Mike Halpin talks workers' rights, inflation, SAFE-T Act in News 8 roundtable

Yeah, that's a good question, one every candidate should be thinking about. My top priorities are to continue to try to bring jobs back to this area. Second is to continue to lessen the pain of the high inflation that we've seen over the past year and a half or so. And third, make sure that we're continuing to pass responsible budgets that actually help people, but again, still provide for inflation relief. I think those three things combined should be the singular focus for the legislature going forward until we kind of ride through this difficult period.

Yeah, on every issue that you can think of, I stand with workers. I want to make sure that Illinois is a friendly state for workers. I want workers to know that we're out there making sure that we're protecting them on the job. And we have a rigorous worker safety regime to make sure that they're not going to get hurt and not be able to take care of their families. I want to make sure that we're cracking down on companies that are stealing from the wage staff, from their employees, making them clock out and then continue working, things like that. Illinois is a very strong state for that. And I want to make sure that Illinois has the strongest possible laws when it comes to maintaining the rights to collectively bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions.

Well, first, I disagree that it puts a greater burden on the prosecutor. What the Safety Act does is make sure that every person taken into custody is seen by a judge, and that judge is going to determine whether or not that individual is too dangerous to be out prior to trial. Right now we've got a system where alleged criminals can come in and buy their way out, regardless of the offense that they've committed. We don't want to have domestic abusers be able to be arrested, buy their freedom, and go back and immediately intimidate the person that they're accused of harming. We don't want drug traffickers or gang members to be able to raise money from their organizations so that they can be out on bail and then flee the jurisdiction. We need to get back to what is a threat-based system. It keeps dangerous people behind bars pending trial, but it also allows folks that may have made a mistake but can't afford the relatively modest bond to make sure that they're not losing their job, they're not failing out of school, which can make it harder for them to be productive members of society. I think this strikes the right balance. And there are some clarifications I think we need to make. One of the biggest pieces of misinformation out there is that I've heard people saying that if someone's camped out on your yard, the police aren't able to do anything. And that's just false. Police have the discretion to take anyone into custody if they're on your property and to arrest them if they refuse to leave. This bill provides for mental health and support services for our law enforcement. It provides for extra training for law enforcement officers. It provides for the use of body cameras across the state, which both advocates and law enforcement agree helps build trust in the community, and also provides a certification and decertification process that the Attorney General agreed with law enforcement. And my opponent wants to go back and undo all of these good things in the bill while misleading voters about what's actually in there.