State Still Waiting on Bears Wish List
Governor JB Pritzker said Tuesday the Chicago Bears need to draft their legislation to help build a stadium in Illinois. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
Governor JB Pritzker said Tuesday he and Illinois lawmakers want the Chicago Bears to draft their own legislation to help the team stay in the state of Illinois, essentially deferring much of the heavy lifting from the state to the team.
“It takes a bill. And that’s really what we need them to put together are the provisions of a bill. It’s one thing to articulate generally what you want,” Pritzker said at an unrelated event Tuesday. “It’s another thing to actually say ‘we’d like a provision like this, a provision like that.’ They have lobbyists who can help them write those provisions, or legislators who would help them write the bill.”
But sources close to the team Tuesday said they were surprised by Pritzker’s proclamation. We’re told the Bears are only interested in legislative language that provides “property tax certainty” and improvements in infrastructure around the Arlington Heights site.
The team did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
On a Chicago sports talk radio show Tuesday, Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago), the House sponsor of the Bears legislation and a former lobbyist for the Chicago Cubs, said the organization brought language to the city of Chicago when it renovated Wrigley Field in 2014.
“We (the Cubs) didn’t ask the city council to give us a plan, we brought a plan to them. Some things they said yes to, other things they said no to, and we worked our way through it,” Buckner said. “That’s the way this thing works. I think we’re in a good portion of this conversation.”
Pritzker, though, says the team has been engaged with his office and legislators in drafting language.
“They’ve asked for advice. And so our staff as well as legislators have offered them that,” Pritzker said. “I think they’re looking at both of the bills that passed, the one in the House, the one in the Senate, hoping to put the provisions of each of those together, in a form that they think will pass. And then, of course, they need to begin conversations with members of the legislature that they weren’t able to win over before. We’ve been advising and trying to help out wherever we could.”
When asked if the state felt urgency to get a piece of legislation done, Pritzker bluffly responded to the reporter’s question “Are you kidding?”
“We want to get it done as soon as possible. And if they’re able to put everything together as we hope they will, I’m willing to call a special session so that we can get a vote on it, long before the veto session, if that’s possible,” he said. “We’re working and helping them in every way we can.”
Pritzker did appear optimistic that a deal could be done.
“We have offered infrastructure support, which is actually most of what the Bears have been asking for. We think we’re actually as close as anybody to getting a stadium done here,” he said. “But, it’s up to the Bears to make a decision about where they want to be. I think fans would be terribly disappointed if the Chicago Bears, in whom we have all for 100 years invested, our personal equity in by just being fans and by showing up at games and supporting them, [would] see our team get up and leave the state of Illinois.”
