Editorial: What's really at stake in the Pritzker-Johnson cold war

As we witness the current dysfunction between Chicago City Hall and Springfield, we easily forget that for most of the past 60 years Illinois governors were Republicans while Chicago mayors were Democrats.

There was some tension in those relationships. But for the most part those GOP governors and Chicago mayors cooperated effectively on matters of importance to Chicago. Chicago mayors - for the bulk of that time period, their last names were Daley - understood how to prioritize their requests to Springfield for assistance to ensure they could get to "yes." And GOP governors - Jim Thompson in the 1980s, Jim Edgar for much of the ‘90s and then George Ryan in the early 2000s - understood that a growing and economically strong Chicago was a boon for the entire state.

During Illinois' brutal budget wars of the 2010s, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel were frequently at odds on a host of issues. But everyone understood the real warring parties at the time were Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan. For all the verbal broadsides, no one ever believed Rauner and Emanuel, who were friends for years before that era, couldn't communicate with each other reasonably even if striking deals was challenging.

Which bring us to right now.

What is there to say about the relationship between Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker, both Democrats?

What relationship? There doesn't appear to be any.

It was remarkable last week to see the two take their simmering feud to the boiling point over the course of multiple days. The triggering issue was the new stadium for the Chicago Bears. Pritzker is struggling to get legislation in Springfield across the goal line that the team claims it needs to construct a domed stadium on land it already owns in Arlington Heights. It's a high priority for a governor running for reelection and contemplating a presidential campaign. He doesn't want the losing of the beloved Bears to a neighboring red state to be on his record.

Johnson hasn't yet formally declared his intention to run in the February 2027 mayoral election, but all signs say that he will. Like Pritzker, he doesn't want presiding over the Bears' departure from Chicago on his résumé, either.

The problem for Johnson is that ship sailed long ago.

The mayor fumbled his attempt at winning approval for a new lakefront stadium in Chicago in 2024 by failing to notify Springfield ahead of time that he intended to use state money to make it happen; he has been seething ever since. For many months now, the Bears and the NFL have made it abundantly clear that there only are two options to move on from Soldier Field, the team's home for more than five decades. As we have exhaustively observed, those are Arlington Heights and a site in Hammond, just over the Chicago border, where Indiana has approved a generous Bears-friendly package for a domed stadium.

Team Johnson has insisted that Chicago should be - and in their minds still is - the first option. The mayor and his top people, mainly senior political adviser Jason Lee, have worked hard - in public and behind the scenes with state lawmakers from Chicago - to torpedo the enabling legislation for Arlington Heights, which would freeze property taxes for the Bears stadium, permit local taxing bodies in the area to negotiate annual payments in lieu of taxes from the Bears to support schools and so forth, and provide hundreds of millions for infrastructure around the project.

A more politically deft mayor long ago would have seen the Chicago stadium as a lost cause and instead would have focused on obtaining concessions for Chicago. Infrastructure support for a post-Bears Soldier Field, say, or a boost for the nearby Museum Campus would have been obvious asks.

No doubt we are seeing the lingering resentment from Johnson's camp over Pritzker's refusal over the past three years to back any of their many proposed progressive tax proposals to fill the coffers of the city and its public schools. Johnson's track record in Springfield is abysmal, and a frustrated Pritzker this week explicitly called out that fact.

Asked about a half-baked, eleventh-hour Johnson administration idea for the city to take over the state agency that has overseen stadium financing in Illinois, Pritzker said no one from the mayor's office had even contacted him about it.

"In fact, this is kind of typical," Pritzker said. "The mayor has shown up every spring at the end of session to pronounce what he would like to see happen."

That was unusually blunt from the typically genial Pritzker, who's mainly tried to keep a public lid on his obvious irritation with Johnson. The mayor responded in a radio interview with an odd attack on Pritzker's familial wealth, saying that the governor (unlike the mayor) "doesn't know what it's like to open a refrigerator and, ain't no food in it."

What all that has to do with where Caleb Williams calls signals we don't know. But it sure was revealing of a relationship now turned fully toxic for all the world to see.

So here we are, as the General Assembly's spring session nears its scheduled conclusion at the end of this month. Bill Cunningham of Chicago, the state senator leading stadium negotiations, late last week admitted Johnson's recent involvement had stalled progress. Should Johnson succeed in sending the Bears into the arms of Hammond, he will have made his relationship with Pritzker that much worse, harming the chances of striking future deals in the city's interest so long as these two are involved.

The governor has deemed a Bears stadium in Arlington Heights a top priority, and a fellow Democrat is trying to scotch it. Politics in this state doesn't get much rougher than that.

For Chicagoans, many of whom care little precisely where the Bears play in the future, this spectacle should be cause for reflection. How can we get this city moving in the right direction again?

Pritzker is far more popular with Chicagoans than is their own mayor, judging by polling. Pritzker also is overwhelmingly favored to win reelection to a third term in November.

Thus whoever wins Chicago's mayoral election next year almost certainly will be dealing with Pritzker as governor for the vast majority of their term. A healthy and productive relationship with the governor won't be optional if Chicago is to surmount its formidable fiscal challenges.

Can Johnson rehabilitate such a relationship, whether or not Pritzker's Bears deal survives the mayor's attacks? Nothing's impossible in politics, but it sure feels unlikely.

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This story was originally published May 24, 2026 at 5:15 AM.