Leadership During Crisis with Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D)

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) has issued an emergency declaration extending COVID-19 restrictions through the end of May after a rise in cases in his state. Join Washington Post Live for a conversation with the governor about his strategy to combat the pandemic and his pledge to keep abortion legal in Illinois.

Highlights

“If it gets overturned, we’re going to see not only wiping away of women’s rights to get an abortion but also… the potential for eliminating marriage equality, eliminating birth control, and many other rights that have been established under that rubric of the right to privacy that was written into Roe v. Wade.” – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Video: Washington Post Live)

“If we had enough pro-choice Senators, we could have seen a federal law passed to protect women’s rights.” – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Video: Washington Post Live)

“We are doing that now because unfortunately reproductive rights have been limited in those states [Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana], they have Republican legislatures… We’ve already been seeing 10,000 women a year from outside of Illinois who come to Illinois to exercise their rights. We think that number may triple as the result of the decision that will come from the Supreme Court.” – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Video: Washington Post Live)

“The surge that’s occurring is from a very low point, so when we say 41 percent increase, it’s 41 percent off a relatively low point… Our hospitalizations are down 88 percent from the peak during January, so we’re at about 12 percent of where we were back then… We don’t like to see a spike in cases, but we’re managing through.” – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Video: Washington Post Live)

“There’s no doubt that this is going to be a tougher year for Democrats than 2020 or 2018. But it’s in large part because of the challenges that COVID brought on and the things that we’re all living with now in the wake of the worst parts of COVID. It’s not because of Democratic policies.” – Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Video: Washington Post Live)