For the second time in a week, state Senate Democrats turned their back on a nominee of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, but the governor on Tuesday reserved his ire for Republicans who are trying to paint him as soft on crime heading into this year’s election.
The 15-seat board that considers early release for convicted criminals is down to just six members, and advocacy groups have expressed concern about its ability to function. Pritzker accused Senate Republicans who have rejected his choices for the board of trying “tear apart this agency of government.”
“It’s easy to do what the Republicans do,” Pritzker said at an unrelated event in Springfield. “They take the original crime that took place, often decades and decades ago, and they just talk about the headline of that crime and don’t talk about everything else that’s occurred.”
The governor failed to note that 14 Democratic senators, most of them representing suburban districts, joined 17 Republicans Monday to turn down his nomination of Eleanor Wilson to the board. The final vote Monday was 31-15, with 12 Democrats failing to vote.
The board has become a proxy for the larger political battle heading into this year’s elections over the crime issue, and Monday’s vote showed a split between progressive Democrats and their moderate colleagues who are loath to provide any fuel to the Republican argument that their party is too willing to give bad guys a pass.
Those Democrats joined Republicans in rejecting Wilson’s nomination despite personal outreach from Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who lobbied lawmakers on behalf of the governor’s office.
Three Democratic senators — Suzy Glowiak Hilton of Western Springs, Bill Cunningham of Chicago, and Meg Loughran Cappel of Shorewood — cited Wilson’s votes to grant early release to two men, each convicted of killing a police officer, as their reason for voting against her nomination.
“By releasing these convicted criminals early from prison, our state is setting a dangerous precedent concerning the integrity of the criminal justice system,” Glowiak Hilton said in a statement. “Conscientious individuals must serve on the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, and I urge the governor to choose accredited, diligent appointees.”
Sen. Michael Hastings, a Democrat from Frankfort who voted against Wilson’s appointment, said in an interview Tuesday that certain crimes, such as the murder of a police officer, should require prisoners to serve a full sentence.
“I know Ms. Wilson. She’s a nice person. She really is a nice person. But I can’t stand for that,” Hastings said.
Hastings said the Pritzker administration and the Senate have to work together “so we don’t have the problems that we had yesterday.”
As for Republicans using the review issue to paint Democrats as being weak on crime, Hastings said, “they see their polling data and they’re thinking, ‘how am I going to have a chance of winning?’ “
The depleted board had taken a hit even before Monday’s vote on Wilson when another Pritzker selection, Oreal James, withdrew from consideration hours before his nomination was to be considered. The Senate’s Executive Appointments Committee previously declined to recommend either Wilson or James.
Earlier this month, the Senate failed to confirm another of the governor’s nominees, Jeffrey Mears. In that case only one Democrat joined Republicans in voting against Mears, but enough Democrats sat out the vote to seal his fate.
Board members nominated by the governor take their seat while awaiting confirmation by the Senate, allowing for them to build a record prior to coming before the chamber for a vote.
Records provided by Senate Republicans show that James and Wilson voted to release prisoners on parole in about 45% of all cases that came before them. On the Senate floor Monday night, Sen. Terri Bryant, a Republican from Murphysboro, cited Wilson’s votes in favor of the release of various convicted cop killers as a reason to reject her appointment.
Several senators from both parties have raised concerns about the board’s decision last year to approve parole for Joseph Hurst and Johnny Veal, two men accused of killing Chicago police officers more than 50 years ago.
“Allowing these men to be free sends a troubling message to the families of these officers that their sacrifice and the lives of their loved ones are somehow insignificant,” Bryant said.
But Sen. Mattie Hunter, a Chicago Democrat who voted in favor of Wilson Monday night, said she’s known Wilson for decades and spoke highly of her credentials in working with youths and ex-offenders. Hunter also indicated Wilson’s decisions on the board were thoughtful and that she didn’t “rubber stamp” parole cases.
“How do you think my community feels when police officers kill people in my community? They feel the same way that the police officers’ families feel. All the families have feelings when they lose loved ones,” Hunter said.
Hunter said she was a “distant cousin” of Laquan McDonald, a teenager shot 16 times and killed by Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014, and has lost two nephews to violent crime.
Reached by the Tribune Monday night, Wilson said she plans on sending a letter to the Senate expressing her displeasure at its members for second-guessing her decisions when she feels she was put on the board to vote her conscience.
She said people she voted to release had been in prison for decades and were no longer a threat to anyone either due to their old age or poor health.
“I believed that they were rehabilitated or too old to do anything,” said Wilson, who is the godmother of former President Barack Obama’s children. “If I had to do it again they would be the same votes. … I’m not going to back off that.”
James could not be reached for comment.
The rejections of Wilson and Mears make attracting people to the already “incredibly thankless job” even more challenging, said Pritzker, who at one point referred to Republicans as the “GQP,” a jab at politicians who believe in QAnon conspiracy theories.
“It’s very easy just to say this person committed an awful crime some many years ago, and to say we’re gonna throw away the key and leave them all in prison,” Pritzker said. “That’s what you’re gonna end up with.”
Mears, a union painter who’s worked at the downstate Shawnee Correctional Center as a hostage negotiator, was nominated to the board by Pritzker in March 2021.
Pritzker subsequently nominated James, a certified mediator and an advocate for restorative justice programs, and Wilson, who for decades has done work with social justice organizations.
The departures of Wilson, James and Mears leave just six members on a review board with nine vacancies. Of the six, three are Pritzker appointees who have yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
The Pritzker administration has warned that a minimum of nine members are required for the board to hear so-called final revocation hearings for parolees arrested on an accusation that they violated their terms of parole, or of ex-prisoners who allegedly violated conditions of their supervised release. If such a hearing is not held within 90 days of the law enforcement accusation, then the individual is automatically released from custody.
In 2021, the governor’s office said, there were nearly 4,600 revocation hearings.
During a news conference in Springfield on Monday, Jennifer Soble, executive director of the Illinois Prison Project, an advocacy group for prisoners’ rights, slammed lawmakers for politicizing the board with their “baseless, election-year posturing and fearmongering.” The group also raised concerns about whether the review board would function properly if it has too few members.
Instead of evaluating the overall effectiveness of the board, which set supervised release conditions for more than 12,000 people and held more than 1,000 clemency hearings last year, Soble said senators are judging the board on two or three votes alone, taken “wildly out of context.”
“That’s what I mean by the politicization of this moment,” Soble said. “The Senate is not taking a thoughtful look at the body of work that these really incredibly diligent members, even the ones I don’t agree with, have conducted over the past three years, four years, more than that, going back, for some, more than 10 years.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois called for state leaders to fill the board’s 15 seats.
“Illinois must take the action needed to prevent the suspension of the meaningful work that the (review board) does to foster justice and equity in case outcomes and right size our state’s prison population,” Ben Ruddell, director of the ACLU of Illinois’ criminal justice project, said in a statement. “Doing harm to individuals across Illinois in a vain attempt to look tough on crime has failed for years. It must end.”
A notice on the review board’s website says that, due to unforeseen circumstances, clemency hearings scheduled from April 12 to April 15 have been postponed. “Our agency is working to finalize a future date and location, and additional notifications will be forthcoming to those affected by the change,” the notice reads.
Spaulding reported from Chicago.
