IL Gubernatorial Election '22

I've had this idea of doing a series of posts or potentially YouTube videos about gubernatorial races of at least the last 50+ years. I was thinking about starting with 1968 to next year.

BTW, allow me to drop some knowledge on you all. Illinois voters used to vote for governors in presidential years. That changed in 1978 which was the first year voters elected their governor during a midterm election - that is when most eyes will be on congressional races. In context Illinois was like the nearby states of Missouri and Indiana as they still vote for governor in presidential election years.

That change was mandated by the Illinois state constitution which was rewritten in 1970. In my cursory research it mandated that from 1978 and onwards gubernatorial races will take place every four years after that. I haven't found much information on the reason for that change or why it was mandated. What I can tell you is that our longest serving governor was a man by the name of James R. Thompson (R.I.P.) and his first term was a two year term as he was elected in 1976 which was also a presidential election year.

As for 2022, Republicans seek to challenge the incumbent who is J.B. Pritzker who himself defeated an incumbent in Republican Bruce Rauner. It's safe to say Pritzker has had a very momentous time in office and in my mind has proven to be very effective in some ways so far. I don't agree with everything he's done so far, for example I don't agree with gradually raising the minimum wage to $15. However, that has been the policy objectives of so many Democrats in recent years and no proposal went forward on that end.

Of course we have this unprecedented and ongoing coronavirus pandemic. For the purposes of mitigations Gov. Pritzker had instituted a stay at home order during spring last year. He's take the necessary steps to insure that we can continue to mitigate the spread of this very contagious disease. Thankfully this virus will run its course as the medical profession will be able to better treat it and for those who needed there are available vaccines that are designed to prevent its continued spread.

What might not be as measurable could be economic effects of the pandemic. In many states around America not just in Illinois the mitigation efforts had caused some downturns. Some businesses were deemed "non-essentially" people were unemployed. There were some hiccups with unemployment and some businesses have permanently shut down as a result.

The Republicans who have entered the race will certainly emphasize the economic effects of this pandemic. They will have to answer how they might be able to turn around the economy once we've settled the coronavirus down. Of course as I mention there were some hiccups with unemployment, but it's been in the news that unemployment claims have been hitting some lows in this state and that's a good thing.

Of course we have other issues such as this state has financial issues. It seems there hasn't been a time in recent years where this state hasn't been said to be broke. We have pensions to continue dealing with. Gov. Pritzker was ready to change the state constitution to allow for a graduated income tax that failed at the ballot box last November. There is also some hope that the federal gov't might allow for financial aid for the state. So considering the circumstances, it's likely going to be hard for the state to make ends meet although it's been in the news that the backlog of the state's unpaid bills have been going down. Another good thing.

Let me just state for the record, it's been said that Pritzker's handing of the coronavirus is popular. I'll just say that initially I thought it was prudent given that the public had very little idea about this thing. So perhaps temporarily I was fine with shutting things down for two weeks to bend the curve. I felt it was a mistake to at least extend it into the month of May when the weather starts to warm up and people want to get out of the house. So most of 2020 was difficult because coronavirus just didn't abate.

As stated already unprecedented times we're in as of now. I prefer to think of this as temporary as long as we continue to make progress as far as vaccinations for those who need them. The question we should ask of any candidate running for Governor of Illinois is whether or not they could handle this crisis any better than the current Governor.

ALSO, if I want to record my thoughts on past governor's races of roughly the last 50+ years it's time to get started doing my research on them and presenting them to you.