Since taking office, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been gradually and quietly transforming the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, which is responsible for deciding whether to release some of the state’s most violent criminals from prison early, to fit his “weak on crime” agenda. That is, until now. Senate Democrats who covered for him for over a year finally had enough of his dangerous gamesmanship.
Until last month, the governor had been appointing some controversial members to the board, hiding them from public scrutiny and preventing them from participating in the constitutionally required Senate confirmation process. Some of those appointees had served for years without ever being confirmed, all while taking a taxpayer-funded $90,000 salary and, in some instances, casting votes to release convicted murderers.
The Illinois Constitution requires that appointees be vetted and confirmed by the Illinois Senate within 60 session days of their appointments. Pritzker, however, has repeatedly circumvented that process, using such tactics as withdrawing appointments before the 60-day deadline and then almost immediately reappointing them to start the clock over.
The issue came to a head in late March when Democrats finally allowed the unconfirmed appointees to come before the Senate Executive Appointments Committee and began to bring them to the full Senate for a vote. The governor withdrew one of his nominees, a convicted double murderer who had previously voted to release a cop killer he served prison time with. Then the first appointee the Democratic-controlled Senate took up was denied confirmation. Last week, the Senate was scheduled to take up two more. One of these appointees resigned before the vote once it was clear there weren’t enough votes for confirmation, and the other was resoundingly rejected by the Senate that evening.
Why are lawmakers from both parties so concerned about the Prisoner Review Board? While I can speak only for myself, I think it’s safe to say that there is a lot of well-deserved concern when a state board is releasing convicted murderers back to the street at a high rate during a statewide spike in violent crime.
The statistics published on the board’s website offer a glimpse into what is happening at the Prisoner Review Board under Pritzker, especially when we compare it with the record under other recent governors. Based on the annual reports dating to 2004, Pritzker’s board leads the pack in the percentage of adult final discharges granted, releases granted to those imprisoned before 1978 (known as C-number inmates) and clemency petitions that were either granted, expunged or commuted. Pritzker’s Prisoner Review Board released C-number inmates at a rate nearly three times as high as the board under Gov. Bruce Rauner, nearly eight times higher than Gov. Pat Quinn’s board and more than four times as high as Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s board.
Indeterminate sentences also define C-number inmates. One such inmate, Ray Larsen, was sentenced to 100 to 300 years in prison for murdering a teen boy in 1972 on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Larsen was released last year, then quickly disappeared and became a fugitive from justice. Police apprehended him days later, and his parole was revoked.
Also, according to the published data, Pritzker has granted 93% of clemency petitions. For perspective, the next highest was Quinn at 25%.
Now the Prisoner Review Board’s membership is dwindling, and the governor has become unhinged. We’ve seen all too often Pritzker’s penchant for blaming the failures of his administration on someone else, but he’s now taking it to a new level, making wild claims that Republicans are trying to dismantle government. At recent news conferences, when pressed about the situation with the review board, he has resorted to name-calling and talk of “Facebook fakery,” whatever that means.
This is the current process for Prisoner Review Board appointees: A Democratic governor appoints board members, and the Democrat-supermajority Senate confirms them. The governor’s appointees need 30 votes to be confirmed. There are 41 Democrats in the chamber. A full quarter of the senators from Pritzker’s own party could vote “no,” and there still would be more than enough Democrats left to confirm his appointees.
So it’s unclear how the lack of members on the Prisoner Review Board falls at the feet of Republicans. In fact, the last confirmed member of the board was appointed by a Republican and confirmed unanimously in a bipartisan vote.
The reality is that the governor has repeatedly appointed individuals to serve on the Prisoner Review Board who are so controversial that he can’t get the members of his party to confirm them. It would be easy to conclude that this fact is why Pritzker has been playing games with this process.
So what does the governor expect the members of the Senate to do? Should we not take our “advise and consent” responsibility nor our confirmation responsibility seriously? Does he think we should just blindly accept any appointee he puts forward, regardless of potential concern?
Pritzker has made it clear that he has no desire to acknowledge that the legislature is a co-equal branch of government and has the responsibility of ensuring that appointees to the Prisoner Review Board are well suited for the position.
Illinois’ system of executive appointments has worked quite well for generations, and only the lack of transparency, lack of accountability and political machinations of the current governor have derailed a process that has never been partisan and has never been a problem.
This isn’t a political issue. This is a public safety issue, a justice issue and a commonsense issue.
Pritzker is failing all parties involved in this commonsense issue.
