On "Forbes Newsroom," Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi slammed Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) for giving refuge to Texas Democrats who fled the state to stop gerrymandering, and called out the Prairie State for its own Congressional lines.
00:00Thank you. I want to talk about something that's happening in Texas that's now impacting your state.
00:07Republican lawmakers in Texas are trying to pass a redrawn congressional map that would help the GOP potentially flip five seats in the House.
00:15Democrats, though, aren't a fan of this, and Democrats in the state's House have since fled the state to avoid the quorum needed to pass the redrawn maps.
00:23So more than 50 Democratic state lawmakers then fled Texas. They're now in Chicago, in Illinois.
00:30They left the state on Sunday afternoon. So to start off the conversation, what are your thoughts on the situation that's happening in Texas and has since spilled over to Illinois?
00:40Well, it's interesting. The word gerrymander is not a typical dinner table or breakfast over coffee discussion, but I think this week it has.
00:50And what a spotlight here on Illinois. You may or may not have seen the Illinois state-drawn map, but I'll tell you, if Governor Pritzker, who is so unpopular in this state, got off his high horse
01:07and stopped providing sanctuary to the Democrat legislators who are hiding behind his skirt, he could really do something to advance openness and transparency in Illinois by allowing what they do in Texas,
01:23and that is a bipartisan commission to draw fair maps.
01:27But I'll tell you, our maps are so gerrymandered, they're so split apart, that they look like etchings of my grandchildren on scribbles on a piece of paper.
01:39And our governor campaigned to draw a fair map and to vote for a fair map.
01:47But this map we have in Illinois sends 14 of 17 congressional delegates Democrat to Washington, while 44% of our elected electorate voted for President Trump and 47% of our electorate voted for the Republican congressional candidates.
02:07So it's very lopsided. So I'd suggest if you really want reform, Governor Pritzker, bring it home here and tell the truth.
02:16I want to talk about the move to Illinois because the Democrats flying to Chicago has been largely panned.
02:25Even MSNBC, former MSNBC host Chuck Todd said something to the effect of, if you want to fight gerrymandering, I'm not sure I would exactly fly to Illinois.
02:34The congressional map Illinois Democrats show up in 2021, was slapped with a failing grade, an F, from the Princeton gerrymandering project.
02:42So what are your thoughts here on this fight against gerrymandering going to Illinois?
02:48Well, let that sink in for a second.
02:51We are number, we are, we got an F from the Princeton gerrymandering project.
02:56The same man who signed that map into law, Governor J.B. Pritzker, one of the worst partisan maps in the entire nation,
03:05now claims a moral high ground, a moral authority, what constitutes fairness elsewhere?
03:11Well, I'll tell you about Texas.
03:12They have, as I mentioned, a bipartisan, independent commission to draw a fair map.
03:21And it's an open process, which is why we're hearing about it.
03:24It's why that word gerrymanders now is something that's being talked about, you know,
03:28on the street and we see it on the news.
03:32But I must say that the way that the news is skewed is really, really hypocritical.
03:38The truth is that the people, the electorate, those who vote in Illinois aren't given a fair shake.
03:44And we are not a blue state, as blue as it would portend.
03:48But because of the crazy districts we've got here, we have a lopsided supermajority Democrat in Springfield,
03:55which has brought the state to its knees.
03:57And we have a Democrat governor who's using this electorate, the fine men and women and taxpayers,
04:03families of Illinois, to begin his bid for president in 2028.
04:09And that's all he's doing here.
04:11He's basically using and abusing us.
04:14And that's why people are leaving our state in droves.
04:17But the solution is a Republican solution.
04:20The one big, beautiful bill that was just passed is for working men and women.
04:25And that bill, which was not supported by one Democrat legislator here in Illinois, not one,
04:32nor any either of our two senators, stopped the biggest tax hike in American history.
04:40Just think of that for a second.
04:42And those solutions are what we in the Illinois Republican Party are bringing to every home we can.
04:49And I expect that we're going to build this Republican revolution here in Illinois,
04:55this Republican renaissance, by electing a Republican governor and Republican congressional reps in spite of our horrible maps,
05:03because it's time for Illinois to get with the rest of the nation and allow this great, great golden age of America to be felt here as well.
05:13I want to talk about those numbers, the Republican numbers in Illinois, just again,
05:18because as you said, three of the 17 congressional seats are Republican, yet around 46 percent of the voters in Illinois voted Republican.
05:29So, I mean, that math isn't mathing just like in Texas.
05:32That math isn't mathing either when it comes to the numbers of the new congressional maps there.
05:38Governor Pritzker said this, that redrawing his state's congressional map is on the table in response to what the Texas Democrats are fleeing Texas from.
05:50I'm curious, have you talked to either these Texas Democrats that are in Illinois or Governor Pritzker at all since Sunday,
05:56since they came to your state?
05:58I haven't talked to them directly, but I have listened to their responses and their cries foul.
06:08You may or may not know, but Illinois probably is ground zero for election engineering, let's say it that way.
06:18Not only through our gerrymandered maps, but in that irregularity that occurs over the 40-day election cycle.
06:28And what we Republicans are doing, what we're focusing on, is taking those dead voters off of our voter rolls.
06:36We shouldn't have people over 300 years old voting.
06:40And that's what we have in Illinois.
06:41And that's largely due to laziness by some of the clerks who just don't do their homework and remove those names from the ballot,
06:49and they shouldn't be allowed to vote.
06:50So the Illinois Republican Party is pledged to election integrity, making sure that every cheat is not counted,
07:01to cleaning up the voter rolls, and also to put eyes on every ballot.
07:05And that's why, in part, Republicans came out in droves in 2024.
07:11We brought President Trump's numbers from a 17-point deficit, which was the case in 2016 and 2020, down to single digits.
07:22Illinois voters contributed to the popular landslide for Donald J. Trump.
07:27And we in Illinois are reaping the benefits of that great national leadership.
07:32And I think people are waking up to this.
07:35That is, it does matter.
07:38Every vote matters.
07:40And the more people that we speak to and reach and get them registered, they, by a resounding number, are coming on to the Republican Party.
07:49We've got so many Democrats who are now, I call them, red-pilled Democrats, who just, you know, have a smell of the sweet success that we see in this presidency.
07:59And what do the Democrat leaders do, like Pritzker and the Ilk, the Democrat legislators from Texas, they're just, they're demagoguing, and they are just flat-out lying.
08:15They're hypocrites.
08:15And instead of legislating and doing what the fine voters of Texas asked them to do in representing them, they come cowering to Illinois and hiding behind President, Governor Pritzker's skirt, oh, seriously.
08:30This is just childish.
08:32And the truth be told, there's an open process in Texas.
08:36And let the process that was voted on by the Texas legislator win the day.
08:42And that is an independent, bipartisan, electoral commission that is examining the fairness of the map and, in an open process, voting to make those districts fair and balanced.
08:56And I would like to see that happen here in Illinois.
08:58So go at it, Governor Pritzker.
09:01If you're really a man of your word, do what they're doing in Texas.
09:04Give us an open, transparent process like they have there, not a partisan process with every Republican voice shut out.
09:12And if anyone wants to just look at that map of Illinois, it does look like scribbles that my grandchildren would make on a piece of paper.
09:21But why is it like that?
09:23It's to send the greatest number of Democrat to Washington.
09:28And the Democrats have deserved this state and its voters by failing to get on board the one big, beautiful bill.
09:36Not one of them voted for it.
09:39And this is hurting Illinois businesses and Illinois families and Illinois taxpayers.
09:45So I'm going to continue to go throughout our 102 counties and bang the drum and speak to people about what really matters.
09:54Put more money in their pocket.
09:56No tax on tips.
09:57No tax on overtime.
09:59This Republican Party is the party of the working men and women and the families.
10:03And I believe this Republican Party, led by this president, will save not only Illinois, but usher in the golden.
Be the first to comment