Crime and guns dominate first debate between Gov. J.B. Pritzker and GOP challenger Darren Bailey

In their first debate of the general election campaign, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Republican challenger Darren Bailey focused Friday on crime and gun control as the GOP assails anew a Democratic-backed law that will launch a cashless bail system next year.

The first-term Democratic governor used the 45-minute virtual meeting sponsored by the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors to try to paint his Republican rival as a Donald “Trump extremist who would take our state backward.”

Pritzker touted his efforts to protect abortion rights, upgrade the state’s credit ratings and enact minimum-wage increases “while fighting hard through a deadly global pandemic, saving lives and livelihoods.”

But Bailey, a state senator and wealthy farmer from Xenia who has made repealing the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act a top priority, said, “sometimes I can’t figure out if our governor is a fool or a liar” in trying to “dupe us” to disregard Republican warnings about the new law.

Touting his farming background, Bailey said using his hands “makes me common with about everybody else in the state” as he contended “it’s time that a farmer get in the seat of leadership in Illinois and get it under control.”

Despite some of the name-calling, the debate was largely civil. Still, Pritzker, a billionaire entrepreneur and an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, appeared to be the aggressor in repeatedly pointing to Bailey’s conservatism — from opposing abortion except in cases where a woman’s life was in danger to his actions in fighting the governor’s COVID-19 mitigations.

“You know, my opponent likes to ignore the fact that we went through a deadly global pandemic. He ignored it while we were in it, hasn’t been vaccinated, didn’t wear a mask, didn’t encourage people to. The reality is that as we were fighting through that pandemic, we were spending dollars to save people’s lives,” Pritzker said.

But attacks by Bailey and Republicans who contend pretrial detention provisions over cashless bail in the SAFE-T Act will bring Chicago-like crime to the rest of the state have put Pritzker and Democrats on the defensive. Under the new law, judges will be able to detain accused offenders if they are considered a threat to others.

“Darren Bailey wants to keep the current system where murderers and rapists and domestic abusers can buy their way out of jail. Meanwhile, a new mother who needs diapers or baby formula and commits shoplifting in order to obtain those things is in danger of sitting in jail for months because she can’t afford a few dollars in bail,” Pritzker said.

“That’s unfair and it is unsafe for our families and our friends and I want to keep dangerous people in jail,” he said, contending Bailey’s warnings of criminal uprising is a “desperate” election ploy.

Bailey countered that Pritzker’s defense of the law was “amazing” and pointed out the new law is opposed by police unions and nearly every state’s attorney in Illinois.

“They know what this bill says. They know that it is very problematic. They know that it is going to wreak havoc across this state. It’s the same havoc that’s taking place right now in the city of Chicago,” he said.

Despite Bailey’s vow to repeal the law, he said he hasn’t personally filed any legislation in the state Senate to do so. He said he “didn’t need to” because he co-sponsored “much legislation” that would make changes to the controversial law.

Bailey was referring to a package of bills, introduced in February and co-sponsored by nearly all 18 of the Senate’s GOP members, that included a measure that would reinstate cash bail. None of the bills has received even a committee hearing, which Bailey said is typical of a legislative process dominated by Democrats in Springfield.

Despite promises to work with lawmakers in both parties if elected governor, only two bills on which he was the lead sponsor have been signed into law since he joined the legislature in 2019.

“There’s a set agenda. The only bills that are allowed out — look, I’m not the only one,” Bailey said. “Only one bill, in many cases, you’re kind of given this little token that, ‘Here’s this bill; we’ll let you get it through.’ ”

But in defending his scant record, he also scoffed at the idea that the number of bills someone passes is a measure of effectiveness as a lawmaker.

“That’s a problem in our state,” Bailey said. “We have too many” laws already on the books.

Bailey also restated his vow to repeal the state’s Firearm Owners Identification card, required for gun owners, calling it “simply a money grab” and unnecessary with federal background checks to purchase a firearm.

“Illinois has the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. The problem is, those laws aren’t being honored and they’re not being followed,” Bailey said. “So as I look at our gun laws that we have in existence, I can look back at almost every violent crime that’s been committed and I can see the law that should have protected that and avoided that if it were followed.”

He added, “All other states around us are doing just fine with a lot less criminal activity and shootings.”

But Pritzker said Bailey voicing support for repealing the FOID card showed Bailey also opposed universal background checks.

“That’s not what the federal background check does, but it is what the background check in Illinois does. And that’s one of the reasons that we need a FOID card for people who are acquiring firearms. Another, of course, is to keep people who shouldn’t have them from getting one,” Pritzker said, adding his support for a state and federal ban on assault weapons.

Pritzker chastised Bailey for, in the past, having backed legislation to remove Chicago from the state. The governor said he has sought to encourage economic development throughout Illinois and that most of the transportation dollars in his massive infrastructure program is being spent outside of Cook County.

“My opponent has said that he would throw Chicago out of Illinois,” Pritzker said. “I think you’ve got to love Chicago just like you love every other part of the state. And, again, I’ve acted that way as governor.”

But Bailey said that in the legislature he has been “that voice for the rest of Illinois” that feels left out and neglected compared to Chicago and its suburbs.

He said too many laws are passed that are “one-size fits all” and disregard regional views. One example, he said, was a new law curbing carbon emissions to help with climate change. It will close coal mines and natural gas plants in the region and is part of the “radical direction that our current governor is trying to push us,” Bailey said.

The debate Friday came one day after Bailey told the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board on Thursday that he considered Chicago an “unruly child” in the “family” of Illinois. On Friday, the state Democratic Party highlighted a video of a Bailey appearance before a Belleville church last year in which he described incidents where two of his children “rebelled” and he said he kicked them out of his house. He said after “prayer and fasting” the family reconciled.

rap30@aol.com

dpetrella@chicagotribune.com