Capitol Briefs: Pritzker calls on Sangamon County sheriff to resign; new law challenged

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker has amplified calls this week for Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell to resign.

Campbell is facing sharp criticism in the murder investigation of Sonya Massey, who died in her home after being shot by then-Deputy Sean Grayson. She had called police on July 6 to report noises outside her home. The day prior, she and her mother made 911 calls related to mental health crises.

Grayson has since been charged with murder and fired from his position in the department. Questions remain about what Campbell knew about Grayson, and when. Investigations have found Grayson had a troubled past – including two DUIs – and he bounced between six different police departments in four years.

Pritzker has grown increasingly critical of Campbell, who has said he won’t resign. This week, Pritzker issued a joint statement with Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton calling on Campbell to step down.

“I ask the question simply, and I think people have for a month now: what did the sheriff know about his background?” Pritzker said. “Why didn’t he do more work on his background before hiring? And a month has gone by. Again, a lot could have been said about that over the course of this month.”

While Campbell has said he tried to meet with the Massey family at their request, Pritzker criticized him for not making a meeting happen. He accused Campbell of playing politics and being more interested in saving his career.

“It’s been a month,” Pritzker said at a Wednesday news conference. “We should have seen already a meeting with the Massey family. If he’s reached out, he hasn’t done a very good job.”

Massey’s family is also calling for Campbell’s resignation, with her father saying he’d go so far as to challenge Campbell in the next election if he doesn’t step down.

Grayson is scheduled to be back in court later this month in the case. He’s being held at an undisclosed location.

Pritzker on Thursday didn’t offer next legislative steps, although he said he’s listened to the Massey family about what they think needs to change.

“It’s hard to tell exactly what could be done,” he said. “Especially when there isn’t transparency in the sheriff’s department about how this person was hired.”

‘Worker Freedom of Speech Act’ hit with lawsuit

A little more than a week after Pritzker signed a new law aimed at curtailing “captive audience” meetings – a strategy sometimes employed by businesses to dissuade workers from forming a union – a libertarian group filed suit to prevent the law from going into effect.

The Chicago-based Illinois Policy Institute on Thursday sued the Illinois Department of Labor in federal court, claiming the “Worker Freedom of Speech Act” violates employers’ First Amendment rights. The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, makes it illegal for companies to punish their workers for opting out of a meeting in which they’d be subjected to the employer’s views on religious or political matters, or rewarded for attending.

Workers who believe they were unfairly retaliated against for not attending such meetings can take their employer to court under the law, while the IDOL can levy fines of $1,000 per violation.

During negotiations over the Worker Freedom of Speech Act this spring, advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois worried the law would prevent nonprofit organizations from being able to communicate about the nature of their work. As a result, advocacy organizations like the ACLU – a 501(c)4 – as well as labor organizations designated as 501(c)5s and trade associations with 501(c)6 status were exempted from the law.

But traditional charities and churches with 501(c)3 designations were not exempted. The Illinois Policy Institute sued in its capacity as a 501(c)3, claiming the law “bans the Institute from communicating with its employees during mandatory meetings” about policy proposals despite policy being “one of the principal purposes of the Institute.”

Absent from the lawsuit, however, is any acknowledgement of the IPI’s twin organization, Illinois Policy, which is organized as a 501(c)4 and shares leadership, staff, facilities, and a website with the IPI and has an identical board of directors. After its offshoot launch a decade ago, Illinois Policy became the entity under which IPI’s lobbyists were registered, while both groups expanded their overall footprint under the same branding.

The IPI has been a frequent plaintiff in recent years in unsuccessful efforts to prevent Illinois voters from weighing in on the “Workers Rights Amendment” on the November 2022 ballot and a graduated income tax in November 2020, which ultimately failed.

Training helps better serve LGBTQ+ community

Springfield’s AgeLinc – the Area Agency on Aging serving central Illinois – is hosting a specialized training for other organizations to help protect older adults from harassment and attacks.

OUTSafe is a program geared toward raising awareness of the special concerns of older adults who identify as LGBTQ+. The LGBTQ+ community has seen an increase in attacks, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The training, which is open to social service organizations, health care workers, law enforcement and others, teaches inclusive language and other skills to help older adults feel secure in difficult situations.

“Education is power,” AgeLinc Director of Development Scott Linde said. “The more education an individual has, the more power they have. If someone is not educated about the LGBTQ community and we are able to educate them, they have that power to be more understanding and acceptable.”

The OUTSafe program is funded in part by a grant from the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

Jennifer Fuller

BROADCAST DIRECTOR & MANAGING EDITOR Jennifer has worked in journalism for more than 20 years, beginning as a student at Southern Illinois University. From SIU, she moved on to the PAR program at the University of Illinois Springfield, earning her master’s degree in 2001. She continued her coverage of the capitol city at Capitol Radio Group, anchoring the Morning NewsWatch at WTAX and coordinating news content for the other stations in the group. Jennifer returned to my roots and rejoined the team at WSIU Public Broadcasting in the fall of 2003, working her way up to Associate Director for News and Public Affairs in the intervening 20 years. In her time as a journalist, she has covered presidents and governors, legislatures and city councils. She was on the air when 9/11 happened and have covered both breaking and investigative stories that garnered awards. In addition, she has spent her career working to protect the rights of journalists via the Illinois News Broadcasters Association and is a proud past-president of the organization. She also serves on the INBA Foundation Board of Directors.

Hannah Meisel

Hannah has been covering Illinois government and politics since 2014, and since then has worked for a variety of outlets from NPR affiliate stations to a startup newsletter. She’s a graduate of both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U of I’s Springfield campus, where she received an M.A. through the Public Affairs Reporting program and got her start reporting in the Capitol.

Jerry Nowicki

Jerry began his career in news in 2013 and has covered state government since 2019. He was the editor of the LeRoy Farmer City Press in McLean and DeWitt counties from 2013 until it closed in 2017. During that span, the Press was named the state’s best small weekly newspaper by the Illinois Press Association. He was born and raised in south suburban Evergreen Park and graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in journalism.