Todd Rickets, one of the sibling co-owners of the Chicago Cubs, will continue in his role as chief fundraiser for the Republican National Committee.
Groundbreaking for the controversial Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s South Side could begin in early August, officials said today after announcing the snail-paced federal review of the campus has been completed. In a video posted today, the former president thanked residents for their input.
The project in Jackson Park — on the National Register of Historic Places and precious green space in the nation’s third largest city — has triggered debate. Some of that’s come from community organizers who pushed until they hammered out an agreement with City Hall to preserve affordable housing in the surrounding Woodlawn neighborhood.
At least one opponent, however, maintains it’s still not a done deal.
Meanwhile, Illinois U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger has been making the rounds on national television since announcing over the weekend his Country First “movement” and affiliated political action committee aimed at reclaiming the Republican Party from former President Donald Trump.
Asked how that’s playing in his red 16th Congressional District, which skirts the Chicago suburbs starting at the Indiana border to the south, west and north through the exurbs and past Rockford to the Wisconsin border, he told MSNBC that Trump’s base is “ticked” off at him over his sharp criticism of Trump.
But there was no mention that some Illinois Republican leaders want to discuss reprimanding him for his anti-Trump comments.
And while Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced he’s opening the door now for state lawmakers to get the COVID-19 vaccine, he said he’ll wait his turn. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has already been immunized. She received the vaccine during a news conference, part of an effort to increase awareness and confidence in the vaccine among African American and Latino residents who might have reservations after a history of medical racism, my Tribune colleagues report.
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After repeated delays, Obama Presidential Center groundbreaking could happen in August
The Tribune’s Alice Yin reports that the lengthy federal review process of the Obama Presidential Center wrapped up today, and some preliminary work could begin this spring, with shovels hitting the dirt as soon as August.
Yin writes: “Federal agencies closed the final review into the project after determining the Obama center’s construction and nearby roadway fixes would not pose a ‘significant impact’ on the environment, according to city and Obama Foundation officials. With other federal reviews looking into factors such as the project’s effects on historic properties also recently ending, that means preliminary work can start in April and groundbreaking can likely begin as early as August.”
Former President Barack Obama said in a video message: “Getting to this point wouldn’t have been possible without the folks in the community who have been a part of this process along the way. Michelle and I want to thank you for making this project even better — a space for the community, built in partnership with the community.”
The community and the Obamas weren’t always in lockstep: Activists including organizer-turned-South Side Chicago Ald. Jeanette Taylor pushed for a community benefits agreement that would, among other things, guarantee affordable housing around the center. At a 2017 forum, she asked Obama about it personally and he said it wouldn’t work. She later lamented as a Black woman it put her at odds with the nation’s first African American president. Eventually, a housing deal was struck with City Hall.
Not so fast — Yin also notes, “Herb Caplan, president and founder of Protect Our Parks, has said he is in the process of petitioning his lawsuit to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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“In a statement Wednesday, Caplan said ‘all the findings in the Federal Review are specious’ and vowed further action.
“‘The Defendants have repeated falsely stated that they will be breaking ground on a OPC in historic Jackson Park to create the impression that construction is a done deal — when it is far from a conclusion much less a ‘done deal’ in any way (except) in their imagination,’ Caplan wrote.”
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How Republicans at home view Kinzinger’s anti-Trump ‘Country First’ movement
Days after Kinzinger launched his national effort to recalibrate a national Republican Party whose unofficial leader remains former President Trump, he was asked how his efforts have been received among constituents in his district back home in Illinois.
The five-term congressman from Channahon, southwest of Joliet, told viewers of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “the Republican base (is) pretty ticked off at me.”
Of late, he’s taken a fatalistic view that his congressional career may be on the ropes because of his anti-Trump stance.
But he also expressed some optimism on MSNBC. Winning with 64.7% of the vote last fall, Kinzinger points out that he finished 15 percentage points ahead of Trump, who lost to Joe Biden with 40.55% of the vote in Illinois. To Kinzinger, his margin of victory suggests he has more than loyal Republicans in his camp.
“I think what that shows is that Democrats will still be open to voting for you,” Kinzinger said, while acknowledging, “Independents and Republicans that we’ve lost won’t.”
Here’s what he didn’t say: As the Tribune’s Rick Pearson reported over the weekend, the Republican State Central Committee meets Saturday to pick a new state GOP chair, and some in the party want to use the forum to discuss Kinzinger and a possible reprimand for his anti-Trump statements.
A member of the Winnebago County Republican Central Committee is pushing to censure Kinzinger, which would be nothing more than a public scolding, the Rockford Register Star and Springfield’s Capitol Fax politics blog reported last month. But it could mean GOP leaders in Winnebago County, part of the 16th District, will turn their backs on Kinzinger in the next election.
Remap factor: “In 2022, Kinzinger faces a year in which Illinois’ congressional districts will be redrawn by Democrats to reflect the outcome of this year’s census — amid predictions that one or possibly two of the state’s 18 House seats will be eliminated,” Pearson reminds in this December piece that examines Kinzinger’s political horizons — which could include a bid for governor next year.
Shrugging it off: “And if it costs us an election, great, because what that gives us an opportunity to do is to resell to the American people what the conservative vision is, and we need to quit being scared of this and lead again for once in some of our lives,” Kinzinger told MSNBC.
Durbin ascends to chair powerful U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee
“Illinois’ senior U.S. senator, Dick Durbin, will officially take the gavel as chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee as a result of a power-sharing agreement reached Wednesday between Democratic and Republican leaders in the evenly split chamber,” the Tribune’s Rick Pearson reports.
Durbin, 76, won a fifth term on Nov. 3 and is pushing to quickly confirm President Joe Biden’s nomination of Chicago-born and Lincolnwood-raised Merrick Garland as attorney general, Pearson notes. In addition to holding confirmation hearings for the president’s judicial appointees, the committee is expected to take up the issue of domestic terrorism in the aftermath of the insurrection at the Capitol and issues of racism in the justice system.
COVID-19: Pritzker adds state lawmakers to list of those getting the vaccine
The Tribune’s Alice Yin, Jamie Munks and Dan Petrella write: “Illinois state legislators have been added to the list of those eligible for a COVID-19 vaccination in phase 1b of the effort,” which began Jan. 25.
Members of the General Assembly were not previously included in the state’s phase 1b plan, but Pritzker said during a news conference today his office received calls from legislators about it and he added them. As Munks notes, several people who were in Springfield for the early January lame-duck session tested positive for COVID-19, including the House speaker’s chief of staff.
Pritzker’s waiting his ‘turn’ for a vaccine: “It’s not something I’m choosing to do, it’s not something that the speaker of the House is choosing to do or that the Senate president is choosing to do, now. We’re all waiting our turn,” Pritzker said. “But we need the state of Illinois and its legislature and its government to function well.”
Mayor Lightfoot has been immunized, Yin, Munks and Petrella report: “The city of Chicago has allowed government officials who fall under the city’s definition of ‘continuity of government,’ in its phase 1b plan.” Read more here.
Illinois is diverting 97,000 unused doses of coronavirus vaccines away from a federal partnership with pharmacies that is overseeing vaccinations in nursing homes and making them available to people 65 and older and front-line essential workers, state health officials announced today. Petrella has the details here.
Petrella notes: “Gov. J.B. Pritzker and officials in other states have criticized the federal partnership with Walgreens and CVS for moving too slowly in vaccinating residents and staff and nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.”
Meantime, the state and the governor have been criticized for the slow pace of rolling out the vaccine.
COVID-19 data points in Illinois today: The state has logged 65,166 vaccinations in the last 24 hours while Illinois has seen 3,314 new and probable cases and 69 additional deaths. More details here.
Illinois begins rolling out another 11 weeks of unemployment benefits to gig, self-employed workers, the Tribune’s Abdel Jimenez reports.
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Third stimulus check updates: Biden shows flexibility but tells House to ‘go big’ on COVID-19 relief package, The Associated Press reports.
More state news — A fight over slot machines prompted state investigators to probe two Illinois video gambling kings. Read the Tribune story here.
Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts reappointed Republican National Committee’s finance chair
Cubs co-owner Todd Ricketts, who calls suburban Wilmette home, has been reappointed finance chair of the Republican National Committee, the RNC announced today.
“I am honored to have been re-appointed as National Finance Chairman by the RNC Executive Committee. I look forward to continue working with RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and Co-Chair Tommy Hicks and GOP elected officials and candidates across the country to advance a pro-freedom, pro-free market agenda to improve the lives of every American,” Ricketts said in a statement.
First appointed to the position in 2018, Ricketts’ focus in the last year-plus had focused on serving as the fundraising chairman for former President Donald Trump’s failed reelection bid.
McDaniel nevertheless seemed pleased with Ricketts’ work, in a statement calling him a “fantastic fundraiser” while underscoring the obvious task at hand: focusing on winning midterm Senate and House races.
“We are absolutely committed to taking back the House and Senate in 2022 and our party is lucky to have his leadership in this fight,” McDaniel said in the statement.
What’s less clear is how Ricketts will navigate the fissures in a Republican Party that has fractured along pro- and anti-Trump fault lines.
McDaniel shared the news in an email note with committee members, Richard Porter, the Illinois’ Republican national committeeman, tells The Spin.
“Todd is a recognized leader nationally and he’s an effective advocate for the RNC with political donors,” said Porter, who considers Ricketts a pal and cheered the news. “We love Todd, he’s great — he’s a delightful guy.”
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