenda." On Monday, Pritzker unveiled plans such as expanded availability of health care and protections for gay rights...

For years, Democrats have tried to cajole Chris Kennedy into running statewide in Illinois, hoping that the wealthy son of the late Robert F. Kennedy could parlay his exalted family name into high office. So when Kennedy finally announced a bid for governor in February, comparisons to Camelot abounded. He took the early lead in polling and drew an almost immediate endorsement from a coalition of county chairmen in Southern Illinois. Now, three months later, Kennedy has fallen out of favor with key labor groups and powerful forces within the Democratic establishment. And he’s facing a roadblock that’s unfamiliar to...

A billionaire Democratic megadonor, who is exploring a run for governor, encouraged men to use women's bathrooms on Wednesday sparking criticism from transgender advocates and politicians. J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire heir whose father co-founded Hyatt hotels, floated the idea of switching bathrooms in the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order reversing an Obama policy that could have stripped federal funds from schools that maintain separate bathroom facilities based on sex.

Radiation inside one of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power facility has reached an “unimaginable” level according to experts. Because so much nuclear material from Fukushima escaped into the Pacific Ocean, there are many scientists that believe that it was the worst environmental disaster in human history, but most people in the general population seem to think that since the mainstream media really doesn’t talk about it anymore that everything must be under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. In fact, PBS reported just last year that “it is incorrect to say that Fukushima is under...

Over three days, some of the wealthiest people in Chicago, if not the nation, dumped more than $1.3 million into the political re-election campaign of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.. Among the donors was Citadel founder and billionaire Ken Griffin, who donated $250,000 to Emanuel. The mayor is battling to keep his seat against a surging Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Others who donated from March 3 to March 6 include: Groupon co-founder Eric Lefkofsky, $200,000; Richard Melman, $100,000; and Jay B. Pritzker and M.K. Pritzker, who tossed in $50,000 each. Garcia recently took in a a $250,000 contribution from...

Chicago Big profit for Pritzkers on costly Chicago FBI deal Sun, 09/14/2014 - 3:30pm Better Government Association @bettergov | Email A deal involving the federal government’s most expensive lease in Chicago produced millions of dollars in profits for a development group that included Penny Pritzker, a top campaign fund-raiser for President Barack Obama who is now his commerce secretary, a Chicago Sun-Times / Better Government Association investigation has found. The developers also included Jack Higgins, a friend and political backer of former Mayor Richard M. Daley. Over the 14-year term of the lease, the government will pay $280 million in...

Media Matters employees are furious that their bosses are trying to keep them from unionizing. A union-organizing committee at the liberal group released a statement Monday slamming their employers for “the unexpected and unexplained path our leadership has taken in response to our efforts to unionize,” adding that “the actions of Media Matters executives have placed employees in the impossible position of continuing to produce content espousing pro-labor values for an employer who is challenging our right to unionize.”

She is 18-year-old Liesel Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt hotel chain. She is young, beautiful, and ostensibly, wealthy. She co-stars in movies with Harrison Ford (Air Force One) and played -- prophetically, as it turns out -- the title role in the 1995 Warner Brothers film, A Little Princess, in which her character takes on the British government in a fight over -- what else? -- her father's money. According to a civil lawsuit filed by the young heiress, life indeed imitates art. In the suit, Pritzker claims that her father, 76-year-old business exec Robert Pritzker, sold off assets belonging...

Hey, these things happen: Penny Pritzker, President Obama’s nominee to lead the Commerce Department, understated her income by some $80 million and had to file a correction to her government-filed disclosures, Bloomberg is reporting. That might sound like a lot of money, but it’s all relative. Pritzker, whose family founded the Hyatt hotel chain, is worth about $1.5 billion. So it’s easy to see how a few million — or 80 — could go missing. Maybe she left it in the other purse? A spokeswoman told Bloomberg that the $80 million was “a substantial amount” and that Pritzker’s advisers corrected...