Pritzker says Illinois Democrats discussing how to ‘Shore up’ as Trump returns to the White House

CHICAGO — Illinois isn’t following the lead of California Gov. Gavin Newson and convening a special session in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s win.

There’s no need, given that Illinois legislators are already set to return to Springfield on Tuesday for a previously scheduled two-week veto session, as they customarily do each fall.

But Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker in a news conference on Thursday signaled that Democratic leaders are discussing what, if any, actions the state may take to gird itself against the future Trump administration.

“We’re gathering, you know, I would call it, a list of things that we may need to address,” Pritzker said.

The governor said it may not happen when the General Assembly meets in November, and could wait until the legislature reconvenes in 2025.

“There is time to do that,” he said. “We have a lot of work that we’re looking at doing.”

Pritzker said he met Wednesday with senior staff about a possible Trump reaction-agenda, and he’s talked with other governors across the country (he didn’t specify who) about options they’re contemplating.

Pritzker said he’s thought “a lot about, you know, what happens if the administration in Washington changes? If the tone changes … would it have a negative effect in Illinois? And how we shore up and make sure we’re protecting people here,” he said.

The governor did not get into any detail about possible proposals beyond vaguely listing policy areas ripe to warrant action.

“You can imagine … health care, reproductive rights. There are many people whose lives and livelihoods are at risk,” Pritzker said. “There are many people who cried at the result because they know what impact it may have on their families. So think about that.”

Following his win, Trump said his governing ethos will be to keep the promises he made on the campaign trail, which include leaving abortion rights to states, a mass-scale deportation of immigrants and undoing federal assistance promoting clean energy.

The governor said Illinois has already done much of the work to insulate the state from federal action.

He pointed to the Reproductive Health Act, a law he signed in 2019, as a safeguard against abortion restrictions at the federal level. The law codifies in state statute “the fundamental rights of individuals to make autonomous decisions about one’s own reproductive health” including the right to have an abortion.

He also mentioned raising the minimum wage, clean energy policies, protections for immigrants and attracting new businesses that he said will “ensure that tariffs and trickle-down economics do not define our state’s economic future.”

Pritzker said he was certainly surprised by Trump’s victory, but was prepared for it.

“Having fought through the headwinds of the first Trump administration, the General Assembly and I took proactive steps to plan for the potential of a second Trump presidency, and protect our residents from the damage that it may attempt to cause,” Pritzker said. “Illinois will continue to be a refuge for those whose rights are being denied elsewhere.”

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch echoed some of Pritzker’s sentiments.

“This week has proven that the work we’ve done in Illinois matters more than ever, and I’m grateful that we’ve taken steps to safeguard the rights and values that are now at extreme risk in many surrounding states,” Welch said in a statement. “We’ll be heading into this veto session with a renewed determination to ensure our fundamental freedoms remain protected.”

In a release announcing his special session, Newsom calls for “shoring up California’s defenses against an incoming federal administration that has threatened the state on multiple fronts.”

The California special session proclamation lists that “the consequences of his (Trump’s) presidency for California may be significant and immediate,” including impacts on reproductive freedom, policies promoting electric vehicles, repealing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that gives legal protection to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, “withholding disaster response funding” and “politicizing grant programs.”

Asked whether he’s concerned about Trump stripping grants from Illinois, Pritzker signaled confidence and said that in many instances, it would be illegal to try.

“I feel, you know, reasonably OK about our ability to withstand anything that the Trump administration brings at, to us. But you know, I can’t predict the future,” he said.

With Democrats out of the White House, the U.S. Senate moving to GOP control thereby reducing U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Illinois) leadership status, and only three Republicans in Illinois’ Congressional delegation, the state will also be losing clout after Trump takes office.

“The federal government — separate and apart from the politics of the person who controls the office of president — has a certain pace to it, and a working order to it, that continued to a large degree during the first Trump administration,” Pritzker said. “Any political actions that the president takes, I think, will … work to his detriment politically.”

Pritzker reiterated that legally, politics are not supposed to be part of various government grants, and said he has faith the courts would intervene if that’s attempted.

Pritzker said he expects that Illinois will still be able to access federal assistance for emergencies like storms and natural disasters.

Pritzker, a Democrat, was a strong supporter of President Joe Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacies for the White House.

In his first public appearance since Harris lost to Trump, Pritzker said he had no announcements about his own political future, including whether he’ll run for a third term or run for president in 2028.

“Pritzker might as well have announced his 2028 campaign for the Presidency in his deceptive media availability this morning,” the Illinois Republican Party said in a statement. “Republicans have established the party of hard working Americans, while Democrats have become the party of wealthy elites. It’s only fitting that they turn to another wealthy elite in 2028. Governor Pritzker should do us all a favor and start his campaign now. We’ll be just fine without him.”

Despite being vastly outspent in legislative races, Illinois Republicans are celebrating that they appear to have lost no seats in the General Assembly, though several races are as yet too close to call.

Democrats hold supermajorities in both the House and the Senate, and will continue to do so based on Tuesday’s results.

The governor largely deferred from weighing in on where the Harris campaign and Democrats broadly went wrong, saying that it’s premature to diagnose until party leaders can study voter data.

He said Harris did an “extraordinary job” running a campaign in only 107 days after Biden dropped out in July, but that “more time would have been better.”

Contact Amanda Vinicky: @AmandaVinicky | avinicky@wttw.com