Cabinet FY 2019–20 On June 5, 2019, Pritzker signed a bipartisan $40-billion balanced budget for the 2019–20
fiscal year. The budget included $29 million in additional funding for efforts to encourage participation in the
U.S. Census. Public spending increases were paid for by tax increases. A separate bill Pritzker signed imposed sales taxes on online retailers, a tax on insurance companies, and decoupled the Illinois state
income tax from a federal tax cut for companies that bring their foreign profits to the U.S. The budget neglected any potential revenue that might be collected from the legalization of recreational marijuana. In addition, people who owed taxes from between June 30, 2011, and July 1, 2018, were able to take advantage of a "tax amnesty" program that allowed them to pay without penalty. The governor's office had expected a $150-million surplus, which it planned to use to pay down the state's $6-billion backlog of unpaid bills. After
Dobbs v. Jackson overturned
Roe v. Wade in 2022, Illinois became an abortion access state for people in the South and Midwest whose states ban abortion, with 30% of abortions being for out-of-state residents. Abortions in Illinois increased by over 45% in the year after
Roe was overturned, primarily due to patients traveling from states with abortion bans.
Cannabis On May 31, 2019, the
Illinois General Assembly passed the
Illinois Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act legalizing and regulating the production, consumption, and sale of adult-use cannabis. On June 25, 2019, Pritzker signed the legislation into law, which went into effect on January 1, 2020. Illinois was the 11th U.S. state to legalize recreational use of cannabis. Criminal records of people caught possessing less than 30 grams were cleared. Tax revenue collected from cannabis sales is used to invest in impoverished communities affected by the
war on drugs and in drug rehabilitation programs. After the first month of legalization, cannabis sales generated approximately $10.4 million in tax revenue. Cannabis sales were over $52 million by July 2020, $445.3 million by the end of 2022, and $2 billion by the end of 2024, which generated about $490 million in
sales tax revenue. On December 31, 2019, Pritzker pardoned approximately 11,000 people for low-level cannabis convictions. In 2020, Pritzker pardoned an additional 9,200 people with low-level cannabis convictions and
expunged the arrest records of 490,000 convictions related to cannabis.
Child welfare and education In the balanced budget for the 2019–20 fiscal year, worth $40 billion, the State of Illinois authorized more spending on education, including grade schools, community colleges, and state universities. Funding for grade schools rose by nearly $379 million, more than the $29 million required by the new state funding for education formula passed the previous year. Funding for community colleges increased by $14 million, and funding for public universities by $53 million. Grants for low-income students received a $50-million bump. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, facing financial pressure, received $80 million for hiring new staff and improving services. Pritzker created the College Student Credit Card Marketing and Debt Task Force (House Bill 1581), whose task it is to look for ways to help students reduce their credit card debts after graduation from an institution of higher education in the state. The task force was to report its findings to the General Assembly by December 4, 2019.
COVID-19 pandemic (left) is accompanied by Pritzker (right) during an April 2020 visit to inspect a temporary hospital facility being erected at Chicago's
McCormick Place amid the COVID-19 pandemic. During the
COVID-19 pandemic, Pritzker took several measures to mitigate the pandemic in Illinois. On March 13, 2020, Pritzker declared that public and private schools in Illinois would be closed from March 17 through March 31. On March 15, he announced that all bars and restaurants must close until March 30. Restaurant businesses with delivery and takeout options would still be able to serve. On March 16, 2020, Pritzker issued an executive order limiting permitted crowd sizes to 50 people. Despite pressure from Chicago election officials, he refused to postpone the state's March 17 primary elections, since it was not something that he had the authority to do. On March 20, 2020, Pritzker issued a
stay-at-home order to take effect the next day. Under this order, all non-essential businesses were required to close while essential businesses such as grocery stores, gas stations, hospitals, pharmacies remained open. The order originally ended on April 8. The state government coordinated a public health response. The State of Illinois worked with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Wal-Mart, and Walgreens to provide testing sites in Illinois's hardest-hit communities. By June, amid unrest by some municipalities unhappy with Pritzker's lockdown orders, Mayor
Keith Pekau of Orland Park, a suburb southwest of Chicago, and a local restaurateur sued Pritzker in federal court, alleging that the lockdown orders violated state law and the state constitution. U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood ruled against the plaintiffs, allowing the lockdown orders to stay in place. In her ruling, she cited
Jacobson v Massachusetts, a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld the authority of U.S. states to compel people to get vaccinations. On March 25, 2020, Pritzker announced the extension of Illinois's tax filing deadline from April 15 to July 15. He also announced three new emergency assistance programs that allowed small businesses to access more than $90 million in aid. On April 23, 2020, Pritzker extended the stay-at-home order through May 29 with some modifications. Churches were prohibited from holding meetings that had more than 10 people in attendance. Some churches defied Pritzker, held meetings, and filed federal lawsuits. On May 1, 2020, Pritzker enacted a statewide mask mandate. On May 5, 2020, Pritzker announced his reopening plan, "Restore Illinois". The plan had five phases and split the state's 11 existing Emergency Medical Services Regions into four reopening regions. The regions could reopen independently of one another. All regions were then in Phase Two, which allowed retail curbside pickup and delivery along with outdoor activities such as golf, boating, and fishing. Phase Three would allow manufacturing, offices, retail, barbershops, and salons to reopen with capacity limits, along with gatherings of fewer than 10 people. In Phase 4, gatherings of up to 50 people were allowed, restaurants and bars could reopen, travel resumed, and child care and schools reopened under guidance from the IDPH. In Phase 5, the economy fully reopened. Conventions, festivals and large events were permitted, and all businesses, schools, and places of recreation could be fully open. On July 15, 2020, Pritzker announced a new COVID-19 mitigation plan in the event of a resurgence of COVID-19. The metrics that would be used to determine whether COVID-19's spread in a region required additional mitigations were a sustained increase in 7-day rolling average (7 out of 10 days) in the positivity rate and one of the following: a sustained 7-day increase in hospital admissions for a COVID-19 or the reduction in hospital capacity. Another metric was three consecutive days averaging greater than or equal to 8% positivity rate. On December 4, 2020, Pritzker announced that Illinois would receive 109,000 initial doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine. On February 26, 2021, Pritzker, Cook County Board president
Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago mayor
Lori Lightfoot, U.S. senators
Dick Durbin and
Tammy Duckworth, and the Biden administration announced that eligible Illinoisans could get vaccinated starting March 10 at a new mass vaccination site at the United Center. On July 29, 2021, Pritzker announced that everyone who enters a state building was required to wear a face mask regardless of vaccination status. On August 5, 2021, Pritzker announced that face masks must be worn at all times while inside P-12 schools, daycares, and long-term care facilities regardless of vaccination status. He also announced that face masks were required for all P-12 indoor sports, and that all state employees in congregate facilities must be vaccinated by October 4. On August 26, 2021, Pritzker announced that a statewide indoor mask mandate would be reimposed to handle the surge caused by the Delta variant beginning on August 30. He also announced a vaccine mandate for all education employees in P-12 and higher education statewide and for all higher education students and healthcare workers. Pritzker announced that anyone who did not get a COVID-19 vaccine by September 5 would have to do weekly COVID testing. On September 19, 2021, Pritzker began imposing a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for college students, educators and most health care workers. On February 28, 2022, Pritzker lifted most of Illinois's COVID-19 restrictions, including the statewide mask mandate, which came just a few days after the
CDC issued new, more relaxed masking guidance. On July 14, 2022, Pritzker announced the lifting of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for college students.
Criminal justice and law enforcement On April 1, 2019, Pritzker created Illinois's Youth Parole system. Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 1890, whose goal is to crack down on
human trafficking. It requires hospitality business owners to train their employees to recognize victims of trafficking and to teach them the protocols of reporting to authorities. It also establishes penalties for human trafficking, including a fine of up to $100,000 and a Class 1 Felony charge. In the same month, he signed House Bill 2045, ending the practice of collecting a $5 copay for offsite medical and dental treatments from people detained at a juvenile correction facility. This took effect in January 2020. On February 22, 2021, Pritzker signed a criminal justice reform bill that, among other things, makes Illinois the first U.S. state to eliminate
cash bail. The provision was scheduled to go into effect in January 2023, but was put on hold, pending the Illinois Supreme Court's review. In July 2023, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the elimination of cash bail was constitutional and would go into effect in September 2023.
Gambling To help pay for his 2019 capital spending bill, Pritzker expanded gambling, allowing more casinos and legalized sports betting. This did not mean new casinos could be built and sports betting could begin right away: granting licenses for such activities is the job of the Illinois Gaming Board, and the process is a complex one, lasting several months or more and involving extensive criminal background checks, among other requirements. According to the governor's office, gambling will bring an additional $350 million in revenue each year. This gambling expansion bill extends to Chicago, something the city wanted. Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot emphasized economic development in the city's South and West sides during her campaign. She has argued that a new casino, privately owned, and associated hospitality and entertainment venues will bring money into the city. On May 5, 2022, Lightfoot announced that she had selected
Bally's Corporation's bid to construct a
casino resort near the
Chicago River.
Gun control following the
Highland Park shooting, in July 2022 On January 17, 2019, Pritzker signed a bill requiring state certification for gun dealers, which passed during the tenure of his predecessor,
Bruce Rauner. It also requires gun dealers to ensure the physical security of their stores, to keep a detailed list of items on sale, and employees of such stores to undergo annual training. These requirements come on top of the mandatory federal license issued by the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Proponents say Senate Bill 337 prevents guns from falling "into the wrong hands" while opponents argue it creates additional bureaucracy, imposes a financial burden on gun business owners, and will neither enhance public safety nor reduce crime. The Illinois State Rifle Association argued that the bill violates the
Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution because it interferes with the right to bear arms, and filed a lawsuit alongside eight gun dealers. On May 25, 2022, in response to Texas governor
Greg Abbott's comments in the aftermath of the
Robb Elementary School shooting that crime in Chicago,
Los Angeles, and
New York City proves that harsher gun laws are not a solution, Pritzker said that a "majority of guns used in Chicago shootings come from states with lax gun laws". On January 11, 2023, Pritzker signed a ban on
assault weapons and
high-capacity magazines. He said of the legislation, "With this legislation we are delivering on the promises Democrats have made and, together, we are making Illinois's gun laws a model for the nation." The new law took effect immediately, with approximately 2.5 million Illinois gun owners affected. Gun rights organizations pledged to challenge the law in court, saying, "Almost the entire bill is a constitutional issue", according to the Illinois State Rifle Association. An
Effingham County judge issued a temporary injunction preventing implementation of the law on January 20, 2023. The Illinois Supreme Court ruled the law constitutional and allowed it to take effect. Lawsuits are also pending in federal court and in
Crawford County.
Health care In 2019, Pritzker approved a tax on private insurance to help fund the state's
Medicaid program. which as of March 15, 2019, included 112,000 that remained unprocessed past the federal 45-day limit. According to data from the
Illinois Department of Human Services, the backlog was eliminated as of June 2020. In August 2023, under provisions of Illinois House Bill 2189 (the Access to Afford Insulin Act), Pritzker signed legislation capping insurance holders' out-of-pocket price of
insulin at $35 for a 30-day supply. In July 2024, Pritzker signed bills allowing Illinois to spend $10 million to purchase
medical debt from creditors, known as the Medical Debt Relief Pilot Program, under the
Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. In February 2025, Pritzker announced that approximately 270,000 Illinoisans' medical debt, totaling $345 million, had been erased under the program. On April 22, 2025,
United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan to use government data to help determine the causes of
autism. In response, Pritzker signed an executive order that made Illinois the first state to block the federal government from collecting personal health data related to autism. In 2025, Pritzker signed Illinois House Bill 1697, the Prescription Drug Affordability Act. The bill passed by a bipartisan vote and prohibits
pharmacy benefit managers from sending customers to pharmacies they have a financial interest in and from charging
health insurance plans a higher price for a drug than what the pharmacy benefit managers pay the pharmacy. On February 19, 2026, Representative
Kam Buckner introduced the plan in the
Illinois House of Representatives as HB5626. Accordingly, Pritzker's administration also authorized the
Illinois Housing Development Authority to provide down-payment assistance through the IDHAccess Home program, calculated at 6% of the purchase price up to $15,000, for qualified, low- to middle-income homebuyers who do not own a home or have not owned one in the preceding three years, as well as veterans.
Immigration In 2017, Pritzker protested at
O'Hare International Airport against President Donald Trump's
Executive Order 13769, commonly called the "Muslim travel ban" to the United States. On January 24, 2019, Pritzker signed an executive order expanding access to Illinois welcome centers for
immigrants and refugees. Welcome centers help guide immigrants on a path to citizenship and refugees with access to health care, education, jobs, and legal services. On June 21, 2019, Pritzker signed a bill banning the operation of private immigration detention centers in Illinois. Another bill forbids state and local police to cooperate with U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants. College students who are undocumented immigrants or identify as transgender may apply for state financial aid for college. (Federal aid requires proof of citizenship and those who were assigned male at birth to register for the draft.) Pritzker erased the drug conviction of an Army veteran in August 2019. Miguel Perez Jr. suffered a brain injury while serving in Afghanistan and was diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder. He was deported to
Mexico in 2018 after spending seven years in prison. He had pleaded guilty to a drug crime and held a green card as a permanent U.S. resident. Perez's supporters hope the pardon will help him return to the U.S. On June 12, 2025, Pritzker testified in front of
Congress during a hearing examining Chicago's immigration policies. He said he supported "bipartisan comprehensive
immigration reform", which he had called for during his
2018 gubernatorial campaign. Pritzker also said he supported the deportation of
undocumented immigrants who had been convicted of violent crimes, saying, "violent criminals have no place on our streets; if they are undocumented, we want them out of Illinois and out of our country". In 2025, Pritzker spoke out against the Trump administration's
Operation Midway Blitz, an operation cracking down on undocumented immigrants in Chicago. He said the operation was targeting law-abiding minority Chicagoans and not cooperating with local authorities.
Infrastructure In late June 2019, Pritzker signed the bipartisan capital bill named Rebuild Illinois, worth $45 billion to be spent in six years and estimated to create 540,000 jobs. The plan includes $33.2 billion for transportation projects, including $25 billion for road upgrades, with local governments deciding which roads they want to prioritize; $3.5 billion for public and private schools and universities; $1 billion for environmental protection; $420 million for expanding broadband Internet service to rural Illinois; $465 million for health care and human services facilities; and $1.8 billion for libraries, museums, and minority-owned businesses. Financing for this plan will come from multiple sources. The gas tax was set to match inflation since the last gas-tax increase in 1990, increasing from 19 cents per gallon to 38 cents; the special fuel tax on diesel,
liquefied natural gas, and propane increased to 7.5 cents per gallon. Fuel taxes will be indexed to inflation. Vehicle registration fees increased by $50. The state's bonding authority will increase from $22.6 billion to $60.8 billion. Newly authorized casinos are expected to create thousands of jobs and deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for construction projects.
Cook County municipalities may raise their own gas taxes by up to three cents per gallon, Transportation spending includes money for mass transit and pedestrian paths, with hundreds of millions going to projects involving Chicago. Some major projects are the reconstruction and capacity enhancement of the
Kennedy Expressway ($561 million), expanding an Amtrak service between Chicago and Rockford ($275 million), and upgrades for the
Pace suburban bus service ($220 million). Millions of dollars will be spent on improving the
Chicago–St. Louis higher-speed railway, and moving passenger and rail traffic in Springfield to one set of tracks, eliminating a physical barrier. In June 2019, Pritzker deployed 200 Illinois National Guardsmen to combat flooding across central and southern Illinois. The troops were tasked with sandbagging, protecting levees and keeping evacuation routes open. In August 2019, he officially requested a federal disaster declaration for 32 Illinois counties due to flooding since February 2019. The request came after the state's disaster assessment was concluded.
Labor On February 19, 2019, Pritzker signed into law a bill that raises the state
minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, making Illinois the fifth state in the nation and first state in the Midwest to do so. The bill includes a tax credit for small businesses to help them deal with higher costs of labor and maintains the ability of restaurant owners to count tips toward pay. On April 12, 2019, Pritzker signed the Collective Bargaining Freedom Act, which protects the right of employers, employees, and their labor organizations to collectively bargain, ensuring that Illinois complies with the National Labor Relations Act. On May 17, 2019, Pritzker signed legislation to help workers exposed to toxic substances. In July 2019, Pritzker signed House Bill 2028, which passed both the Senate and House of Illinois unanimously. This bill doubles the compensation rate for families of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty from $10,000 to $20,000. On March 13, 2023, Pritzker signed the Paid Leave for All Workers Act, which requires employers to give employees at least an hour of
paid leave for every 40 hours of work, up to 40 hours per year, which employees can use for any reason. It went into effect in 2024.
LGBTQ rights In June 2019, Pritzker signed an executive order requiring schools across the state to be "affirming and inclusive" of transgender and non-binary students. He also asked the State Board of Education to take a lead on LGBTQ rights by making relevant resources easily accessible.
Taxation On the same day as the 2019–20 state budget, Pritzker signed the "Fair Tax" law, which offered a constitutional amendment to voters in the November 2020 election to replace Illinois's flat tax with graduated rates. He promised that income taxes would not increase for Illinoisans who make $250,000 a year or less, who are 97% of the state's wage earners. Pritzker and his supporters said changing income tax laws was the first step toward comprehensive state tax reform. According to the governor's office, under this proposal, families and couples would see tax cuts across the board. For example, a family of four making $61,000 a year would pay $41 less in income tax before any other tax exemptions or deductions. Moreover, there would be a tax credit of up to $100 per child for individuals making less than $80,000 and joint filers earning under $100,000. The corporate tax rate would rise from 7% to 7.95%, equal to the highest personal rate. In addition, Pritzker wanted to increase the property tax credit to 6% from 5%. Pritzker donated more than $55 million to "Vote Yes for Fairness", a committee that supported the tax change. The tax change set up a fight between Pritzker and
Ken Griffin, who donated over $50 million to a group opposing it. Griffin called Pritzker "spineless", accusing him of trying "to sell a trick disguised as a solution", and pointed to Pritzker's offshore trusts and personal tax avoidance schemes as hypocritical. Pritzker claimed that his income tax proposal would bring $3.4 billion in tax revenue. As of 2019, Illinois had $8.5 billion of unpaid bills and $134 billion of pension liabilities.
Tobacco On April 7, 2019, Pritzker made Illinois the first state in the Midwest to adopt
Tobacco 21. As part of his plan to fund capital projects, Pritzker raised the sales tax on cigarettes by $1. which disburses $1.5 billion in funding to address post-COVID-19 budget shortfalls for
Chicagoland-area transit authorities to avoid service cuts, as well as reduces the farebox revenue share of total funding to only 25%, from 50%, since post-pandemic reductions in ridership made these expectations unreasonable, and also disburses $169 million to downstate transit agencies to cover similar budget shortfalls. It prevents transit agencies from transferring funding for operations to capital investment. Local jurisdictions are prohibited from establishing
minimum parking requirements within one-half mile of transit rail stations and bus hubs or one-eighth mile of corridors with combined bus route frequency of fifteen minutes or less during peak periods under this legislation. Additionally, the bill reorganizes the
Regional Transportation Authority into the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, which is intended to centralize decision-making power away from individual counties and synchronize operations of the
Chicago Transit Authority,
Metra and
Pace. The NITA board would consist of twenty members, five of which are assigned by the
mayor of Chicago, the
Cook County President, and the Governor, and five are assigned by the five collar counties, where fifteen votes are needed to affirm board actions, or twelve if two affirmative votes from each of the four appointing authorities are cast; and a majority of CTA, Metra and Pace board members would be simultaneously staffed by NITA board members. It is required to created a unified fare system for Chicago-area bus and train services, and has the authority to centrally plan capital projects, manage budgeting, regional transit planning as well as develop land it owns near stations and generate revenue. It is also charged with the mandate to promote transit-oriented development.
Public employee pensions Pritzker refused to take on the City of Chicago's pension liabilities, believing that would jeopardize Illinois's credit rating. Moody's raised it to one level above "junk" after Illinois passed a balanced budget in 2019. But Pritzker did not reject the possibility of allowing Chicago to pool its pension funds with other parts of the state, and created a task force to find ways to tackle municipalities' ballooning pension debts.
Voting rights In June 2020, Pritzker signed legislation to expand voting by making Election Day a state holiday.
Welfare The 2019–20 budget spent $230 million on a new Quincy Veterans Home, and $21 million on the Chicago Veterans Home. In July 2019, Pritzker signed House Bill 3343, creating a food program for the elderly, the disabled, and the homeless. Such individuals may collect their benefits from a private business that has a contract with the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) to provide meals with discounts. This is the state implementation of the federal
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The IDHS was to initiate this program no later than January 1, 2020.
National profile and political future Pritzker is seeking a third term as governor of Illinois in 2026. He is viewed as a potential Democratic contender for president of the United States, according to
NBC News and
The Wall Street Journal. He has declined to rule out a presidential run in
2028. == Political positions ==