Funding, police staffing issues hold up Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's approval of Karina's Bill

“I support Karina’s Law,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker emphatically told me. It’s the strongest statement he’s made about the bill that stalled in the Senate last spring. The proposal would mandate that police remove firearms from a person who has been served with a domestic violence order of protection.

But there still appear to be some Pritzker caveats.

Pritzker has previously said that the bill would put big strains on local and state police because it could require as many as four officers to remove those firearms from each of the offenders, and there are thousands of people who would fall under the law’s jurisdiction here.

“What I'm trying to highlight about it,” Pritzker said, “is the resources don't currently exist to do in the timely fashion that it's required under the law to accomplish it.” Local police agencies, “don't have the manpower. It's just a fact,” he said. “There aren't enough sworn officers to carry out what's being asked here.”

“So, having said that, should we try?” Pritzker continued. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Is there a way to organize this law, to effectuate what everybody wants, and also do it within the manpower that exists? I think maybe. But we have a lot of laws where enforcement falls short, partly because when the law is going through the legislature, they're not considering what it actually takes to effectuate the law. And I don't want that to happen here.”

Is the law, then, a giant unfunded mandate?

“I appreciate the angle which you're approaching it, but the reality is that we have laws on the books that say that you should be arrested and when you're convicted of murder, you have to spend a certain number [of years in prison]. Is that an unfunded mandate when they pass a law in Springfield that says that murder is a criminal activity? I mean, that’s the job of police officers, but, you know, all I'm doing is you're putting some recognition on the idea that you know that we need to consider the challenge for local and state police in carrying it out. It's not, you know, should we do it? We absolutely should try to do it.”

Does he have any ballpark idea of what the bill would cost?

“I don't know what it would cost, because it's the number of going forward, the number of people who get, particularly on Karina’s Law, the number of people, we don't know the number of people who will have to have their weapons removed, as opposed to those who would turn them in. We just don't know.

"But here's the thing, I think we need to continue to have conversations about this. Obviously, I've been an advocate for gun safety my entire adult life, and so I am very much in favor of what I think we all want to have effectuated here. I just know that what law enforcement would tell you is it is hard to find the manpower to do everything.”

Maybe not this version

So, is it fair to say he wants “a” bill, but not necessarily “this” bill?

“I believe there may need to be more conversations,” the governor said. “ ’A bill’ should pass, yes.” He did not elaborate further.

The day after I told subscribers about Pritzker’s remarks, the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence released its annual Domestic Violence Homicide Report for 2023, months ahead of its usual October release.

The group’s consultant said that the coalition hoped an early release of the numbers, which showed that domestic violence deaths rose by 110% last year, would increase the urgency of passing Karina’s Bill.

While it stalled in the Senate last spring, Senate President Don Harmon has since told me he is “eager” to pass the bill after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling appeared to open the door to its constitutionality.

To my eyes, Pritzker appears torn. He is a longtime gun control advocate who supports the bill’s concept, but fears that law enforcement won’t be able to carry out the bill’s sweeping mandate.

So it appears to me that, since the Illinois State Police would also be involved with this task, at least some of those failures would reflect directly back on the governor, which is likely making him antsy.

Pritzker will have to work out an acceptable solution with legislators before the General Assembly decides to pass something on its own. It would be almost politically impossible for Pritzker to veto a bill that he wasn’t comfortable with, so some sort of deal is a must for him — but not so much for legislators.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.

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