Gov. J.B. Pritzker, never shy about criticizing Republicans, calls for ‘common ground’ at national conference
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Gov. J.B. Pritzker has gained a prime spot on the national progressive Democratic stage, in part through his history of scathing criticism of Republicans, including labeling opponents as “extremists,” “racist” or “xenophobic.”
But on Wednesday, at a national political conference of progressives in Washington, the second-term governor with potential presidential aspirations presented a new political style — conciliator.
“I’m just saying leadership in this time means putting in check sometimes your emotions about the attacks that are coming and instead trying to find common ground to work with one another because we have to bring the temperature down in this country and talk to one another, whatever party we belong to or whatever ideology we may have, because we have so much to accomplish,” Pritzker told an audience at the progressive Center for American Progress annual ideas conference.
“And, as we make accomplishments, I think it actually brings people together,” Pritzker said. “If you can make it easier for people to raise their family to save for retirement, to send their kids to college, to buy a house, if we can make it just a little bit easier for people, I think that brings the temperature down and it’s also why you get elected to public office — to step in and get those things done.”
The tone of Pritzker’s remarks appeared counter to what an audience more used to being served red-meat attacks on Republicans would expect at a Democratic conference that also featured U.S. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Govs. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Pritzker’s comments Wednesday were in line with more global remarks he made earlier this week at an event with the Arab American Bar Association, where he urged people to keep “the temperature down” amid domestic tensions and incidents sparked by the Israel-Hamas war, including the murder of a 6-year-old Palestinian boy in an alleged hate crime in suburban Plainfield Township.
Pritzker’s visit to the Center for American Progress conference also was viewed as an extension of his efforts to promote his “Think Big America” organization, announced last week, to promote abortion and LGBTQ+ rights issues and fight “right wing extremists” on a state-by-state basis.
But if Pritzker was projecting a new political style for the future after years of making pugnacious attacks on Republicans predating his days as Illinois’ governor, it didn’t last long.
About an hour after concluding his conference remarks, the Democratic Governors Association sent out a fundraising email from Pritzker in which he wrote that “GOP radicals are working night and day to enact an extremist Republican agenda” to curb abortion, LGBTQ+ and voting rights, fighting gun safety, and pushing discrimination and book bans.
“Fortunately, Democratic governors are working tirelessly to protect and expand your rights and veto dangerous pieces of legislation,” Pritzker wrote in the DGA email.
And a few hours later, after the Republican majority in the U.S. House ended 22 days of deadlock by electing U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as the new speaker, Pritzker wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Johnson was “dangerous for our country” and was the “architect” of Trump’s “Big Lie,” referring to the former president’s false claims that his 2020 reelection bid was stolen from him.
Still, earlier in the day, during his brief remarks at the progressive convention appearing with Fatima Goss Graves, the president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, Pritzker urged a truce for the nation’s partisan divisions.
“Let me say, it’s easy in this time that we’re living in for us all to stand on one side or the other side and to turn ourselves, when people are attacking sometimes based on what I would describe as Facebook fakery, that it’s easy for us to kind of step back into our corners and make it a war between one side and the other,” he said.
“And, I have to stop myself often because that’s not who I am. I really do believe that compromise is not a bad word, that listening to people who have different ideas — I may disagree with them — but there may be something in there that makes perfect sense and that we ought to include in how we move forward on issues like child care,” he said.
Pritzker, who has made support for abortion rights a hallmark of his time as governor, acknowledged that “we’re just not going to come together” on the issue with abortion opponents. “But, (there are) so many other things that really matter that we can come together on and I think we all have to be open to that,” he said.
His remarks on social media and in the DGA email echoed the withering criticism he has delivered to Republicans, particularly under former President Donald Trump’s continued leadership of the GOP. That criticism, along with Pritzker’s multibillion-dollar personal wealth, helped endear him to progressives, including those who think reelection-seeking President Joe Biden has not taken a hard enough stand in calling out Republicans.
Known for criticizing his opposition as “far-right extremists” and labeling them as “carnival barkers,” Pritzker upon winning reelection last November referred to Republicans as “too cowardly, too simpering to support the best interests of the nation because they’re afraid of being called insulting nicknames by a whiny bully.”
Less than a month ago, in a letter to Illinois Senate GOP leader John Curran of Downers Grove, Pritzker denounced questions Republicans raised about state tax subsidies used to lure a $2 billion Chinese-owned electric vehicle car battery manufacturing plant to Manteno, creating an estimated 2,600 jobs.
Pritzker accused Senate Republicans, who like House Republicans are a super-minority to Democrats in the General Assembly, of “doubling down on your own irrelevance.”
“While I am succeeding at creating jobs in every region of this state — even areas represented by Republicans — your caucus members are resorting to xenophobia that has the potential to deter future investors from around the world because you are hoping for some grotesque short-term political gain,” Pritzker wrote in the Sept. 27 letter.
If Pritzker’s comments at the progressive conference represented a newfound change of heart, Republican leaders in Springfield weren’t buying it.
“When Gov. Pritzker returns to Illinois, I hope he brings that spirit back with him,” Curran said. “Our experience here is that any question from the minority party, requests for information that the governor receives, he quickly ratcheted up the temperature and gets very partisan very quickly, which become barriers to actually working together towards compromise.”
State Rep. Tony McCombie of Savanna, the House GOP leader, said, “You can’t have it both ways, right? You can’t be name calling and then say we need to compromise. I don’t even know what he’s talking about.”
Gorner reported from Springfield.
