thanks for joining us on the week in review.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

>> Governor JB Pritzker sales to victory in his bid for a rare 3rd term.

No blue wave needed.

>> It's one question.

I've gotten a lot over the last few months.

What's next?

The answer is simple.

I'm going to ask you to continue to hope.

>> Pritzker trounces former state lawmaker Darren Bailey.

Again, this time by more than 22 points, according to unofficial results.

>> Now to see where the future of slavery was once debate.

It.

By the sentence of someone.

Well, wasn't slate.

>> The tenant Governor Juliana Stratton makes history and her election becoming just the 6th black woman to serve in the Senate and making Illinois the first state to send to women of color to serve in that chamber.

>> I have worked to build a broad coalition.

That's truly representative Chicago.

>> And I think we really succeeded.

Jessica bigs wins the first ever race for Chicago school board president with the potential for battles ahead with the Chicago teachers Union whose preferred candidate she handily beat.

Meantime, Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch says he'll step aside after 26 Democrats revolt calling for someone else to take the top job.

>> And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us are that alarm and Trout of the Chicago Sun-Times, freelance journalist Kimbell where Sarah Karp of WBEZ and Violent Miller also of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Thank you all for being here.

At the end of a long week.

All right, Mitch, let's take that last one.

0st.

House Speaker Welch says he step aside made that announcement pretty soon after.

26 Dems released an open letter calling for a new speaker from the outside.

It looks like it happened really quickly.

But this has been brewing for quite a while.

This has been happening for over the better part of the last 3 months or so ever since.

>> We found out more about the investigation into former state Rep Sherry Benton.

He was the playing field Democrat who was accused of harassment by 3 women.

But the controversy there was that Chris Welch knew about the first complaint 3 years before he took any action in this case.

And like you said, I mean, this, it did come together pretty quickly yesterday, just in terms of how willing he was to sort of read the writing on the wall and step aside for a new speaker.

You know, there were 26 representatives who signed that letter, but just talking folks are a lot more behind the scenes who just weren't quite ready to public with it.

But yeah, we'll see a new speaker.

It's it's going to be quite a seismic shift for Springfield.

Do we know what the timeline is for for next steps?

>> You know, it's already there's already back room maneuvering going on right now.

Folks are making calls talk to South side state rep Marcus Evans.

He he's actively.

>> According support to be speaker, a lot of other names are floating around.

Not many folks putting out there quite yet publicly.

But, you know, this is going to be huge topic conversation in the veto session in a couple But the actual votes not gonna happen until January.

you can get the popcorn ready for Plenty of time for horse trading between now and then.

>> You know, Sarah, I was thinking the speaker was publicly supportive of that extra 150 million dollars.

That CPS is counting on.

Does this put that in jeopardy or where the votes already so squishy on that that who knows what it means, right?

I mean, who knows if it would happen even if he was there?

So I I don't I don't know that this is a huge obstacle more than the obstacle is already in front of which are many right, right, right.

All right.

Well, let's turn to the big item of the week.

Of course, wins this huge midterm election.

>> Can you know Dems one up and down the ticket in Illinois, not necessarily a huge surprise, but you are in Wisconsin where Democrats had a big night which wasn't necessarily a sure thing.

What was the mood like out there?

Yeah, I mean, it's a lot swing year.

I was down in Kenosha County, going all the way up into northern Wisconsin.

>> And you heard the same kind of mix of support for these moderate candidates that were being run nationally and then also.

>> And from enthusiasm for the more leftist wing of the party see kind of see what the Democrats future's going to look like.

It's going to be 2 factions that are going to kind of have to decide with the control is.

But you a few.

The big things were affordability, affordability, affordability.

And the second thing, immigration and people were also looking to their neighbors.

How immigration enforcement had been carried out in Minneapolis.

And of course, in Chicago, a lot of Wisconsin people have ties and even if they supported immigration, you know, higher border security.

They didn't support how it was carried out under this administration.

And that was a factor for a lot of people.

Yeah.

The notion I think to that whether you voted for more progressive or more moderate.

You know, President Trump said vote like I'm on the ballot and people they were looking for necessarily.

Yeah, a violent.

What stood out to you as you watch the returns on Tuesday You know, obviously, like you said, Illinois was kind of going to be what it was.

I think we could have written those stories weeks ago in some cases.

>> You know, the statewide races that I covered specifically, you know, attorney general, we haven't seen a Republican office in 20 plus years 30 for the secretary of state.

So no shock there.

But, you know, seeing these returns in Texas seeing, you know, even Mississippi, you know, contested at this point, just really, really, you know, kind of wild to see.

I don't think that anybody was predicting is gains.

But, you know, in my corner of coverage, I tend to cover LGBTQ issues in like looking at some of the states in the way that a lot of these, you know, specifically anti-trans laws have been written.

It's all done through executive action.

And so I think there's really chance for a lot of these states that have previously been seen as pretty hostile to the community really change their status among, you folks just nationwide.

Well, it was interesting to seeing a place like Washington where there was support for some of this anti-trans, you know, ballot referendum.

But of course, you know, that's the kind of thing that I think a lot of folks are hoping that when elected officials come into power, they might unwind some of Exactly.

And I'm in Washington in the same turn, also elected its first black trans woman to its state legislature.

And so, you know, we're seeing this very weird split.

But, you know, definitely in the elected to themselves, you know, the people who are being given the keys to power, they certainly seem to be swaying into the one way.

Sarah will will come to the school board election shortly.

But, you know, other than that, what were you watching on Tuesday night?

What stood out to you?

So I I was watching like everybody, the different houses and Senate races.

But I also think, you with education, there's a big issue nationally because the Department of Education has been dismantled.

>> And led to a lot no enforcement of civil rights violations especially you protections for trans students wear Chicago.

Public schools has been hot on the carpeted, you know, by the Trump administration.

I'm wondering how this is going to shift.

I don't think that we will have those type of hearings anymore or have that type of fear that these protections are going to be attacked or that money is going to be pulled because of those of because of his government.

The other thing is there's this.

There's this job.

School voucher program credit that has been put in place.

It's not just for school vouchers for private school vouchers that can also be used for some public school funding.

we're all waiting on Pritzker to say whether he's going to have the state into that.

And I wonder if these results are going to impact one way or the other yet.

interesting to watch how that shakes out.

Speaking of >> the Governor, Mitch, you and I were both of Pritzker's rally on Tuesday night, talked a lot about Illinois, you know, pumpkin capital of the country, horseradish capital of the country.

All the important stuff.

I heard a lot of national issues in his speech to how about Yeah, the the horseradish one.

That was a new one seemed like at first he was really trying to make the point that very focused on Illinois, talking about the pope, the White Sox, the Bears and, you know, try to bring it home as much as possible.

And then, yeah, that 2nd half of the speech, you know, he's standing in front of like 2000 square foot American flag and he's talking about things like artificial intelligence, guardrails.

You know, basically reinvented the health care system of instituting universal health care things.

governors don't have control over president's specifically have a lot ability kind of draw a verse Asian on.

So it's oh, yeah.

Would you know that next day he lays out this 200 point policy proposal.

Again, a set of policy proposals that are best executed that the federal level.

So, you know, he's he's not backing used to certainly not projecting the prospect of running for the White House and you know we saw go into a national podcast the day after the election.

Again, talking about what he's done in Illinois and offering a lot of similar ideas at the national level you know, it just kind of feels it's a matter of time before we get a White House announcement, I know you are happy to have.

The White Sox mentioned that the very Cubs fan.

I wasn't.

magnanimous Qaeda.

how about that came?

I mean, he was he was off to DC pretty quickly after Tuesday.

I mean, >> as a former soccer player like this is a head fake and I'm not making any announcements but his actions, you know, this plan is, you know, but you mentioned the audience was the new can of congressional class coming in.

And we've also seen him getting involved in national politics.

You know, he's a prolific donor to other national Democrats.

We saw the impact of that money helped Joon Suh in That's definitely, you know, making the right friendships and making the right moves.

If you're considering a run for higher office.

Yeah.

And a 200 point plan.

That's not something he was writing on the flight to it was on on the, you know, cocktail napkin on the I don't think so.

>> Alright Violet, as we mentioned up top Juliana Stratton's when historic for a number of reasons here.

Yeah.

She and now senior Senator Tammy Duckworth.

Will you when Stratton is sworn in in January?

>> With the first 2 women of color to simultaneously represent a state in the Senate and, you know, they came along with a lot of historic firsts on Tuesday night.

We saw our the first black female governor, the first native woman, Governor first need a female senator first openly senator.

I mean, a lot of milestones, as I mentioned earlier, Washington's first black trans woman, the state legislature, as well as Alabama's first ransom in the state legislature.

So huge number for some mid this blue wave.

You know, I think and a lot of these cases to unexpected.

A lot of the seats were not given it.

Also seeing the swings just again, all the more surprising and another historic election.

Sarah Jessica Biggs, the first ever elected president of the school board.

>> She beat the CTU back challenger Eladio Dominguez by think it's nearly 18 points.

According to the unofficial results, we surprised it was such a wide margin.

I wasn't.

>> I thought actually bigs, his supporters, the count Ground collective and Michael Sacks, we're going to do better than they did.

And I think that all the negative ads against Alario But we are watching the Bears, what we're where, what you will for to whatever we are watching.

I feel like it's very hard for him to overcome that.

And so one thing that Stacy Davis Gates, the president of the CTU, said the night of the election is they didn't have the argument said they went negative.

And I do think that's true.

I mean, I'm not sure that she was elected because people were against what the seat who stood for.

I mean, a lot of their candidates actually were elected to district seat.

everybody I talk to us like.

Repeated the negatives of So I I think that that really played a factor.

Yeah.

And to your point.

>> You know, CTU supported candidates still waiting on some votes, but they're poised to take 10 of 21 seats on the school board.

You know, a good outcome for the union.

A sign of weakening influence or, you know, kind of kind of hard to parse.

It is a little hard to person, but they were so outspent.

I 1, 1, racing on the north side.

>> The 2 candidates had $34,000 and the nasty to candidate hit more than $700,000 spent on their campaign and they still voted for the CTU candidate.

I don't know if it's an endorsement necessarily of this.

You too ideas.

But that was a former teacher.

Maybe people think former teachers are well poised to to serve on the school board as opposed to somebody who's, you know, not a teacher.

So I think that that some of that plays in.

But I was expecting for the seat to to get routed.

I mean, if you look at some of the polls that say that the seat whose popularity is very low.

I was, you know, I have full story written saying 5 seats.

That's what I that's the story, right.

I had to rewrite that night of the election.

So I do think they outperformed what I what I expected.

>> Speaking not performing very well, Mitch, violent mentioned, GOP did not have a good night for statewide races.

Dems ran the table.

Is there a path forward for the state Republican Party right now?

Talking about Grogan who's the chair of the Illinois Republican Party and he basically said hopefully this is the bedrock of rock bottom and maybe you can start building something because it's really Blake.

This is a one-party state.

It has been for.

>> About 12 years now since we've seen Republican won a statewide office, would some of the stories you could written a couple months I think a lot I mean, folks were road off Darren Bailey, the candidate for governor as soon as he won the primary difference.

Jb Pritzker wept about 4 years ago and he won by a record.

As of now he's winning by was the million votes like it's not particularly close.

And when you talk about secretary of state candidates who, you know, report raising $100 and are cap during quarter of fundraiser entering the home stretch of an election with $100 like this is not a serious operation.

So it's really you know it.

We've been seeing this for a while sort of time for the party leaders to look in the mirror.

Find ways to recruit stronger candidates and you know, find some real fundraisers because we've seen the big spenders.

The Ken Griffin's.

Richard, you line that there is around broader.

left soon as he got.

You can buy a lot of people for Floridians there.

Yeah, yeah.

It's seen better days.

I think that's fair to say.

>> violent.

There were just some voters waiting in crazy, long lines for hours and hours to cast a ballot state Board of Elections says there were ballot shortages due to coding errors that were limited, you know, elect electronic voting machines.

But the frustrating experience for people trying to cast a ballot.

Yeah, you know, I and I got very lucky.

These issues were near me you know, I got up very early in morning, went and cast a paper ballot.

You know, thank goodness, but >> you know, these for a bug in the system that was affecting the split precinct.

So, you know, precincts that have paper ballots that could go a couple of different ways depending on where you are in, you know, say congressional district or says, you know something else.

And so, you know, shortages of those ballots that are kind of unique to those locations.

But we don't know, you know, kind of how widespread this was.

The Chicago Board of Elections has not yet detailed, you know, kind of how widespread this was, but nearly 40% of the cities precincts are split.

And so, you know, if the issue was with the split precincts, this, you know, could have been pretty widespread.

Yeah, and that's not necessarily something that should be a surprise.

It's for election officials.

No, no.

I mean, this is just an absolute kind of nightmare scenario.

day of on Election Day.

You know, I think at the at least at the like 07:00PM polls close count about 15% of the vote total had been cast on Election Day and so on, you know, just dealing with that high volume obviously complicates things and we're still, you know, just even recently still waiting for precincts to be closed on some of these, you know, school board elections.

Just 2 close those out.

Yeah, careful to say that candidates, 10 candidates poised to 2.10 because we really we really are still when any one of the races, only 57 votes between them and they don't have all the precincts and >> there's a 100,000 mail in ballots and provisional ballots still out.

So really is a chance that things could change.

we just don't know.

>> You know, Kim, you mentioned immigration being a big issue driving voters to the polls.

The you know, the Trump administration's very harsh crackdown there.

You know, I'm curious if you think we might see a kind of a change in backing off a little bit.

Of course, we just saw Stephen Miller, the architect of that become the chief of staff today.

Yeah, I mean, Stephen Miller, Trump's very powerful adviser who was kind of the architect of this harsh crackdown is now replacing Susie Wiles is the chief of staff.

But we already saw places like Texas where there's going to be a little bit of a shift of how local you know in Houston, how the mayor's going to approach that.

So, you know, it's possible of.

Pritzker.

Also made it very personal.

The impacts that Illinois felt Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott new arrivals up here a few years ago.

You know, he he did that personally and he also flooded, you know, getting Abbott unseated.

So I think the Democrats hold a lot of power and I think the electorate has also showed Republicans that they don't want to see more of this.

So, you know, I guess it depends on how much you know, national Republicans in the White House are going to respond to that.

And I think we've already seen kind of a change in the way they approach things.

You know, they did get quieter after there was pushback to the kind of, you know, all out in the streets approach that, you know, we became very familiar with in Chicago when, you know, we see, you know, men hitting with guns kind of on the streets.

And so even that kind of quieter approach that they've been doing, where they've returned to, you know, very quick operations, you know, even moving through.

>> A lot of the local neighborhoods very quickly just in and out in like 10 minutes or You know, it still feels like this is a rejection of, you know, that continued presence, even if it is a bit quieter.

So, yeah, it really depends on what the will power is in Washington keep this out.

>> Well, and you mention the governor sending money, you know, a million dollars to Jeanne in a for a while.

She was really cash poor, because people just thought that, you know, she doesn't have a shot here.

But I mean, seeing Talerico on the Senate seeing, you know, Hosa in the governor's seat.

Do you think there might be more of a national focus, you know, from from funders from campaign surrogates looking at 2028 saying about Texas is actually in play here.

>> Yeah.

I mean, that's something that I heard a lot around election night was that Texas actually looks more in play.

Then other formerly purple or swing states given just sort of the reorganization.

And, you know, we're seeing that U.S., particularly in South Latino voters are big swing voters.

So, you know, that's that's gonna make it much more in play than maybe anybody would have imagined even 4 years ago somewhere.

And Richard says fixing her blue Fountain Smiley.

Sarah, one of the non-binding items on a lot of local voters ballots was this referendum question on.

>> A millionaires tax to go toward property tax relief in education funding.

A lot of steps before you know, takes effect.

But 80% saying, yes, that's not insignificant.

It's not.

And you know that this is how it starts, right?

You start with the referendum and then you build that.

very hard for other politicians to say this is going to be a horrible thing for our.

>> For our city if we or our state, if we pass these because people want it people want.

And I think that that's something that the the the national picture showed us is that, you know, people really are rejecting maybe the million billionaires and then getting although the loophole, the Nas, you know, poor poor people just working out work.

And in the end, there's not as much, you know, not as strength to that.

So I I think there is there's momentum.

>> We'll admit.

I thought it was interesting because we saw, you know, there's that there was that push for a progressive tax system that the governor heavily backed that was defeated by voters.

You know, I wonder whether have the tides turned or is it just so much simpler to say millionaires tax versus we're reforming the tax code?

Yeah.

That was really like the biggest loss.

The JB Pritzker's suffered politically since he took office.

>> And that was the one time lost to Ken Griffin before Ken Griffin for the state.

Well, that's think a difference no longer here.

we can go and try to get like this in the side of a millionaire's tax something outgoing speaker Chris Welch.

>> behind last year.

It's certainly a there's a growing progressive weighing in the Illinois Democratic Caucus.

Obviously JB Pritzker's talked a lot about you know, tax folks like me, billionaires.

He hasn't really fully committed to making another run in a constitutional amendment.

This is one way to address said there are no questions about if it's going to get tied up in court.

But they're certainly a will and Springfield and they've got there.

>> Now, super super I don't know what we call extra super majority.

All right.

We'll allegedly there was some non election news happening this week.

Kim, these both tied to Broadview 6, 1, former FBI chief in Chicago is suing U.S.

attorney Andrew Yeah, we have a former FBI chief who is suing the.

>> Chicago's top prosecutor, you alleging that he basically made him the scapegoat in And this just showing how the broad view 6, debacle is just continuing to have were really going to find out at this big evidentiary hearing.

Coming up on the 16th, if the push for prosecutions did come from Washington, Boutros is kind pinched right now because he's both being sued by this former FBI agent and he's under pressure from a former lieutenant are, you know, former deputy and his office who's also saying, hey, you, you knew about some of these things.

The judge is starting to lose patience with all of this.

So, you know, we're going to see how much the Justice Department is now going to step in.

But it's, you know, this.

This has potential to blow up into a big national story because this could potentially reveal that there was direction from the DOJ to pursue these politically motivated prosecutions, which is but Broadview 6 defendants had alleged all along well, and of course, Boutrous himself has been ordered by the judge who is rapidly losing patients to testify oath.

That's a pretty remarkable stabbing.

That is rocco's remarkable.

Earlier in May when he came personally to dismiss the case after imploded.

>> Now to get him on the stand, you know, in a couple weeks, it just is I think that's gonna be packed courtroom at the at the Dirksen and a few weeks.

Yeah, I mean, and the question of national implications 2 at a time where, you know, the Trump administration is somewhat on the back foot that there's not going to be a subpoena power Democratic Congress to.

Yeah.

I mean, the Democrats once they're sworn in, this majority is not likely to let this go.

Yeah, I think the Illinois delegation is probably very, very ready to issue some subpoenas.

The to say it and sure JB Pritzker's us some thoughts about the clothes and has got Yeah, he's got his close.

You know, his his close allies is, you know, former lieutenant and obviously close ally and Tammy Duckworth is going to have that direct line enough.

The DOJ subpoenas was one of the items in the 200 item agenda.

I will.

check my note.

might have been lost in there.

Who could finish?

Yeah.

Well, we don't need 200 journalist to break down the week's news because we got 4 great ones.

But unfortunately, we are out of time.

So our thanks to Michelle Reimann Trout Kimbell where.

Sarah Karp and violent Miller.

back to wrap things up right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part why the Alexandra and John Nichols family.

The Joyce Foundation.

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support these donuts.

>> Our show for this Friday night, be sure to sign up for our free email newsletter.

The Daily Chicago and at W T Tw Dot Com Slash newsletter.

Now for all of us here at the week in review, I'm Nick Blumberg.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy, stay safe and stay informed.

Have a great weekend.

Alright, some Bears news, allegedly.

Maybe there's new legislation.

We've talked about that 15,000 times.

parking strike that's spreading around the city apparently hit Soldier Field this Sunday.

That would Kind of a nightmare Kim had the right idea before the show.

Pride excuse to Roger by some sort of like only thing.

Yeah.

And it looks like it should be decent So hopefully but yeah, I mean, talk about the pain points for, you know, the unionized parking a place trying get their message tailgating will be the You And you have to imagine that this is something team officials are not looking forward to happening for me.

Would you just get to go in?

Will have of you pleased popular it's it's publicly owned land.

So close captioning is made possible.

>> By Robert, a cliff and Clifford law offices, Chicago, personal injury and wrongful death from.