“I asked him, ‘Hey dad, is there anywhere you want to go? Is there anything you want to do?’” Justin Leinenweber told the Tribune. “And, he was like, ‘I don’t have a bucket list. I’ve sort of done everything I wanted to do.’”

He said his father knew he could have stepped down from the bench 20 years ago and made millions in private practice doing arbitrations, but he didn’t care.

“He wasn’t in it for the money,” Justin Leinenweber said. “He wasn’t in it to have expensive watches and expensive cars. He loved what he did, and he said, ‘I’m gonna do it as long as I can.’ I really think he got everything out of his life. And he really had very few regrets.”

Harry Leinenweber, a Joliet native who served in the Illinois legislature before being nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, died at home Tuesday evening of complications from lung cancer, according to his family. He was 87.

Leinenweber, who just celebrated a birthday last week, had kept a very active schedule before announcing his health issues in his courtroom in January, presiding over the high-profile trials of singer R. Kelly in 2022 and the “ComEd Four” political corruption case last year.

He is survived by his wife, former U.S. Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, and seven children and stepchildren. Services are pending.

In a statement released Tuesday night, U.S. District Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer called Leinenweber “a friend, mentor, and model jurist.”

“My colleagues and I are deeply saddened by Judge Leinenweber’s passing.  We hope for comfort and peace for his family,” Pallmeyer wrote.  “We thank his family for sharing him with us for over 39 years.”

Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote in a statement that she “had the honor” of appearing before Leinenweber many times over the course of her legal career, both in private practice and as an assistant U.S. attorney.

“He was a judge who clearly loved his job, even after many years on the bench, and he respected litigants,” Lightfoot said.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and served with Leinenweber’s wife in the House of Representatives, said in a statement Wednesday that Leinenweber “was respected for his knowledge of the law and his reputation for fairness.”

”I always knew that he would bring that reputation to every assignment,” Durbin said. “He never disappointed.”

Known for his calm temperament and friendly demeanor, Leinenweber was respected by lawyers on both sides as a considerate jurist with an impeccable knowledge of the law.

“He was a giant who exuded such decency,” said attorney Daniel Collins of the Chicago-based firm  Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. “He was a guy you wanted to be in front of, because you just know that whatever he decided, it was out of pure common sense.”

Collins said he got a window into Leinenweber’s humanity during the 2013 sentencing of David Coleman Headley for his role in planning the deadly 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and a would-be attack on a newspaper in Denmark.

Collins, who at the time was the lead federal prosecutor on the case, said his team wanted Leinenweber to hear directly from the wife of the one American killed in the Mumbai attack, who lived in Chicago. He said Leinenweber took his time and spoke to her personally.

“He was genuinely moved by her expression of loss and description of what this attack did to her and her family,” Collins said. “I remember how well he handled that. It was incredibly emotional for everyone and he was just such a pro.”

A decade later, Leinenweber found himself presiding over another hot-button case, this time the #MeToo-era trial of Kelly, who stood accused of sexually abusing underage girls on videotape and then conspiring with his manager to cover up evidence.

Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said she was struck by Leinenweber’s “remarkable” commitment to ensuring that everyone got a fair shake in his courtroom, as well as his refusal to “get on the bandwagon” when it came to a high-profile defendant like Kelly.

“He called balls and strikes as he saw them and let the attorneys duke it out,” she said. “As a trial attorney you had to respect that, because it doesn’t always occur.”

One particular moment came up early in the trial, when Leinenweber sided with Kelly’s attorneys on several claims that prosecutors had intentionally struck Black jurors from the panel.

“He put three people of color back on that jury,” Bonjean said, adding that it was rare for attorneys to win one such challenge, let alone three. “It showed he understood that R. Kelly was entitled to a jury of his peers. …I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Always known for his dry wit, Leinenweber capped off that contentious day of jury selection by telling the attorneys to enjoy what was left of their evening.

“I’m going to have a martini in a short while,” he said.

Bonjean said Leinenweber was “fearless” about his rulings and didn’t care how they would play in the news or public opinion. But he always had a soft side, particularly for good lawyering.

At one point in the Kelly trial, Bonjean said she was worried after requesting a mistrial for what seemed maybe like one time too many. But during a sidebar, Leinenweber reassured her that he got it.

“He said, ‘Ms. Bonjean, don’t ever apologize for doing your job,’” she said.

Leinenweber was born in Joliet on June 3, 1937, graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1959 and earned his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1962.

Leinenweber formed his own private practice in his hometown and served as town counsel for several area cities until being elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1973.

Two years after returning to the law in 1983, Leinenweber was preparing to take a deposition when he got word from his secretary that the president of the United States had called and asked to speak with him.

“I direct-dialed the President of the United States,” Leinenweber told his son for an article in the Illinois State Bar Association in 2014. “President Reagan said ‘Harry, I was about to sign a commission appointing you as a federal district judge for the Northern District of Illinois, but I thought I better get your permission first. Do I have it?’ And I stumbled out ‘yes you do.’”

Leinenweber was confirmed as a district judge in December 1985. Over his nearly 40 years on the bench, Leinenweber oversaw many of the city’s most significant trials, from political corruption to terrorism and gang cases like Gangster Disciples boss Larry Hoover.

Off the bench, Leinenweber enjoyed being surrounded by friends and family. And he was always telling stories.

Among the yarns Leinenweber liked to spin involved the time he was at a conference for new judges that was being held in the South, according to his son Justin, who is also an attorney. Breakfast had always been Leinenweber’s most important meal of the day, and he lauded the plate he was served: eggs sunny side up, bacon, toast, and, of course, grits.

Leinenweber said he told a judge from Alabama that the grits made it a great southern breakfast. The Alabama judge put down his fork and shot back, “That’s not a southern breakfast. A southern breakfast is squirrel.”

“He had no enemies. He really didn’t. He just cared about people,” Justin Leinenweber said. “He cared about the law, and he just wanted to do right by people and do right by the profession. It just meant so much to him to be a judge. I think that singular thing, other than his family, he was most proud of and it was just the perfect fit for him.”

That passion seemed to seep into every interaction Leinenweber had at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, be it his law clerks, attorneys, defendants, other judges, or even jurors who were selected to sit in his courtroom.

Chicago defense attorney Steve Greenberg said he was representing then-accused wife killer Drew Peterson in state court and had never met Leinenweber when the judge approached him one time in the cafeteria of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse and started asking all sorts of questions about the case.

“He was the kind of guy where you would feel like you were just sitting on the barstool next to him and having a chat,” Greenberg said. “He was one of the nicest, most unpretentious people you could ever meet.”

Robert Garnes, one of the jurors in “ComEd Four” case involving an alleged effort by utility executives and lobbyists to bribe then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, said he was so impressed by Leinenweber’s quiet control of his courtroom that he hopes to write a book someday about the experience.

“There were so many moments where I thought he was going to slam down his gavel and yell, “Order in the court!’ just like on TV,” Garnes said. “But he never did, even when things got nasty (between the lawyers) and I thought fights were going to break out.”

Garnes said that after the trial ended with them unanimously finding all four defendants guilty, he was one of a handful of jurors who stuck around to talk to Leinenweber about what they all just collectively went through.

“He came back to the jury room and shook our hands and thanked us for our courageousness,” Garnes said. “He said he was proud of us. I really appreciated that.”

Leinenweber had been scheduled to sentence the four defendants in the ComEd case — former CEO Anne Pramaggiore, internal lobbyist John Hooker, consultant Jay Doherty, and ex-lobbyist Michael McClain — in January, but those hearings were delayed first by the judge’s health issues and later by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is due out later this month.

With Leinenweber’s passing, the case will be assigned to a new judge who will have to get up to speed on the details, which will likely further delay any final resolution.

Justin Leinenweber said that aside from his love of the law and his family, his dad was also a world-class Cubs fan. He had been hooked ever since his teacher in 1945 wheeled a radio into the classroom so they could listen to the game because she loved the team.

Decades later, Leinenweber’s law clerks would take the judge and his former clerks to a Cubs game to celebrate his birthday, his son said. “He loved those games and it meant so much to him to see his clerks and how they had all gone on to do so many incredible things.”

Justin Leinenweber said one of his favorite memories was taking his dad to Game 5 of the 2016 World Series at Wrigley Field.

“I swear we did not sit down the entire time,” he said. “Probably the biggest smile I ever saw on his face as the game went final and the Cubs were on their way to being World Champs.”

But in the end, his son said, Leinenweber “was a realist.”

“He always preferred ‘A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request’ to ‘Go Cubs Go,’” he said.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

At issue is alleged collusion between the Proft-run People Who Play By The Rules, an independent expenditure political action committee that was funded with $42 million from national ultraconservative mega donor Richard Uihlein of Lake Forest, and Bailey’s campaign.

Democrats contended Bailey’s appearances on Proft’s radio show helped telegraph the theme for TV spots the PAC ran on behalf of the Republican candidate, and that the ads used background footage borrowed from Bailey campaign that were posted to YouTube.

Testimony during a hearing on the complaint revealed a secret meeting at a Chicago area county club the day after Bailey’s GOP primary win that was arranged at Proft’s request. At the meeting, Proft put a white envelope on a table and told Bailey it contained $20 million from Uihlein. If Bailey wanted direct access to the cash, he had to fire his staff and name Proft as his campaign manager. If he didn’t, Uihlein’s money would go to Proft’s PAC.

Bailey opted to keep his staff and Uihlein’s money stayed with Proft’s PAC. But Democrats contended the offer was an indication that more Uihlein money was available for the campaign.

While state and federal laws say independent expenditure PACs are not allowed to coordinate campaign spending with a candidate, hearing examiner James Tenuto basically said that the complaint against Proft’s PAC cannot be sustained because the state lacks rules to define such coordination.

Tenuto said an examination of the facts and evidence presented “does not demonstrate ‘an agreement or some other activity which indicates some level of material involvement in the decision making between the independent committee and candidate of his campaign.’ Thus ‘coordination’ among the respondents has not been proven.”

Tenuto noted that Democrats cited federal rules and regulations to try to establish proof of coordination between Proft and Bailey. But, he said, “Illinois has not adopted any rules and regulations concerning independent expenditures” and said rules or statutory changes are needed to “clarify which activities are acceptable and/or prohibited in regards to independent expenditures.”

Tenuto recommended the board either dismiss the complaint or find that the alleged violations of coordination had not been proven.

Tenuto’s May 31 recommendation was made public Tuesday in advance of the board’s June 18 meeting.

Proft, a resident of Naples, Florida, has been subject to several complaints before the State Board of Elections. His People Who Play By The Rules PAC owes an outstanding $25,500 in fines for failing to timely file campaign financial reports.

Last month, a Lake County judge ordered political mailers designed to resemble legitimate newspapers remove street addresses and birthdates from voter lists it posted in violation of state statutes. The publications, referred to as “pink slime” journalism, are run by Brian Timpone, a business associate of Proft,  Proft has indicated he is involved in the business.

Sangamon County Circuit Judge Gail Noll said the legislation, quickly passed by the Democratic-led legislature and signed into law May 3 by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker was unconstitutional because it “impermissibly burdens” candidates who had been following the previous law from “their right to vote and to have their names placed on the November ballot.”

Before Democrats moved to change the law, local partisan committees in either political party could fill legislative spots on the general election ballot in races where no candidates from that party had run in the primary. The candidate slated by the political party was still required to obtain candidacy petition signatures in order to appear on the general election ballot.

When he signed the legislation into law, Pritzker said it forced candidates to run in the primary and prevented “backroom deals” where “some small group of people in a smoke-filled room” decided who would run in the general election.

But the attempt to block slating was viewed by many, especially Republicans, as an effort to give the Democrats a boost in the Nov. 5 elections before a vote was even cast. Democrats already hold sizable supermajorities in the House and Senate and the GOP’s inability to slate opponents for late general election challenges would only help Democrats keep their advantage.

“Changing the rules relating to ballot access in the midst of an election cycle removes certainty from the election process and is not necessary to achieve the legislation’s proffered goal,” the judge said, noting that lawmakers could have made the change effective for the 2026 legislative elections.

The court case was brought by the conservative Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center on behalf of Republicans who were circulating candidacy petitions for the November ballot when Pritzker signed the new law, which had an immediate effective date.

Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran of Downers Grove said in a statement that the law was an assault on the constitutional rights of Illinoisans “in the Democrats’ quest for power at all costs.”

“If Gov. Pritzker has any faith in the voters of Illinois, he should immediately call on the Illinois Attorney General to suspend further litigation in this matter, accept the court’s ruling and stop trying to manipulate the upcoming election,” Curran said.

Noll in late May had stayed the law from going into effect pending a final order following a hearing on Monday, which was also the same day as the original deadline for slated candidates to file their candidacy petitions with the Illinois State Board of Elections.

As a result of the stay, 17 Republicans filed to appear on the general election ballot through the slating process from among 50 vacancies where the GOP did not field primary candidates for the House and Senate seats up for election in November.

Noll’s order prevents the use of the now struck-down law from being used to challenge those 17 candidates’ right to appear on the ballot.

“The General Assembly can change the rules for elections, but they can’t do it in the middle of the game to keep challengers off the ballot. We are proud to stand up for these candidates and against yet another scheme to suppress competition in Illinois elections,” Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel at the Liberty Justice Center, said in a statement.

In passing the measure in the legislature, Democrats quickly approved it over a two-day period. Pritzker signed it into law a day after he told reporters he hadn’t seen all the details but considered the legislation to be an “ethics” bill that prevented backroom dealing “to put people on the ballot.”

But the law also represented the weakness of the state GOP in its inability to field candidates for the General Assembly and the ability of majority Democrats to take advantage of it.

If the law had been allowed to proceed, Democrats would have been only two seats shy of keeping their Senate majority and only eight seats away from maintaining their supermajority as a result of races where no GOP candidate filed for the primary.

In the House, where all 118 seats are up for election in the fall, Republicans failed to field a primary candidate against 42 House Democrats. That put Democrats only 18 votes shy of retaining majority status and 29 votes short of supermajority status before the general election was held.

Republicans particularly contended that Democrats rushed the measure to protect one of the few downstate House Democrats, state Rep. Katie Stuart of Edwardsville, from a challenge. But her slated GOP challenger, Jay Keevan, had gathered enough signatures and filed with the State Board of Elections before Pritzker had signed it into law.

Not affected by the judge’s ruling are provisions of the law that also will place three nonbinding advisory proposals on the November ballot — asking voters if they favor insurance coverage protections for in vitro fertilization, if earners of $1 million or more a year should be taxed extra to pay for property tax relief, and if candidates for office should face civil charges for attempting to interfere with election workers.

A maximum of three nonbinding proposals are allowed on the ballot and the move by Democrats was aimed at crowding out attempts by conservatives to try to place their own advisory question asking if parental consent should be required for gender counseling, therapy or modification procedures.

Steve Balich, long a controversial right-wing figure in Will County politics, is also a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July and has been hosting regular weekend rallies for the former Republican president.

In a statement posted on the township’s website, Balich sought to explain his decision to fly the inverted flag outside the taxpayer-funded offices. He said it was “bigger than Republican vs. Democrat” as he also repeated a series of Trump-related campaign talking points critical of Democrats about immigration, inflation and the judicial system.

“Flying the flag upside down represents distress, and I truly believe that our country is in distress and our Constitution is under attack,” Balich wrote of the Manhattan jury’s verdict Thursday finding Trump guilty of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.

“Choosing to fly our symbol of liberty upside down for that limited time was one of the hardest decisions I have ever made in my life. I love this country, and I love that flag,” he said, adding he held “in utmost esteem those who have served and died for our country and the flag.”

“By making this statement, I wanted us as Homer Township residents to see the threat before us, reach out to our neighbors, and initiate peaceful discussions about what is occurring in our country,” he said.

Balich’s comments posted Saturday on the township’s website were far less strident than statements he made to the Daily Southtown on Thursday hours after the jury’s verdict. He told the Southtown the U.S. was once “the greatest country in the world and now it stinks.” Of the prosecution, he said, “New York is just an example of the scumbags running our country.”

In an interview with the Tribune on Sunday, Balich said he didn’t view his actions as using the flag as a political prop to express his personal views on taxpayer property.

“I would consider it as something that’s a fact,” Balich said. “I wasn’t considering it my personal views. I was considering just what it is, a statement of distress, because what’s going on in the entire country is crazy.”

He said his actions were designed to provoke discussion, saying, “I was hoping I would get a lot of people to open up, rise up, talk about it, really think about what’s happening, because it’s all these things that are going on that are not what I grew up with. … We’ve got to get back to what I would consider what’s normal. We’ve got to get back to a time when everything was different, when everything was working.”

Balich said he decided to reverse his decision and order the flag flown right-side-up after speaking to personal legal counsel, saying he was “thinking I’m going to be sued.” But he said he would prefer leaving the flag flying inverted.

“It’s been done, and I don’t regret it, and I believe we are in distress,” he said. “I think everyone has got their anger or their happiness or whatever you want to say out of their system, and the flag is like it should be, and now everybody’s going on, and it’s kind of like the incident is over with.”

The upside-down American flag has gained attention recently after reports it was flown outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump supporters sought to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. A flag like that was carried by many rioters who chanted Trump’s false claims of election fraud in his loss to President Joe Biden.

The AP reported Friday that imagery of upside-down American flags appeared throughout social media after the Trump verdict, including from accounts held by Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, and Donald Trump Jr., his eldest son. The inverted flag was also embraced by right-wing pundits and Fox News contributors as well as Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a loyal Trump ally.

On Saturday, downstate Illinois U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Hindsboro, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a close ally of Greene and Trump, posted on her “X” account the image of another flag that gained prominence from the “Stop the Steel” capitol rioters, known as the “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Such a flag was flown outside Alito’s vacation home last summer, according to The New York Times.

The U.S. Flag Code, embraced by veterans organizations, is largely ceremonial and not enforceable under free speech rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.

But Democratic state Rep. Harry Benton of Plainfield said Balich should resign from his post for the “flagrant violation” of the code. Benton also said he would pursue legislation in Springfield making it a felony to violate the code on government property.

“If you want to disrespect our flag on your own property, that’s your freedom of expression. I may disagree with your opinion, but you have the freedom to express yourself on your own property. But government property is the people’s property. And on government property, you have to follow the rules,” Benton said in a statement.

Benton said his family has a long history of military service, including a grandfather who was a prisoner of war in a German camp and another grandfather who was chief aviation mechanic on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in World War II.

“Our flag is the symbol of our country that multiple generations of my family have fought for, and because of this, we are greatly disappointed in people who disrespect our nation’s flag,” he said.

With a background rooted in Tea Party politics, Balich has led the township to declare itself a “sanctuary for life” in opposition to abortion and had the township board recognize an 8-year-old student for “bravery and courage” for entering a school unmasked during COVID-19. In 2010, he authored a symbolic resolution to make English the “official” language of the township.

Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Tuesday that state delegations will convene virtually before Ohio’s Aug. 7 deadline for presidential candidates to be certified for that state’s ballot.

The Ohio deadline is 12 days before the DNC is scheduled to open its doors on Aug. 19 at the United Center and McCormick Place for its quadrennial convention, leading up to what was to have been the traditional roll call of the states and the celebratory renomination of the president.

Chicago convention organizers said Biden and Harris will still attend the event to “celebrate” and accept their nominations before thousands of delegates at the United Center who will be attending their first in-person political convention in eight years.

The new virtual nomination, a remote process used to nominate Biden during the COVID-19 attendance-restricted 2020 convention, will be held after meetings of the DNC’s rules and bylaws committee to implement the change. The committee’s vote is scheduled for June 4.

The national Democrats’ decision to move ahead with the pre-convention nomination came after Republican state lawmakers in Ohio repeatedly failed to shift the ballot access date, as has been done in the past for both parties. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine had called the Republican-dominated legislature into special session to address the issue, but Democrats said GOP state lawmakers have impeded the process by trying to attach other measures that would make it more difficult to advance citizen-driven initiatives onto the state ballot.

Former President Donald Trump’s ballot access in Ohio was not in jeopardy since his anticipated nomination is set for the July 15-18 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, well in advance of the Ohio ballot deadline.

“Joe Biden will be on the ballot in Ohio and all 50 states, and Ohio Republicans agree. But when the time has come for action, they have failed to act every time, so Democrats will land this plane on our own,” Harrison said in a statement.

“Through a virtual roll call, we will ensure that Republicans can’t chip away at our democracy through incompetence or partisan tricks and that Ohioans can exercise their right to vote for the presidential candidate of their choice,” Harrison said.

Trump defeated Biden in Ohio 53%-45% in 2020 after defeating Hillary Clinton there by 51% to 43% in 2016. The state has 17 electoral votes at stake.

Despite Republican advantages at the Ohio statehouse, Democrats have been successful in putting initiative-driven proposals on the ballot. That includes Democrats overcoming GOP efforts last year to block the ratification of a state constitutional amendment enshrining a right to abortion. Democrats have used the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade as a major campaign theme against Republicans.

“Democrats will not trade Ohioans’ ability to hold their government accountable for presidential ballot access. Just like when they attempted to take away our rights and freedoms last year,” Liz Walters, the state’s Democratic chair, said in a statement. “Ohio Republicans have shown their blatant disregard for the rights of voters, and we won’t let them get away with another effort to hold our democracy hostage.”

As was the case when Chicago last hosted the DNC in 1996, whether to renominate a sitting president — Bill Clinton then and Joe Biden now — is not an issue for convention delegates. Biden easily won Democratic primaries across the country this year without any significant opposition.

The decision to move forward with a virtual nomination comes as Democratic convention planners had earlier indicated they wanted to import more live remote programming into the United Center event by using techniques from the 2020 convention when COVID-19 curtailed many traditional convention hall activities. That included the possibility of revisiting the 2020 roll call of the 57 states and territories casting their nominating ballots from remote locations.

Officials said no final decisions on the convention’s programming, such as a symbolic roll call, have been made.

But with their formal nominations of Biden and Harris a fait accompli prior to the actual August convention events, DNC organizers will be looking for ways to try to energize a crowd of delegates in an in-person show of unity leading to and including Biden’s acceptance speech. Organizers also face an even greater emphasis to find more creative ways to sell the president’s campaign message before the Nov. 5 election.

“We are excited to welcome delegates and guests to Chicago where President Biden and Vice President Harris will celebrate their nominations from the United Center and address the American people using beloved elements of conventions past while building on the success of our innovative 2020 programming,” said Emily Soong, a Democratic National Convention spokesperson.

In a statement, the Democratic National Committee said that “in spite of Republicans’ bad-faith efforts to stand in the way, the in-person convention in Chicago will continue to serve as an important convening event for Democrats across the country.”

“Joe Biden’s vision for the country and J.B. Pritzker’s vision for the state is, it’s a disaster, and may I say, even that it’s evil,” U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Hindsboro, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said of the president and the Illinois governor.

“I think that the left is counting on us to be uninformed, passive, afraid and divided,” said Miller, one of the three downstate Republicans in the state’s 17-member House delegation. “But we have to fight for opportunities and freedom for our children and grandchildren, and we need to fight for a way that honors those that have gone before us that have paid the ultimate sacrifice to secure and maintain our freedom.”

The southwestern Illinois setting for the 2024 Illinois GOP convention was apt for a political organization that has seen its statewide influence dwindle along geographic lines, leaving Republicans strongest in rural, less populated areas downstate while Democrats have grown beyond their traditional strongholds in Chicago to include the once GOP-rich collar counties.

Madison County, once a downstate hotbed of Democratic politics, began a gradual shift three decades ago to become overwhelmingly Republican, and is now a growing suburban area of St. Louis. The GOP-led county board has placed a non-binding referendum on the November ballot calling for Illinois counties outside the Chicago area to secede and form a new state.

There was no talk of secession on the floor of the GOP state convention, though a vendor booth stationed outside the hall at the Gateway Convention Center promoted the cause. But some Republicans acknowledged that for the GOP to make advances in a  state where Democrats hold all statewide offices and legislative supermajorities, the party will have to make efforts to appeal to suburban voters who have demonstrated a deep dislike of Trump.

“You know, Trump has not done well in the past in Illinois. That’s for sure. If the election were held today, though, I think he would do better than he has in the past,” said State GOP Chair Don Tracy of Trump’s 17 percentage point general election losses in Illinois in both 2016 and 2020.

“How much better? I just don’t know,” he said.

But Tracy contended that Republican enthusiasm had increased for Trump while “the enthusiasm for Joe Biden on the other side seems to be dwindling and there seems to be cracks in the Democrat coalition that are appearing.”

As for the suburban Trump factor, U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro said it was important for Republican candidates to “make sure that they’re selling themselves and their ideas and not let somebody else paint who they are by affiliation with somebody they don’t like.”

Bost acknowledged that has been a difficult line for suburban GOP candidates to toe as political campaigns have become more nationalized. The veteran GOP congressman said the suburban shift to Democrats has accelerated because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which returned questions of abortion legality to the states.

Abortion, and the role of Illinois Democrats led by Pritzker to enshrine a fundamental right to the procedure in state statute, was the topic of one plank of the party platform adopted at the convention which said that Illinois “has rapidly become perhaps the most radically pro-abortion state in the union.”

“The restoration of the culture of life in Illinois will not occur until the Democratic Party and the radical organizations that support them are removed from power,” the platform plank read.

The state GOP party platform has long opposed same-sex marriage, though its been almost a decade since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down bans against those unions. On Saturday, the party added a plank “confirming the immutable biological sex of humans and the protection of women” and opposing gender treatments as well as “all efforts to validate transgender identity,”

The platform adopted by more than 500 delegates at the convention also attacked the Democratic Party for eliminating cash bail, contending it “opposes law and order and law enforcement.”

Despite Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which included dozens of lawsuits that were rejected by courts, the Illinois GOP called for “restoring integrity to our elections.” But the plank also erroneously claimed that Democrats were promoting “voting by non-citizens” through support of illegal immigration. Non-citizens cannot legally cast a vote under federal law.

The state GOP also sounded familiar criticisms of Biden, attacking the president for failing to control the nation’s southern borders and for offering student loan debt relief.

The tenor of the convention was established at the outset when Myles Holmes, the pastor of the Pentecostal Revive church in Collinsville, said he knew he “was in the right place” when he saw “Trump hats and MAGA tee shirts,” a reference to the Republican presidential contender’s Make America Great Again mantra.

Holmes said he preaches in support of Trump from his pulpit because he considered the provision of the federal tax code that prevents non-profit organizations like churches from endorsing or opposing political candidates “Illegal, unconstitutional and I don’t have to pay attention to this.”

“We ask for your blessing on Donald Trump today,” Holmes said in his opening prayer “We live in a world where there’s so much confusion and deception. We live in a world where people do not know what is right and wrong, what is good and evil what is up or down. They do not even know anymore what a boy or a girl or a man or a woman is.”

The only contentious note in the festivities occurred when former Lake County GOP chairman Mark Shaw was twice overwhelmingly rejected in votes from the convention floor in his bid to become the state’s new Republican National Committeeman, replacing Richard Porter, who is term limited.

Shaw, a Trump delegate and a “senior adviser” to the presidential candidate, has a controversial party history. Once viewed as a grassroots supporter, his attempts to maneuver into the RNC job were rejected by delegates who viewed him as too establishment.

Dean White of St. Charles, a construction company owner and a member of the Republican State Central Committee, was ultimately named national committeeman after Shaw dropped out. Hardin County GOP Chair Rhonda Belford, who chairs the Republican County Chairs’ Association, was voted as national committeewoman, replacing Demetra DeMonte.

Sangamon County Judge Gail Noll issued the order pending a hearing on June 3, which had been the statutory date for filling the unfilled candidate slots on the Nov. 5 ballot.

Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure into law on May 3 shortly after Democratic majorities in the House and Senate passed the legislation in a two-day tour de force.

Previously, local committees for the political parties could fill legislative ballot spots in which their party did not field a primary candidate after the primary election. The slated candidate was still required to obtain candidacy petition signatures to appear on the general election ballot.

The new law was viewed as giving Democrats, who have significant supermajorities in the House and Senate, an additional leg up in keeping their advantage over Republicans by preventing any late-arriving general election challenges.

Republicans had accused Democrats of using the slating ban as an incumbent protection effort. The law figured to have its most notable effect on a few downstate House Democrats who remain vulnerable to Republican challengers.

The court case was brought by the conservative Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center on behalf of four Republicans who were circulating candidacy petitions for the November ballot at the time Pritzker signed the new law, which had an immediate effective date. The pending litigation led the Illinois State Board of Elections to allow the slating process to continue.

The lawsuit argues that the law violated the ballot access rights of the four potential candidates by changing the law in the middle of the election process.

“We look forward to continuing to defend these fundamental rights in court and will be pressing forward to ensure the preliminary injunction becomes permanent,” Jeffrey Schwab, the justice center’s senior counsel, said in a statement.

In an order issued Thursday in response to a complaint from Democratic Attorney General Kwame Raoul, the publishers of the so-called “pink slime” publications must remove registered voters’ full birthdates and street addresses from their websites. That is consistent with publicly released state voting information under federal law.

The publications also are enjoined from posting additional voter lists that include full birthdates and street addresses until at least June 7, when a hearing is scheduled on the matter, according to the order issued by Lake County Associate Circuit Judge Daniel Jasica and agreed to by the publishers, Local Government Information Services.

LGIS publishes the flyers and websites throughout Illinois with names that attempt to make them appear to be newspapers, such as the “Chicago City Wire,” the “DuPage Policy Journal” and the “Will County Gazette.” But the websites and print products publish little more than poor-quality content disguised as news that pushes far-right political candidates and their agendas, earning the publications the “pink slime” moniker.

LGIS is operated by Brian Timpone, a long-ago Illinois House Republican spokesman who has launched dozens of “pink slime” publications in Illinois and across the country. He is an ally and business partner of onetime failed Republican gubernatorial candidate, political operative and right-wing radio talk show host Dan Proft of Naples, Florida.

Illinois State Board of Elections officials said they received dozens of complaints after the LGIS publications posted the names, addresses and birthdates of voters by precinct, including whether they had voted, using voting lists from 2016 and 2020 that by law are only to be used by political organizations and not for other purposes. The data isn’t supposed to be shared with outside organizations.

Proft had a political committee in 2016 that was entitled to use the information for political purposes. That PAC, Liberty Principles, paid LGIS to have stories favoring their candidates be printed and distributed. That prompted the State Board of Elections to require the publications to show that the product was paid for by Liberty Principles. But Liberty Principles shut down at the end of 2019. Another Proft committee, the People Who Play By The Rules PAC, was formed last year. But state elections officials said it was unclear if the newer PAC was the source of the 2020 voting list information.

People Who Play By The Rules has made headlines recently in other ways as it owes the state fines for failing to timely post campaign finance documents and is currently the subject of an election board review over whether it illegally coordinated its spending activity with Darren Bailey, the defeated 2022 GOP candidate for governor.

In its initial complaint concerning the publication of the registered voters’ personal information, Raoul’s office contended “publishing voters’  birthdates and full street addresses has put voters at imminent risk of identity theft and has placed several categories of voters, such as members of the judiciary and law enforcement, in harm’s way.”

Warning that the potential harm to voters, “including identity theft or worse, to their physical safety, will be irreparable,” Raoul’s office noted that LGIS had ignored election board requests to pull the information from the company’s websites.

“Since January 1, 2024, (LGIS) has published thousands of articles on its websites, each containing a purported list of registered voters in a given voting precinct, including such voters’ birthdates and full street addresses, and indicating whether they did or did not vote in the 2020 election,” Raoul’s office told the court. “For example, there are roughly 408 such articles with purported registered voter lists and voter information in various Lake County voting  precincts published on (LGIS’s) ‘Lake County Gazette’ website”

The voting lists, Raoul’s office said, “include prominent State elected officials, current and former members of the judiciary, and law enforcement officers, and likely also victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.”

“The bad news is, he means what he says. Unless you think I’m kidding, just think back to the 6th of January,” Biden said, referring to the deadly 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“But look, chaos is nothing new for Trump. His presidency was chaos,” Biden continued during a 16-minute speech before nearly 80 people inside a meeting room at the Palmer House hotel in the Loop. “Trump is trying to make the country forget about the dark and unsettling things that he did when he was president. Well, we’re not going to let him forget.”

Chicago, where Biden is expected to be formally renominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in August, has become a reliable ATM for Biden’s presidential campaign. Vice President Kamala Harris also is set to speak at a Chicago-area fundraising event on May 16. An estimate of how much money was raised Wednesday was not immediately available. On his March 8 trip, Biden raised an estimated $2.5 million.

During his speech Wednesday, Biden portrayed the U.S. as a nation that had moved significantly ahead from Trump’s White House days when Trump attempted to dismiss the potential severity of the COVID-19 outbreak and he suggested people inject themselves with bleach.

“The bleach, he didn’t inject in his body. He put it in his hair,” Biden joked. “I don’t think anybody wants to go back to that. And I think we’ve just got to remember and remind people what’s going on.”

Biden also lashed out at Trump’s role in urging congressional Republicans to dismiss a Democratic-backed immigration reform plan to keep the potent issue alive for the November election.

“I proposed the most comprehensive immigration reform in decades. Trump says immigrants are poisoning the blood of Americans. Well, I wonder how many of us would be here if that was the case with our forefathers?” the president asked.

“He said the biggest threat, the biggest threat, is these criminals coming across the border. Well, folks, the biggest threat is Trump and what he poses for our democracy,” Biden said.

Outside the Palmer House, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters shut down State Street at Monroe Street, using a bullhorn to assail Biden and U.S. policies supportive of Israel.

The protest, along with road closures in the Loop around the hotel for presidential security purposes, sent downtown rush-hour traffic into gridlock at many intersections.

Biden made no mention of the Israel-Hamas conflict during his brief address. But in speaking to CNN before arriving in Chicago, the president said he’d told Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that U.S. shipments of some heavy weapons would be halted if the Israeli military invaded Rafah in the Gaza Strip, where more than a million Palestinians have taken refuge.

Biden’s fundraising effort in Chicago kicked off three days of presidential travel. Biden also will head out for a series of West Coast campaign events, including fundraising receptions in the San Francisco area on Friday and in Seattle later Friday and on Saturday.

Biden’s Chicago visit followed a trip to Racine County in the critical presidential swing state of Wisconsin, where he touted investment in high-tech manufacturing in a city once seen as stereotypical of a declining rust belt.

At the Gateway Technical College, Biden called Racine a “great comeback story” in hailing Microsoft’s $3.3 billion investment to construct a new artificial intelligence datacenter that company officials said will create 2,300 union construction jobs and eventually lead to 2,000 permanent jobs.

The location of the AI facility also provided Biden a chance to criticize Trump.

Some of the land for the data center is located at the same place where Trump six years ago had lauded the promise of Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn to invest $10 billion in an LCD screen production facility that would create 13,000 jobs — with $500 million in public money used as an enticement.

Instead, after homes and farms were bulldozed for the production facility, Foxconn abandoned plans for screen manufacturing at the site and few jobs were created.

“He came here with your senator, Ron Johnson, literally holding a golden shovel, promising to build the eighth wonder of the world. You kidding me?” Biden told the crowd. “Look what happened. They dug a hole with those golden shovels, and then they fell into it.”

In contrast, Biden said, “On my watch, we make promises and we keep promises. We leave no one behind.”

Biden’s comments came as new polling showed the president was continuing to have difficulties selling his domestic policy and economic initiatives as achievements to voters.

Though he pushed his theme of “Bidenomics,” voters still remain sensitive to inflationary costs.

“We’re doing what has always worked in this country,” he said, explaining the rationale of “Bidenomics.” “Giving people a fair shot, leaving nobody behind, growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.”

The CTU’s biggest ally, Mayor Brandon Johnson, is headed to the state Capitol on Wednesday to plead for more school funding from the state amid negotiations over a new teachers union contract and on the same day a Senate committee hearing is scheduled on the moratorium extension, which was approved by the House last month.

The legislation is the latest test for a teachers union that exerts tremendous influence in Chicago, where it helped elect a governmental neophyte as mayor, but whose extreme progressivism under President Stacy Davis Gates finds a better fit with the City Council than with the broader geographical and ideological universe of Springfield.

“Springfield is just incredibly different than City Hall,” said state Rep. Margaret Croke, the House sponsor of the school closing moratorium bill.

The measure to extend an existing school closings moratorium until 2027 was overwhelmingly passed by the House in a 92-8 vote on April 18, with all eight “no” votes coming from Democrats. The vote was viewed as a resounding slap at the union, which labeled the legislation “racist,” much to the consternation of legislators who supported it.

“You can’t do that. We live together. We’re friends. So people were pretty offended by that and they also thought, I think, about how if they were ever put in that same position how uncomfortable that would be for them. They don’t want to be called ‘racist.’ They don’t want to be put in that position,” said Croke, who represents a swath of Chicago’s North Side, said of her fellow lawmakers.

“I was very surprised that CTU was not taking this as a win. The fact that they (could eventually) have a two-year school moratorium (for) all schools in CPS, I think, is something that they should be celebrating,” she said.

In a statement, the CTU said its members and school parents “only want one thing: fully funded equitably resourced schools for every child in every neighborhood, which means fully funding CPS.” The union said the school closing moratorium legislation “only exacerbates” racial disparities in school funding.

“Lawmakers in Springfield should focus on how they will fully fund public schools instead of distracting themselves with bills that defund Black and Brown schools. The only thing that matters to voters is whether these politicians in Springfield did their job: fully funding the schools our students deserve,” the union said.

The existing moratorium on school closures that ends in January was part of historic 2021 legislation that authorized the creation of an elected Chicago public school board. Under a setup signed into law by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker earlier this year, the first election is set for November and the board seated with the new year will still have 11 of its 21 members be appointed by Johnson before a fully-elected board takes over in 2027.

CTU found itself on both sides of the “hybrid” board issue to the dismay of Democrats who control state government. Having previously backed a fully-elected school board, the union abruptly switched its support to the “hybrid” model after Johnson’s election.

Johnson joined in support for the hybrid school board model and it was ultimately approved in March in a concession to the new mayor.

The school closing moratorium legislation morphed out of a measure introduced by Croke that was specifically aimed at protecting competitive selective enrollment schools from closures after Johnson’s school board announced its intention last year to prioritize investments in neighborhood schools in a forthcoming five-year plan.

Croke later amended the bill at the request of others so that the moratorium would cover all CPS schools. That did not change the union’s position, and the Johnson administration also opposes the bill.

The proposed five-year plan for CPS under the Johnson administration as well as CPS budget guidance for individual schools added to existing tensions among parents and officials at selective enrollment and magnet schools. No school closings were proposed as part of the plan, but parents and officials had already seen student transportation eliminated due to a bus driver shortage, and recently unveiled school budgets show positions would be eliminated from many of those schools.

With the expiration of federal COVID-19 emergency relief funds in September, CPS faces a budget shortfall of at least $391 million next school year. Johnson has said his Springfield wish list, in part, includes $1 billion in state funds that are “owed” to the “families of Chicago,” including greater state aid under the evidence-based funding formula and additional teacher pension funds.

But Johnson’s wish list is likely to be viewed as wishful thinking in budget-conscious Springfield. And his visit comes as the school closings moratorium debate has, at times, pitted progressives against each other as CTU pursues its far-left agenda.

State Sen. Robert Martwick, one of the main sponsors of the 2021 legislation that created the elected school board, believes the House vote on the moratorium legislation only hurt the CTU’s credibility in terms of that specific bill.

Martwick supported the two-year moratorium extension but said he takes seriously opponents’ concerns over whether the bill could create budgetary issues that adversely affect neighborhood schools. He defended the CTU as an organization that works hard “to protect interests that do not directly affect their members.”

“To be fair, they have a history of calling out what they see are injustices. And many times they’ve been right but nobody’s right all the time,” said Martwick, a Chicago Democrat. “I don’t expect them to change. What they do, it’s kind of a core of who they are.”

One veteran education lobbyist who’s now retired noted CTU in the past has frequently lobbied as a lone wolf, with an agenda far more progressive than its parent Illinois Federation of Teachers or the rival Illinois Education Association.

“They really push the envelope to the point of breaking and it’s not appreciated in Springfield,” said the former lobbyist, who asked not to be identified so that he could speak openly about union matters.

A longtime Democratic lawmaker said of CTU that “clearly they lack credibility, but they don’t need it because they use intimidation.”

“Nobody’s telling them to stop it,” said the lawmaker, who asked not to be identified so they could speak candidly about the union’s tactics without retribution.

“I don’t hear anybody saying anything to them about cutting this stuff out. They just keep going,” the legislator said.

State Rep. Natalie Manley of Joliet, who is part of the House Democrats’ leadership team, said she doesn’t believe House Democrats hurt their relationship with CTU on the school-closing bill and said future issues such as increased school funding will be decided on their own merits.

“There’s a lot of highly emotional issues in front of the General Assembly. Neighborhood schools are at the top of that list,” said Manley, who voted in favor of the moratorium extension.

“It’s not a flexing contest. It’s not a power struggle,” she said.

Bob Bruno, an expert on organized labor who wrote a book about CTU, said the House’s overwhelming passage of the school closing bill was “a unique vote” that won’t impact the union’s ability to push forth other items on its Springfield agenda.

If the CTU doesn’t succeed in its push for more funding for CPS this spring, it’ll be for reasons beyond the union’s control, Bruno said. Though he added that since the union’s demands for more school funding have been echoed by CPS, they could be difficult for lawmakers to ignore.

“The state of the budget overall, the state’s revenue, their expenses, what the state of the economy is, what the trend of the state’s overall financial situation (is), what are the other demands that are going to be placed in the budget. It’s going to be those kinds of things that will matter,” said Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Pritzker, who has promoted his efforts to stabilize the state’s financial situation as a pushback to Johnson’s money requests, also has said he supports the school closing moratorium.

“I can tell you that I favor the House bill that was passed,” he said at an unrelated news conference in Springfield on Tuesday.

“First and foremost I think that the whole purpose of allowing Chicago to elect a school board like every other school district in the state is to allow people to have real input through their representatives. That doesn’t happen when you’ve got either a hybrid or a fully appointed board,” he said. “And so, it seems to me before any really major changes are made to the system in Chicago that we ought to make sure that the board is fully represented of all the people.”