One of Chicago's worst legislators sets his sights on Capitol Hill
Most daily political email newsletters present left-wing talking points as news, and Shia Kapos' Politico Illinois Playbook isn't an exception.
But last Tuesday's edition of Politico's Illinois Playbook offered something of tremendous interest to center-right Illinoisans. Kapos reported that state Senator Robert J. Peters of Chicago, a Democrat, "deleted his social media posts on X."
Two weeks ago, Peters announced his candidacy for the U.S. House to represent Illinois' 2nd Congressional District. The current member of Congress for the 2nd district, Robin Kelly, also a Democrat, is running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Dick Durbin, who is retiring.
The primary elections for these contests will occur next March. Thus far, Peters is the only prominent Democrat who has announced a run for the 2nd District seat.
Illinois Playbook mentioning of Peters' social media history was curious. What has Peters said on podcasts and on YouTube that he may not want to be widely known?
There are at least a few items.
Kapos might be wrong about Peters X account, because Peters, who represents a district that covers Hyde Park — Kenwood, Downtown, and the Near North Side — still has a presence on X, formerly known as Twitter. Unless he had a second X page.
For certain, in at least one instance, Peters has cleansed his X account, because this post from 2023, written shortly after wilding youths rioted in the Loop on a spring Saturday night, has vanished from the social media site. Fortunately, Fox News reported on it at the time.
“Since I’m a glutton for punishment and I’m sure I’m gonna get the most unhinged, crime weirdo replies but: I would look at the behavior of young people as a political act and statement. It’s a mass protest against poverty and segregation. Rest in peace to my mentions.”
"Weirdo" is a favorite word for Peters.
What makes his foolhardiness on what leftists euphemistically call "teen takeovers" so alarming is that Peters is the primary author of the Pretrial Safety Act, the no-cash bail portion of the pro-criminal SAFE-T Act. The legislation was signed into law by Governor J.B. Pritzker in 2021, but it didn't fully go into effect until two years later.
One noticeable change to Peters' X account is that for quite some time the legislator restricted comments to his posts.
But Peters must have realized that the optics of offering mostly one-way communications on X are terrible, so around the time he announced his run for Congress, Peters quietly switched on comments to his posts for everyone.
After announcing his candidacy, Peters collected two endorsements from far-left politicians. The first endorsement came from Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders; the second came from David Hogg, now the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. Last week, Hogg said of the unhinged Texas congresswoman, Jasmine Crockett, “I think Jasmine is, frankly, the type of leader that we’re really looking to support in some senses, right?”
Peters is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
He was asked in 2021, “Am I right, you’re the only DSA person in the Illinois State Senate?”
Peters replied, “Yeah.”
If elected, Peters will be one of the few self-proclaimed socialists in the U.S. House.
No-cash bail
The SAFE-T Act has been a disaster for Illinois. Every few days CWB Chicago and other new sources report on horrific crimes allegedly committed by suspects on pre-trial release. Yes, crime is down lately in Chicago, but it's down nationally as well and Chicago has lagged behind other major cities.
Locally, here is another reason for this slight downward trend. Cook County now has a real prosecutor as state's attorney, Eileen O'Neill Burke, instead of lawlessness-enabler Kim Foxx. A second reason is police leadership under Superintendent of Police Larry Snelling.
Peters was an ardent supporter of Foxx. In last year's Democratic primary, he endorsed O'Neill's opponent, Clayton Harris III. Harris all but promised to continue Foxx's destructive approach to prosecuting criminals.
But Peters might suspect that his championing of no-cash bail will pose problems for his congressional run. His Senate district is deep blue, but the 2nd Congressional District has many conservative voters in the downstate area it covers, although like most U.S. House districts in Illinois, it is a gerrymandered malformation. It reaches from Chicago's South Side and all the way down past Danville in Vermillion County.
Peters, in his role as a state senator, voted for the 2020 decennial congressional remap. In Illinois, legislators choose their constituents. It’s supposed to be the other way around.
A visit to Peters' "About" page on his congressional campaign website offers plenty of biographical details, and it boasts how he "helped reform the broken bail system" in Illinois, but as of this writing, there is no mention of the SAFE-T Act, the Pretrial Safety Act, or no-cash bail there.
That's probably because in places like rural Iroquois County, where Donald Trump captured 78 percent of the vote, the SAFE-T Act is very unpopular.
But while on a rant against 2023 mayoral candidate, policy expert and Contrarian contributor, Paul Vallas, on the Ben Joravsky Show podcast, Peters defiantly defended it.
“And don't talk about the SAFE-T Act ever again. In fact, any candidate who wants to run, this is from me, if you want to bring up the SAFE-T Act, I'm just... if you ever watch The Last Dance [The ESPN documentary about the Chicago Bulls last championship], I'm going to take it personally.”
While I don't understand The Last Dance reference, I urge every candidate running against Peters for that House seat to bring up that SAFE-T Act so that he does “take it personally.”
Peters continued:
“So, keep it (the SAFE-T Act) out of your mouth. Because you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know the issues.”
Peters then went on to compare Vallas to a “weird Facebook group guy who's commenting on too many posts that make Mount Greenwood Great Again.”
That word again, “weird.”
As with most leftists, Peters believes that cash bail is about punishing criminal suspects who are poor. “Bail is about who gets locked up and who doesn’t,” he told Current Affairs, is “based off money.” Wrong. Cash bail has been used for centuries to make it more likely that those people accused of crimes show up for their court dates and face justice.
Violence interrupters
Here's an issue Peers knows nothing about, the war in Gaza
Peters has his solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Violence interrupters.
Yes, Peters is that out of touch.
At a protest in 2023 near the Israeli consulate in the Loop, he offered this rock-dumb analysis:
“I think about this story on the West Side of Chicago where there was a mass shooting, fourteen, fifteen people were shot in the house. Kids were murdered. And violence interrupters went to the scene, and they were able to negotiate a ceasefire. If we can do that on the West Side of Chicago — why the f*ck can't we do it in the Middle East.”
The Israel-Palestine conflict goes back to at least the announcement of the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
So, during that time, why hasn't anyone previously suggested sending Chicago violence interrupters to the Holy Land?
That's probably because the magnificent Robert J. Peters wasn't born until 1985 — and he's not a figure on the international scene.
Not yet.
I'm sure, in Peters' mind, after Chicago violence interrupters solve the Gaza crisis, they can move on to Ukraine.
And then to Korea.
Oh, did you catch the “F-bomb” in his comments? Yes, Peters is another leftist who believes vulgarity is his ticket to relevancy. He’s dropped a few others on podcasts.
Back to weirdos
Peters has hostile views on pro-life Americans. Abortion of course is the ultimate wedge issue. Illinois is more pro-choice than the rest of the country, but there are many Illinoisans who, at varying degrees, oppose abortion. Many of them live in the more conservative parts of Illinois’ 2nd congressional district.
Last year, when he was a guest on the Broken Office Chair podcast, he called abortion opponents “far-right weirdos.”
Does Peters watch The Handmaid’s Tale?
If so, now is the time for someone to reach out to Peters and explain to him that the dystopian Hulu television series, which portrays a misogynist society that promotes female fertility above over almost everything else, is a work of fiction.
Yes, abortion is a controversial issue — and some center-right Americans firmly favor it.
As for pro-lifers — on both sides of the political aisle — in most situations they view their opposition to abortion as affirming their deeply held commitment to all stages of human life. That's not weird.
Unless you are Robert Peters, that is.
Does Peters want to make no-cash bail the law nationally?
In 2022, while a guest on the Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay podcast, he dropped a hint.
“And people living in other states should be demanding a system that moves away from basically, the accused has to have money in their pocket and towards a system that says, ‘Hey, if you're a threat to public safety, you might be someone who needs to be detained.’”
Let's interpret that answer as a "Yes."
On the positive end, Peters is back to allowing comments on his X posts.
