WATCH: Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker heavily criticizes Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s team this morning for their handling of the Chicago Bears deal and lobbying state government in general. “I know that the mayor has no plan. He has come up with no plan at all about how the Bears would end up in the city of Chicago. So that’s problematic. I’d love them to be in the city but we are three years in now and he still has no plan.” “The mayor has shown up every spring at the end of session to pronounce what he would like to see happen. As you know the budget gets put together starting in November…I present that budget to the legislature in February. So that seems like a good time period to come talk to the governor’s office. Then there’s February to May. There’s all that time to come talk to the legislature, which has my budget in hand, or the governor’s office.” “Again, we’ve seen almost nothing out of the mayoral administration here on that subject or really any other. So to show up in May and have a bunch of demands seems like late in the game. And it’s unfortunate that’s happened most years.” Johnson’s chief of external affairs is Kennedy Bartley, who formerly worked as a Chicago Teachers Union-funded organizer for police and prison abolition. The mayor’s former top lobbyist, Sydney Holman, resigned in 2024 after Johnson elevated Bartley to oversee the mayor’s office of intergovernmental affairs.
