Mayor Keith Pekau Could Win an IL Congressional Seat

CLAY: We’re joined now by Mayor Keith Pekau of the 6th Congressional District in Illinois. You’re an Air Force combat vet, small business owner. You are fired up. You want to get to Congress. Tell us about your district and what you are seeing on the ground there.

PEKAU: Well, thanks for having me, Clay. So, this district was remapped in Illinois, and it actually combined the 3rd District and the 6th District and surprisingly combined two Democratic incumbents that were both very far left, and so the new district is actually… In their haste to do all of this, to create another overwhelmingly Democratic district, they created a district that went from — those other districts were about a D+7 or D+8 to one that was a D+2, so a very neutral seat, more like congressional seats should look, and one that I believe we should win.

BUCK: Now, safety, obviously, is a major part of this, Keith. This is Buck, by the way. Thanks for being with us. And the issue of crime, law and order is going to be very high up on, well, really in all these races across the nation, especially anywhere near a city. And you have called the Illinois SAFE-T Act the most dangerous law you’ve ever seen. I mean, it does feel Orwellian that the SAFE-T Act is, in fact, deeply unsafe, is dangerous. Explain to us why that is.

PEKAU: Well, thanks, Buck. This law basically prioritizes criminals over law-abiding citizens and police, and there’s several different layers to it. But the first is it’s the elimination of cash bail for all offenses, but the only offenses that can be held. There’s a there’s just a handful of them, like seven or eight. All the rest of the people must be released. So that includes second degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated discharge of a weapon, kidnaping, armed robbery. All those things, people must be released. And then 48 hours of ankle monitoring.

They have to miss a check-in for 48 hours before you can go look for them. In other words, they could drive from Illinois to Alaska before anyone even knows they’re gone. And then, lastly, trespassing has been lowered from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class B misdemeanor, and that law, that Class B misdemeanor law, has been changed to a “shall issue a citation,” which means that the police can not put a hand on someone to remove someone from a property. So, now if someone is trespassing on your property, in your home, that’s your home or your business, the police cannot remove them, and it’ll end up being on the property owner or on the business owner to remove them. And that’s going to lead to people taking the law into their own hands and a lot of bad things happening.

BUCK: And Keith isn’t there also…? I spoke to a Democrat alderman in the city of Chicago about the rules there, specifically for Chicago P.D., and my understanding is now there’s a whole range of offenses for which police are not even supposed to give chase. So basically, if someone’s, like, breaking and entering or something and they run away, the cops just have to go, “Okay. Not supposed to drive fast in the car to chase you.”

PEKAU: I think those are Chicago rules. I didn’t see any rule — I’m not aware of any rules — in there that says we can’t chase, that you can’t be chased.

BUCK: No, no. This isn’t statewide. This is specific to the city of Chicago. But just to illustrate the insanity of some of these positions. You’ve heard of that, too?

PEKAU: Oh, for sure. That’s definitely a Chicago position and the crime that’s happening in Chicago. I mean, I’m a mayor in Cook County, about 15 miles from Chicago. And there’s no question that those criminals are moving their way into the suburbs because they feel emboldened. So, we deal with it all the time. So, crime and the pressure of criminals have been increasing around the suburbs, around Chicago for 5-1/2 years, for six years since Kim Foxx has taken office.

BUCK: Keith Pekau, everybody. Keith, if people want to help out, especially in your area in Illinois, where should they go?

PEKAU: They should go to KeithPekau.com — that’s P-E-K-A-U — and they can help out and push us over the edge for next Tuesday.

BUCK: Keith, good luck to you, man. We hope you pull it out. Thanks for being with us.

PEKAU: Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Buck.