NORMAL, Ill. — It was a prime time debate night for both of Illinois’ top gubernatorial candidates, Republican State Senator and challenger Darren Bailey and incumbent Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker.
The state’s top two candidates sparred for sixty minutes on stage at the campus of Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal in a debate broadcast by Nextstar Media Group Thursday night.
Claims of lies and untruths were frequent throughout — from both men.
Bailey painted Pritzker’s Illinois as a “disaster”, plagued by bad COVID, tax and spending policy, high crime, corruption and poor schools.
Pritzker touted progress in fixing the state’s finances, balanced budgets, progress on pensions, infrastructure and law enforcement investments and said he would support making this year’s consumer tax breaks permanent under the right conditions.
Regarding the SAFE-T Act, Governor Pritzker said, “I think that there are clarifications, as you know the Republicans have put out a lot of disinformation,” but he couldn’t point out any specific provisions of the new law which he would seek to change.
Bailey argued the SAFE-T Act must be repealed entirely because it puts too many Illinois families at risk and he added later on the issue of women’s reproductive rights, “Illinois has the most permissive abortion laws in the nation. Nothing is going to change when I am Governor.”
Later in the debate, Gov. Pritzker repeated his call for a statewide ban on assault style weapons and high capacity ammo magazines to prevent tragic mass shootings like the one which killed seven parade goers and injured more than 30 others in Highland Park on the Fourth of July.
Bailey argued the state’s current gun regulations are more than enough, that federal regulations are more than enough and that adding more red tape around guns will only lead to even more confusion allowing unstable and dangerous individuals to get their hands on them.
Election Day is November 8, 2022.
