West Cook News

Dr. Jeffrey Leef said no one should be surprised by the decisions being made in Illinois right now — and the ones not being made.

Leef ran for Congress in both 2016 and 2018, losing in both bids for the Republican nomination for the 7th District seat. He said he ran to serve as a citizen-legislator who was committed to the spirit of the Founding Fathers, not someone who wanted to be a career politician.

Leef also said he ran to help bolster the Illinois GOP. A true two-party system is healthy and appropriate, he said.

While he is not seeking office this year, he remains interested in state and national politics.

What he has seen lately has left him unimpressed. The state is financially lacking due to the drastic economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and while Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers calls for a 5 percent reduction in state spending, his fellow Democratic governor across the border refuses to do so.

“Gov. J.B. Pritzker lacks the imagination and the political will to announce a 5% budget cut for Illinois,” Leef said. “Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he doesn’t have Mike Madigan’s permission to order a 5% budget cut but that is another matter.”

Madigan is the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives with a powerful grasp on the Democratic Party in Chicago and across Illinois. He is in his 50th year representing the 22nd District in southwest Chicago.

Madigan, 78, is known as “The Velvet Hammer” and also has been called the real governor of Illinois. His adopted daughter Lisa Madigan was the Illinois attorney general from 2003-19.

Pritzker said he has no intention of trying to halt a scheduled raise for state workers that will cost $261 million.

Pritzker said at an April 23 press conference that the pay increases were pledged in a contract with state employees. He said no one in his administration had considered other uses for the money, even as the Illinois economy sputters during the pandemic slowdown.

“That’s not something that we’re currently having discussions about,” the governor said.

Leef said the reason behind that is crystal clear.

“As for the planned pay raises for his public sector union supporters, well, that is clearly something the governor will allow because he is beholden to the public sector parasites who got out the vote for him and which support his corrupt party,” he said. “Gov. Pritzker cares more about pleasing his party overlords (and its suckling pigs, the public sector unions) than he does about Illinois citizens who are struggling through the current public health crisis.”

It is strange Pritzker said he is powerless to act on this, Leef said, when he has been free to issue executive orders and make other sweeping displays of his authority.

“Remember, this is the governor who nonchalantly ordered bars and restaurants to close but refused to delay the Illinois Democratic Party primary because ... well, everyone knows why: Mike Madigan wouldn’t allow him to take such a genuinely bold move,” Leef said.

To him and other observers, the message is clear. “The party is first and the plebeians are last,” he said.

Leef is a board-certified interventional radiologist and associate professor of radiology at the University of Chicago Medicine, currently in his 34th year in practice.

Leef, 59, is a Berwyn native who now lives in River Forest with his wife Teresa and their three children—Ellen, Connor and Mae.