A review of Pritzker scandals

With Gov. J.B. Pritzker stepping further onto the national stage and priming for politics outside of Illinois, let’s not forget his scandalous past.

J.B. Pritzker’s bid for a third term as governor doesn’t seem to be the only race he has his eye on.

Pritzker, who’s up for re-election Nov. 3, is on tour building a national profile and says a bid for the White House hasn’t been “ruled out.”

While he mulls that, don’t forget the trail of scandals Pritzker has left across Illinois:

• Hiding millions of dollars in trusts in the Bahamas.
• Cited on federal wiretaps with a politician convicted of corruption.
• Removed toilets in his mansion for a $331,000 tax break. (He ended up paying the money.)
• Scrubbed internet of photo with someone accused of murder.
• Blurred the lines when giving out political contracts.
• Hypocrisy during the COVID no-travel order.
• Skirted rules to appoint brother-in-law to a political position.

Pritzker also has prioritized traveling to build his personal brand over concerning himself with his constituents in Illinois.

Here are details:

Hiding millions of dollars in trusts in the Bahamas.

While Pritzker has consistently pledged to raise taxes on the rich in Illinois, he has exempted himself.

When he was challenging incumbent Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner for governor in 2018, the Chicago Tribune connected Pritzker to trusts in the Bahamas that were avoiding taxes. Reporting then indicated Pritzker may have avoided millions of dollars in taxes from 2008 to 2018.

At the same time, Pritzker has levied at least 57 tax and fee hikes on Illinoisans since taking office, punishing Illinois with the highest tax burden in the nation.

Cited on federal wiretaps with a politician convicted of corruption.

Comments from Pritzker were caught on wiretaps of convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, exposing his disparaging remarks about African-Americans while talking about filling a vacant Illinois U.S. Senate seat.

Blagojevich was impeached in 2009 amid numerous allegations of corruption, including an attempt to profit the Senate seat, vacated by Barack Obama after he was elected president. Blagojevich was convicted in 2011 and served nearly eight years in federal prison before President Donald Trump commuted his 14-year sentence.

Removed toilets in his mansion for a $331,000 tax break.

Pritzker removed toilets in a Chicago mansion to reap a property tax break of more than $331,000. The scheme garnered enough attention to warrant a federal criminal investigation. Pritzker was not charged and ended up paying the money.

The contractor that removed the toilets received a nearly $9 million contract to convert an old Chicago-area hospital for use in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Illinois has among the highest property taxes in the nation.

Scrubbed internet of photo with someone accused of murder.

Resisting Trump’s push to send the National Guard to Chicago, Pritzker met with Peacekeepers, a group of community violence intervention workers, and posted photos on his official website.

When one of those Peacekeepers was later charged with murder and other crimes after a smash-and-grab burglary of a Louis Vuitton store on the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, Pritzker quietly removed a photo of them together.

While the governor does meet a large number of people, quickly scrubbing the photo is questionable, especially given Chicago’s’ increase in arrest rates for violent crimes in 2025.

Blurred the lines when giving out political contracts.

During his 2020 State of the State address, Pritzker declared of the state’s deep-rooted corruption that “protecting that culture or tolerating it is no longer acceptable.”

His involvement with his 2019 bipartisan infrastructure bill, Rebuild Illinois, showed otherwise. A congressman whose construction company got $750,000 worth of Rebuild Illinois contracts had endorsed Pritzker in 2018 and was quietly hired as a $13,000-a-month political consultant. Pritzker was essentially paying him twice.

Hypocrisy during the COVID no-travel order.

The COVID-19 pandemic gave Pritzker emergency powers that he overused for three years, issuing 40 emergency orders. Early in the pandemic, while Illinois schools were closed, the governor’s family escaped their patriarch’s stay-at-home order for vacations in Wisconsin and Florida, states with notably less stringent COVID-19 restrictions compared to Pritzker-piloted Illinois.

Skirted rules to appoint brother-in-law to political position.

Skirting around the legal prohibition against state employees appointing relatives to state positions, Pritzker named his brother-in-law to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees as the code “does not legally apply to a separate entity like the University of Illinois.”

To top off all of that, the governor has prioritized trips for his personal brand over Illinois constituents.

As his interest in the West Wing grows, Pritzker has spent less time in Illinois.

Capitol News Illinois found that 81% of Pritzker’s media interviews in 2025 were with national outlets, podcasters, social media influencers or television entertainment hosts — not local news stations.

All the while, Illinoisans are left to shoulder sluggish economic growth, rising unemployment and less accountability from an absent governor.

Fire from scandals loses flame over time. But political decisions allowing high spending and high taxes are pushing Illinoisans to other states creating long-term problems for taxpayers.

As Pritzker eyes a political future beyond Illinois, Illinoisans will be left carrying the burden of his decisions.

It’s time for him to prioritize the state and its taxpayers.