Illinois’ Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker is seeking a third term. That makes him the first Illinois governor to seek a third term since Republican Jim Thompson.
Pritzker’s opponent is once again Republican Darren Bailey. He is a farmer from Southern Illinois, a former state senator, and the Republican nominee for governor who lost to Pritzker four years ago.
Last week, Pritzker sat down with Brian Mackey, host of The 21st Show, at Illinois Public Media’s studio in Urbana. They discussed issues in Illinois prisons, public distrust of billionaires, and what he hopes to accomplish if voters elect him to another term.
Bailey is expected to join the program later this week.
Interview Highlights
On incidents at Illinois prisons reserved for mentally ill inmates
“We need to make sure that we’re holding people accountable who are responsible, but also that we need to make the improvements that are necessary so that people can get proper mental health [care]. And you know that mental health is often a reason why people are committing a crime, and that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be held responsible — sometimes they should, absolutely, fully responsible — but they also need treatment. And so that’s something we’ve been working very hard on. Sometimes the system doesn’t work, and in this case it clearly hasn’t worked, especially for the people who’ve been affected by these actions.”
On the role wealthy people should play in politics
“When people are criticizing me or criticizing people who are wealthy — they should ask the question, ‘OK, but what is it that they’ve done to make the world a better place? What is it that their values are? What do they believe? Because I absolutely understand people’s skepticism. And look at what Elon Musk did. He created an unbelievably profitable business in Tesla and other — PayPal and other things he was involved in. But he also was somebody who doesn’t give a darn about working families or about the vulnerable in our country, and — you know — took out his chainsaw and went at it with DOGE and truly ruined people’s lives … But I do think that you can be a terrible person and have no money, and you can be a terrible person who has a lot of money. And the real question about a public servant is what are they doing to make other people’s lives better?
On the challenges state agencies and workers face
“When I came into office, we were frankly a hollowed-out state government. And we didn’t have enough people hired at a whole variety of agencies. I’ll give you another example, which is DCFS, where the caseload was — I mean, ungodly for each caseworker. Investigators, we didn’t have enough of those, and so on. And this isn’t a problem you can fix overnight. It is a problem that has to be fixed, and indeed I would argue we have — that is to say, we now have fully staffed DCFS, that hasn’t been done since I think Jess McDonald in the 1990’s. So I’m proud of the fact that we’ve been slowly, carefully and — I think within budget — rebuilding these agencies so that people get the services that they need. But the people who carry the load are people who are in agencies where we still have more work to do and people are doing the job of 1.5 or two people.”
On future issues he hopes to address in a third term
“The challenges that have been brought upon our children — and all of us really — by the failures of social media companies, and the fact that social media has really divided us all and caused mental health challenges for people. These are new things that we’re now trying to address. AI is very new and the solutions to it are still being explored. But I guess what I would say to you is my job as governor is to make sure that we’re constantly trying to stay ahead of — or at least up with — all the things that are coming at us.”