Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker and his wife, M.K., played dinner hosts at their North Astor Street mansion for Illinois’ four legislative leaders and their spouses in early December, a rare bipartisan convening that belies the current political norm of hyperpartisanship.

“Everybody had a good time. We stayed longer, I think, than everybody had planned and it was a great conversation,” the Democratic governor-elect said.

“We had kind of chicken, meat and potatoes. It was a fairly normal dinner, you might imagine, at our home. And, actually we talked about almost everything except politics,” he said.

But there is a new political reality for the shrinking Republican minority to stomach come January after an often bitter campaign found Democrats in November sweeping all statewide offices, including ousting one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, and expanding legislative majorities.

Even raising the revenue needed to enact a new public works bill such as a gas-tax hike, despite the payoff of local project ribbon-cuttings for new roads and bridges, also could carry a risk for new lawmakers.

Then there is the new governor’s progressive social agenda on issues ranging from gun control and immigration to increased funding for social services, which could face pockets of resistance from some Democrats, particularly those representing southern and rural Illinois, which has trended Republican and supportive of President Donald Trump.

Helping Pritzker navigate his agenda, aside from Madigan and Cullerton, include his former campaign manager and incoming chief of staff, Anne Caprara, whom the governor-elect knew through her days as executive director of Priorities USA, the main super-PAC that backed Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful White House bid in 2016.

Pritzker also has named Nikki Budzinski, a former senior adviser to the campaign and now transition director, as a senior adviser for his new administration. Budzinski served as labor outreach director for Clinton’s 2016 campaign but also hails from Peoria, where she can provide Pritzker with Downstate information and advice.

Pritzker also named a trio of deputy governors, former state Comptroller Dan Hynes to assist with budgeting; state Rep. Christian Mitchell of Chicago, who also has been interim executive director of the state Democratic Party; and Jesse Ruiz, who has held a variety of roles on city and state boards, and was an unsuccessful March primary candidate for attorney general.

In addition, sources close to the incoming governor said Pritzker also is listening to Michael Sacks, the chairman and CEO of Grosvenor Capital Management who has been a top adviser to Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Helping with legislative strategy, they said, are state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz of Chicago, who was a major Pritzker backer and surrogate, and state Sen. Andy Manar of Bunker Hill in central Illinois, who is a former Cullerton chief of staff and leading voice on education issues.

The sources asked not to be identified since they were not authorized to speak publicly about the crafting of the new administration.

Perhaps if there is one thing Democrats and Republicans in the legislature can agree upon, it is the need for a sense of normalcy to return to the statehouse after a tumultuous four-year term of Rauner and a Democratic-controlled General Assembly. The ideological warfare over the GOP governor’s efforts to diminish the power of unions led to a historic budget impasse that severely damaged delivery of social services and higher education, and could take years to try to repair.

Still, there are fears that the Rauner era represents the new normal of a Springfield where only two decades ago the partisan winner-take-all battles of Washington had yet to find their way inside the state Capitol. One possible way to counter that would be for Pritzker to develop a high level of trust, not only with Madigan and Cullerton, but also with Durkin and Brady, following a Rauner era filled with mistrust.

Trust, Pritzker said, “gets established because we’re each willing to reach across party lines, talk to one another, listen to one another and I think that’s begun in earnest, not just in my transition where a number of Republicans are participating in our transition committees, but in ways like when we get together and just break bread.” He noted transition team members that include former GOP Gov. Jim Edgar and former Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno of Lemont, who retired after battling internally with Rauner over policy.

Durkin said trust with the new governor must be earned.

“Trust takes time, and I respect the office of the governor. I will work with the governor on matters that are important to all Illinoisans — that includes our employers. It seems they get lost in the equation a lot,” Durkin said. “But the governor-elect has been, I would say, I’ve had good communications with him. He’s reached out and I’m pleased.”

Rob Karr, the president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said he is wary of Pritzker’s call to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour — a process the governor-elect has said would take place over time.

Still, Karr said, “We are of the belief based on several interviews with the governor-elect himself that while we disagree on issues, he is going to take an inclusive approach to decision making, that he’s going to try to bring everybody together. I think that’s something that most people will agree has been missing in Springfield for several years.”

One Pritzker confidant said the incoming governor envisions a return to what was once known as the “agreed-bill” process, in which all of the various stakeholders on an issue, such as labor and management, agree to sit down together to work to resolve a problem and that no legislation would move forward without such an agreement.

Such a process, still used regarding the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund, allows lawmakers to implement an agreement that is approved by all sides.

“Illinois has really only worked well when everyone works together on bipartisan solutions to the problems. It’s never really worked well, Illinois has never really prospered, with a ‘my way or the highway’ approach,” Karr said. “We are confident in the early stages that he’s going to take that approach, and only time will tell.”

But the more politically active and Republican-allied Illinois Chamber of Commerce already is girding for the Democratic domination. A recent internet seminar promoted by the group warned that “the Pritzker administration is going to be aggressively pro-labor when it comes to creating new workplace laws and greater regulation that this state has (believe it or not) yet to experience.”

The title of the event was: “The Employers’ Survival Guide under Gov. Pritzker.”

rap30@aol.com

Twitter @rap30