Did Pritzker Portend his Pandemic Power?

The Governor of Illinois' remarks at a November 2019 event at The Economic Club of Chicago are chilling, in retrospect

Did J.B. Pritzker drop hints about his pandemic-governance plans months before the Covid crisis hit?

Seems like it.

Statements Pritzker made on November 19, 2019, to an audience at The Economic Club of Chicago suggest the billionaire Governor of Illinois was very happy to learn that he could act in a public health crisis, without needing the Legislature’s approval.

Pritzker’s hourlong conversation with Debra A. Cafaro, CEO of Ventas, Inc. - a healthcare real estate investment trust - covered a range of topics. Press coverage of the event at the time focused on the Governor’s claims about Illinois’ pension woes. But it’s what he says in the first 10 minutes about his emergency power that’s most interesting to me, given the events of the past two years.

After introductory remarks, Ms. Cafaro asks the Governor if he’s happy he ran for - and won - the state’s highest office. After saying how much he enjoys being Governor, Pritzker heads straight to public health emergencies and his power therein.

Cafaro [5:18]: Are you happy that you went for it?

Pritzker: I know people want to hear that it’s grueling and terrible and, you know there's a view by some that things are, you know, so difficult in the state of Illinois that it can't be a good job to be governor. But I have to say I love the job. It's for maybe a corny reason, but, you know, the idea that you can wake up in the morning and know that you can have an enormously positive effect on people's lives every single day. I mean, that's an amazing thing to wake up to think about.

And it isn't just about making everything positive for everybody in the state. It's also protecting people against the ills that are coming at them.

We have emergencies in the state. I have the ability to address problems on a daily, hourly, you know, minute-by-minute basis.

I’ll give you just one example. The measles outbreak that we're all aware of at the beginning of the year. This was a national crisis we heard about - state of emergency in the city of New York. And this is something that every state needed to jump on immediately.

So I didn't realize - and I was only in office - for a couple of weeks at that point. I did not realize that really that I had the ability to immediately tackle this problem. That I had a Department of Public Health. I knew that, but I also had some amazing people who work at the Department of Public Health. We have an immunization program in the state. Although, I will point out my predecessor pulled us out of the federal program so it cost all of you $24 million more than it should’ve.

But we had to go attack this problem. And we had mobile units that were able to go into communities [where] people weren't immunized. We had a public education program, and so on.

These were all things I didn't need the legislature for, and they were all things that I could do nearly immediately as Governor. I could, you know, get my Department of Public Health Director, Dr. Ezike, who was amazing, on the phone. You know, work through the details of “What are we gonna do?” and then she went at it.

And so I give you that as an example of you can solve problems, you know, on a daily basis in this job, and it's uplifting to have a job, you know, where you can do that. So I'm excited about the job and I really have enjoyed every minute of it. Well, maybe not every minute of it.

I’m not sure who all was in the audience, but to my ear, Pritzker sounds very much like he’s reassuring himself - and notifying those listening - about his ability to leverage the DPH and other mechanisms, independent of the General Assembly’s approval.

Last week, Pritzker issued his 29th Covid disaster proclamation since March 2020.

Turns out he was right about not needing the legislature.

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Credit to @WSOS_Illinois for alerting me to this interview.