The White House is becoming a frequent stop for Illinois pols
President Joe Biden has been signing a fair number of bills passed by Congress at White House ceremonies lately. And at recent signing ceremonies and other White House events, there has been at least one Illinois politician among the invited guests.
In fact, there probably haven’t been this many Illinoisans on the White House grounds since Barack Obama was in office.
The visits have mutual benefits to the Biden administration, which gets to connect with state and local officials, and the officeholders themselves, who get to witness history, schmooze with top federal officials and increase their visibility.
On Wednesday, in the East Room, Biden signed the Honoring our PACT Act, a measure to expand benefits for military veterans exposed to toxic “burn pits” in battle zones, famously championed by "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart. U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, D-Crystal Lake, was among about 24 members of Congress in the East Room for the event—and the only one from Illinois.
“We can’t wait any longer for this comprehensive legislation, which provides care and benefits to all toxic-exposed veterans,” Underwood, a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, tweeted.
On Tuesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker was on the South Lawn for a ceremony in which Biden signed the CHIPS & Science Act of 2022, which, among other things, boosts semiconductor research. It was Pritzker’s second White House visit in about a month: He was also there on July 11 for an event recognizing the first major gun control legislation passed by Congress in more than a decade.
Pritzker did not meet privately with the president on Tuesday, a spokesman for the governor said, as he had during the July visit, which came just a week after the Highland Park parade shooting. But the governor tweeted a picture of himself and White House Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu on a balcony of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, and he cited a “very productive meeting” with Landrieu.
For a governor who seems to have nascent presidential aspirations, appearing at the White House probably doesn’t hurt his national profile.
Asked about Pritzker’s most recent White House visit, Senior Deputy Press Secretary Alex Gough said the governor “welcomes any opportunities to celebrate monumental legislation, like the CHIPS Act, and forge partnerships in Washington to ensure Illinois gets its fair share of federal dollars, making the state a better place to live, work, raise a family and do business.”
Also on hand for the CHIPS Act signing was U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, a former physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermilab in Batavia and a member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
“I figure I was invited because there is only one Ph.D. scientist and chip designer in Congress and the White House figured it might be a good idea to invite him,” Foster said in an interview.
Foster was happy that three pieces of legislation he helped advance became part of the final, bipartisan CHIPS measure. One calls for major investments in infrastructure at national laboratories, including Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont. His other measures deal with digital identity and university research on nuclear reactors.
Foster said it was “dreadfully hot” on the South Lawn for the hour-long ceremony, but he never tires of going to the White House, especially to celebrate the passage of legislation in these politically divisive times.
“As I spend more time on politics, I have gained respect for the value of ceremony,” he said. “I felt very proud watching the bill being signed.”
Now that the pandemic has eased, the Biden White House has been welcoming hundreds, if not thousands, of federal, state and local lawmakers to celebrate its accomplishments. And not all the recent White House visits by Illinois politicians have been for bill signings.
There was an April event after Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which drew Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other Illinois pols.
And, on Aug. 5, state Sen. Celina Villanueva, D-Chicago, was among seven Latina state lawmakers who met with Vice President Kamala Harris for a roundtable to discuss abortion rights. Harris noted that Illinois was “serving as sort of a safe haven for the Midwest given the restrictions on abortion access we’ve seen.”
Villanueva said at the roundtable that “as the daughter of Mexican immigrant parents, I would have never thought in my wildest dreams that this is where I would be.”
“I’m completely disheartened by this attack on women—by this war on women—taking place in our country,” she added. “I am proud to be from Illinois, a state that protects women’s access to care.”
In an interview Thursday, Villanueva said the roundtable was her first visit to the White House.
“It was very exciting,” she said. “I’m a kid from Little Village on the Southwest Side of Chicago, and to think I was in a room with the vice president to discuss reproductive rights, it was very surreal.”
Villanueva said Harris spent an additional hour with the state legislators after a more formal portion televised on the White House’s YouTube channel. The lawmakers stressed the importance of Latino people on abortion rights issues, noting that Latino voters helped preserve abortion rights in Kansas in the vote on Aug. 2.
“There is a push to make sure Latino voices are part of the (abortion rights) conversation, and I think the vice president recognized that,” Villanueva said.
The White House hopes to be holding another event for invited guests soon, a signing ceremony for the Inflation Reduction Act scheduled to be taken up by the House on Friday. Don’t be surprised if some Illinois politicians show up for that.