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JB Pritzker Isn’t Thinking About Running for President

(Or so he says.) In a candid interview, the governor opens up about the tragedies that shaped his life, his fight against Trump, and what needs to happen next.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is taking a page from other blue states to combat a housing shortage, proposing that Illinois take some control away from locals.

The governor and his allies in the statehouse have introduced legislation that would remove some zoning control from municipalities to clear a path for faster development of multiunit housing. They are facing opposition from a group of cities and towns that have introduced their own bill that they say would increase housing but allow them to keep control over how and where it is built.

Pritzker’s legislation, which he is aiming to pass by the end of the month, is an indication that the “Yes in My Backyard” pro-development movement is spreading inland from the coasts along with housing-price surges. In recent years, California, Massachusetts and Oregon have taken more control of local zoning rules that they said were hindering construction of badly needed housing.

Those state efforts have had mixed results. They have spurred some types of construction, including a boom of tiny homes called accessory dwelling units in California, but they have still left those states short of needed supply. That is partly owing to higher interest rates and rising building costs. A debate over a Massachusetts law recently went viral when a resident of Marblehead, Mass., accused the town of skirting the law’s housing mandate.

Housing advocates in Illinois said Pritzker’s plan is one of the most aggressive yet proposed because it combines several changes in one legislative package, from relaxing building codes to preventing cities from blocking types of housing construction.

While home prices in Illinois are still below national averages, they have been rising at a faster pace over the past year. The average Illinois home is worth $290,210, up 4.9% over the past year, compared with $368,198 in the U.S. as a whole, up 0.6% over the past year, according to Zillow data.

A report in 2025 from the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign estimated that the state needs to build 227,000 units over the next five years to keep up with demand.

Pritzker said in a statement after unveiling the legislation earlier this year: “For too long, a patchwork of local restrictions have made it too difficult and expensive to build and buy housing.” He added: “Homeownership—a cornerstone of the American dream—is too far out of reach, and rent is too damn high.”

Pritzker’s plan would stop local authorities from blocking construction of multifamily housing such as duplexes, triplexes and four-flats on plots of land over 2,500 square feet that are already zoned for residential use. Local standards for building height, setbacks and lot coverage would still apply, the governor’s office said. Pritzker’s plan would also stop local authorities from blocking construction of accessory dwelling units on plots of land zoned for single-family homes.

The package would allow developers to build housing with fewer parking spaces and would shorten timelines for construction-permit reviews. Municipalities would be required “to act on applications rather than allowing projects to remain indefinitely under review,” the governor’s office said in a statement. The legislation would relax building codes to allow construction of more apartment buildings with single stairways, instead of the two stairways often required.

Some prominent Illinois cities have pushed back. The mayor of Naperville, Ill., a Chicago suburb, wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper to say the legislation could allow developers to buy and rip down single-family homes and replace them with eight housing units.

“Naperville’s character wasn’t built by accident. It was built over decades, through careful planning, through public hearings in our council chambers, and through residents who showed up and stayed involved,” Mayor Scott Wehrli wrote.

An association of Illinois towns and cities has introduced a rival package of bills that they said would retain local zoning control and reduce housing costs by capping total real-estate agent fees at 3% of the final sale price, exempting building materials from the state sales tax and other steps.

Olivia Ortega, director of housing solutions for the state, said the rival plan from cities and towns mostly maintains the status quo.

“We have some incredible cities around Illinois that have gone above and beyond in allowing for attainable housing to be built,” she said. “Unfortunately, that has not solved the problem. The voluntary actions that we’ve seen in those places have not fixed the entire housing shortage.”

The Illinois House and Senate have held hearings on Pritzker’s proposals, but no floor debate has occurred.

Some Illinois towns and suburbs have backed Pritzker’s plan. In a recent Chicago Tribune opinion piece, the mayors of suburban Oak Park and Des Plaines and of small-town Sesser and Lexington said “outdated zoning rules and overly complex approval processes” were slowing construction and driving up costs.

“While other states are building at several times our pace, our state is falling further behind, and our communities are the ones paying the price,” the mayors wrote.

In March, we told you about a new program Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration launched offering up to $15,000 in down payment and closing cost assistance for eligible first-time Illinois homebuyers.

Within nine weeks, more than 1,500 homebuyers have been offered upwards of $18 million in down payment assistance, Pritzker’s office confirmed to us. The program, dubbed “Access Home,” has quickly become the Illinois Housing Development Authority’s most popular program, representing 61% of the department’s loan reservations made in 2026.

The assistance is provided as a zero-interest silent second mortgage with repayment deferred for up to 30 years unless the home is sold or refinanced earlier.

Initial funding uses existing sources, including reallocated funds from prior down payment assistance programs, excess single-family indenture liquidity and proceeds from future revenue bond debt issuances.

‘SUCCESS’: “As evidenced by the recent success of Access Home, there remains a large pool of individuals and families who want to buy and put roots down in Illinois,” said IDHA executive director Kristin Faust. “The passage of BUILD will expand IHDA’s ability to provide downpayment assistance programs for working individuals and families, giving them the chance to thrive and not worry about student loan debt or other hurdles preventing them from achieving their dreams.”

CONTEXT: The news comes as Pritzker pushes his Building Up Illinois Developments, or BUILD housing plan, which includes proposals to relax restrictions on the development of multi-unit housing, legalize accessory dwelling units and cut red tape that’s slowed homebuilding.

The plan has run into roadblocks from municipal leaders and some state legislators over its preemption of local control on zoning.

However, Pritzker’s plan includes a $250 million capital funding request for site preparation grants, middle housing development, and first-time homebuyer assistance. This aspect of the plan has generally garnered bipartisan support.

Gov. JB Pritzker is questioning the CDC's preparedness after a hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship led to the quarantine of American passengers.

At least 11 hantavirus cases tied to the cruise ship had been confirmed as of Tuesday, though officials say additional cases are possible as testing continues.

18 Americans are being quarantined in Nebraska and Georgia.

The Illinois Department of Public Health announced Tuesday afternoon that it is investigating a possible hantavirus case in Winnebago County. Officials said the case is not related to the cruise ship outbreak.

While experts say hantavirus is unlikely to become another COVID-style threat, the response is reviving debates about federal coordination, transparency and pandemic readiness.

"The State of Illinois maintains serious concerns about the federal government's capacity to support international and domestic public health preparedness," Pritzker's office said in a statement Monday.

"At this time, there is no reason to believe there are passengers from the MV Hondius located in Illinois. However, after many days of uncertainty, the federal government still has key questions to answer."

Pritzker's office went on to lob rhetorical questions at the Trump administration, including why the federal government hadn't provided states with full passenger manifests from the cruise and whether Illinois residents had been exposed to hantavirus.

Pritzker also asked about how DOGE cuts at the CDC have affected global migration and quarantine operations and how the federal government is sharing information after its withdrawal from the World Health Organization.

The CDC and most infectious disease experts have assured people that the hantavirus outbreak is not cause for alarm and is very different from the early days of COVID-19, which led to a pandemic.

"The hantavirus outbreak will likely be quite limited, as many experts are predicting," Northwestern University's Robert Murphy tells Axios.

"The problem is that the response so far has been slow and uncoordinated," Murphy adds. "We have apparently learned nothing from the COVID-19 pandemic: Could the virus mutate to something more infectious? Yes."

"One thing is for sure: We are not prepared."

During the early days of the COVID pandemic, Pritzker and the IDPH earned high marks for communicating to residents about infection numbers, threats and safety measures through daily press conferences.

Even if the hantavirus outbreak remains contained, the episode is giving Democratic governors an opening to challenge the Trump administration's public health preparedness and transparency.

As book bans reached one of their highest levels ever in 2025, Illinois remains one of the few states with legal protections against removing books from schools and libraries.

The normalization and uptick of book bans across the U.S. point to growing censorship and authoritarianism, revealing that titles centered on themes of activism and self-expression are increasingly targeted.

A PEN America report released last week documents bans on more than 1,100 unique titles during 2024-25 school year — including educational or informational books for young people, such as textbooks, history books, biographies and autobiographies.

Fiction titles still dominate banned book lists, but during the 2024-25 school year, books from that genre dropped from 85% to 69% of all banned titles, while nonfiction rose from 14% to 29%, compared with the previous year.

44% of the 3,743 titles banned last school year featured characters or people of color, the largest percentage that PEN America had ever reported.

39% of the banned titles featured LGBTQ+ characters or people, up from 25% the previous year.

Limiting access to books about people and events that mirror kids' and teens' experiences makes them feel marginalized and alone, mental health experts warn.

In the critical period of self-discovery, young readers need to connect with characters and subjects who show them what's possible, rather than force them to feel excluded and different.

"So many teachers and librarians have told me how this book helped their students see beyond their own biases and think about community in a whole new way," Katherine Applegate, author of "Wishtree," says in the report.

Virginia parent Jodi Famer called Applegate's book "indoctrination at its finest" in an effort to ban the book.

In 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law stating that Illinois libraries would be eligible for state-funded grants only if they adopt the American Library Association's Library Bill of Rights.

The Bill of Rights states that reading materials should not be proscribed, removed or restricted because of partisan or personal disapproval.

Most banned books in 2025, according to PEN America.

The Chicago-based American Library Association operates a portal to report book challenges and offers resources on efforts to ban books.