Irvin Praised Part of Criminal Justice Bill, Now Rails Against It
Aurora Mayor and GOP candidate for Governor Richard Irvin is being criticized for a letter praising part of the controversial Democratic criminal justice reform bill.
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This Chicago Tribune headline will surely be used in ads against Republican candidate Richard Irvin, but if you dig in deeply, you’ll see Irvin was complimentary of a portion of the controversial law.
From Rick Pearson of the Chicago Tribune:
As a Republican candidate for governor, Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin has repeatedly attacked Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker for a criminal justice package Irvin says he will seek to repeal because it encourages violent crime and played a role in the deaths of law enforcement officers.
“They’re not crime bills. What they are is ‘I hate the police bills.’ They are ‘defund the police bills,” Irvin said Thursday on the conservative Newsmax network. “These bills that give more credibility to criminals than they do to the victims that these criminals victimize. They give more credibility to criminals than the police that do their job arresting them every single day. And the first thing that I do as governor is work hard to repeal these.”
But on the day Pritzker signed the package’s initial and overarching piece into law on Feb. 22 of last year, Irvin sent one of the bill’s Democratic sponsors a letter commending state Sen. Elgie Sims Jr. of Chicago on his leadership in its passage, lauding the measure’s goals and saying he thought his police department had already met or exceeded the new law’s requirements.
He also suggested to Sims some minor changes to make the new law better.
Irvin’s letter threatens to undermine the key positioning he has taken in his bid for the GOP nomination in June and the right to take on Pritzker in the Nov. 8 general election. It also represents the latest dichotomy in positions taken by Irvin as Aurora mayor versus Irvin the Republican candidate for governor.
If Darren Bailey has money to go on TV with any significance, which may be a big “if” at this point, voting 5 of 6 elections as a Democrat and supporting the “anti-cop” bill could be a deadly 1-2 punch for the Irvin campaign. No matter how much of Ken Griffin’s $20 million he’s spending on the air.