This year, Pritzker and state lawmakers will face added pressure to boost school funding from the politically progressive Chicago Teachers Union, which has signaled it will be looking to Springfield for more money for Chicago Public Schools as it negotiates a new contract with a City Hall run by its strongest ally, Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Tensions between Pritzker’s progressive ideals and his pragmatic approach also have arisen over state-funded health insurance for older Illinois residents who are in the country without legal permission.

The debate over how to deal with ballooning costs in the program delayed passage of the state budget last year, a dispute between Democratic factions — including Black and Latino lawmakers and moderates and progressives — that was only resolved when Pritzker agreed to a deal that gave his administration the power to rein in the program’s costs.

His moves to close enrollment for younger participants, begin charging co-pays and, more recently, to stop offering the program to green card holders who are in a five-year waiting period for federal Medicaid benefits, have drawn the ire of immigrant rights and health care advocates and some progressive lawmakers.

Last month, for example, Rep. Norma Hernández, a Democrat from Melrose Park elected in 2022 with the backing of progressive stalwart U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, criticized the latest move as a “short-term cost-saving measure, not a long-term” solution.

In his proposal, Pritzker suggested spending on the program from the state’s general fund be reduced to $440 million, which is $110 million less than what was committed this fiscal year. But the administration is also proposing spending nearly $200 million more on the program from other funding sources, with much of that money coming from a federal match to emergency services funding.

The maneuvers have created some dissonance between Pritzker’s actions and political rhetoric. In a news release touting the expansion of eligibility to those ages 42 to 54 in 2022, he declared: “From day one of my administration, equity has been — and will always be — our north star. Everyone, regardless of documentation status, deserves access to holistic health care coverage.”

‘Grow the pie’

In the longer term, some progressives are looking for additional moves that would bring in more revenue from the richest Illinoisans and large corporations, Guzzardi said.

A tax change for retailers was one example that made it into the proposed budget, Guzzardi said. Pritzker proposed capping the money retailers can keep from sales taxes, essentially resulting in higher taxes for those businesses and more revenue for the state.

Beyond that, progressives have other ideas “about how we could grow the pie,” Guzzardi said.

“The governor’s introduced budgets don’t include those ideas, that’s true. But working within the framework of the dollars that we have, I think the governor has done a really strategic job of investing those dollars in our shared progressive priorities,” he said.

Since Pritzker’s boldest progressive proposal to change the state’s tax structure — a state constitutional amendment to create a graduated-rate income tax — was resoundingly defeated at the ballot box in 2020, thanks in large part to efforts by the state’s business community, the governor has focused on more arcane ways of boosting state tax revenue.

Aside from the retailer sales tax change for next year, an idea that’s been proposed and rejected previously, Pritzker is also suggesting limiting an inflation-based increase in the personal income tax exemption, essentially increasing taxes on individuals by $93 million.

Prisoner Review Board tumult

The state budget isn’t the only arena in which Pritzker at times has had to triangulate his progressive policy positions with pressures from the political center and the right.

Recent tumult at the state Prisoner Review Board brought the spotlight back on the Pritzker-controlled institution that decides which state prisoners are paroled.

The makeup of the Prisoner Review Board has changed noticeably during Pritzker’s time in office — early on being labeled by Republicans as too liberal and later being criticized by some prisoners’ rights and criminal justice reform advocates for taking too hard of a line and preventing older inmates from getting the paroles they sought, moves conservatives applauded.

But in March the review board became a focus yet again when parolee Crosetti Brand was charged with stabbing 11-year-old Jayden Perkins to death and seriously injuring his mother, with whom Brand used to be in a relationship.

Released on parole in October for a separate crime, Brand was back in state custody in February after he allegedly tried to break into the residence where Jayden and his mother lived. But a three-member review board panel decided to release Brand after determining the panel didn’t have enough evidence from Jayden’s mother’s allegations to keep him behind bars.

Days after the attack made headlines, the board’s chairman, Donald Shelton, and another member resigned.

In announcing one of the resignations, Pritzker said it was clear “that evidence in this case was not given the careful consideration that victims of domestic violence deserve” and suggested reforms could be made to the way the board functions.

For Pritzker, the resignations should be “a feather in his cap,” showing that he’s willing to admit there was a grave mistake within an agency that falls under his purview, said Christopher Mooney, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

But Mooney also said the board’s actions in the Brand case could entice Republicans or any other detractors to politicize Jayden’s death and use it against Pritzker if he tries to run for president.

It’s been done before, Mooney said, referring most notably to the 1988 presidential election when Republican George H.W. Bush used the early release of Willie Horton, a Massachusetts murderer who went on to commit other crimes, to paint Democrat Michael Dukakis as soft on crime.

Already, Senate Republicans have used Jayden’s death against the governor.

Illinois Sen. Jason Plummer, a Republican from Edwardsville who sits on the Executive Appointments Committee, blamed Pritzker in two lengthy social media threads about the board’s shortcomings, criticisms he echoed at a news conference and in an appearance on Fox News.

Although Pritzker called for additional training for review board members on how to handle cases where domestic violence is involved, the Senate Republicans are pushing for broader changes.

Their proposal includes requiring that appointees to the board have 20 years of experience in the criminal justice system as a prosecutor, criminal defense attorney, judge, probation officer or public defender. The GOP plan also would require victims be immediately notified of a prisoner’s release under certain circumstances and increase transparency requirements for the board.

While Senate Republicans were previously successful in 2022, when crime was a key campaign issue both statewide and nationally, in pressuring Democratic colleagues to oppose a couple of Pritzker’s appointments to the board, it’s unclear whether the GOP’s superminority will be successful again.

But Mooney and other observers have questioned how effective the Republicans will be.

“As it stands right now, it doesn’t sound like it’s going to go very far,” Mooney said the day after the board’s resignations were announced. “No. 1, because Pritzker’s all over it.”

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