Top Illinois Stories

Among the changes, the court will now only allow “one-at-a-time” appeals, meaning that parties cannot appeal a new detention decision by a judge if a previous appeal is in the works;  the court requires notification within 24 hours if the appeal becomes moot due to a resolution in the case; and the 14-day deadline to file will be eliminated, reasoning that people are rushing into decisions about whether to appeal due to the deadline.
In truth, despite regular headlines about voter apathy, Illinois primary voter turnout has not budged all that much over a 40-year stretch, though the numbers of Democrats and Republicans heading to the spring polls has fluctuated by more than 20 points depending on the given election year, data shows. “What drives overall turnout is having a race where Dems are motivated,” Illinois Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said.
"What grocery tax cut opponents aren’t telling you is that local governments in Illinois have seen a dramatic increase in funding from state government, and they can afford to lower your local tax burden. In 2010, the state distributed $3.8 billion to local governments, and in 2023, that number nearly doubled to more than $7 billion. While municipalities claim their funding from the Local Government Distributive Fund was cut, the numbers tell a different story. Funding from that source has doubled, from $985 million in 2010 to $1.9 billion today."
Illinois' Journalism Preservation Act (SB 3591), currently sitting in the state’s Senate, would require online companies to pay local news publishers for work viewed by residents on their platforms. Meta spokesperson Jamie Radice said that news isn’t the reason most people visit Facebook and Instagram, and if the law passes, “we will be forced to make the same business decision that we made in Canada to end the availability of news in Illinois."
"It’s the memory of Chicago in 1968, I’m afraid, that gives me a premonition of the presidential campaign of 2024. It’s possible that neither human nature nor political dynamics have changed much in the 56 years between then and now. If anything, both have deteriorated. This summer, the Democrats are again meeting in Chicago."

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The order permits chief circuit judges to enter local orders approving the operational challenges documented by the Supreme Court and to order these hearings to be conducted remotely where necessary.
If Frerichs’ plan becomes law, the nonprofit investment pool would be structured in the same way as the Illinois Public Treasurer’s Investment Pool – also known as the Illinois Funds. The Illinois Funds allows units of government to invest their funds safely while benefiting from the economies of scale available through a pooled investment fund portfolio that exceeds $19 billion. The pool invests in liquid, high-quality short-term investments.
Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office Monday filed an appeal directly to the Supreme Court after a Madison County judge last week ruled that a new state law which says constitutional challenges to state laws and actions can only be filed in Cook or Sangamon counties violated the due process rights of one plaintiff in a lawsuit in that jurisdiction.
The commission found the original plans lacked sufficient evidence that they would benefit low-income and traditionally disadvantaged communities – a requirement of CEJA – and that the plans didn’t demonstrate how the utilities would keep monthly bills affordable. Both ComEd and Ameran Illinois explicitly responded to those criticisms in their revised filings, including more in-depth calculations that suggest most of the benefits of grid modernization and clean energy will go toward historically disadvantaged and low-income communities.
Gallatin County and Alexander County, both in southern Illinois, each lost more than 30 people for every 1,000 residents, by far the fastest rates in the state. Stark County, Edwards County and White County experienced the next fastest declines.
Charles Pelkie, the chief of staff for the Will County Clerk's Office, said 60 faulty vote-by-mail ballots went out but they sent corrected ballots to the affected precinct.
The legislation, like House Bill 5345, would nearly double the current required hourly wage for tipped employees, eliminating the sub-minimum wage for those workers. The tip credit elimination law will take effect in July in Chicago, which was opposed by the Illinois Restaurant Association.
The Illinois Association of County Clerks and Recorders is a proponent of Senate Bill 2131, which says clerks have to be paid at least 80 percent of what the state’s attorney in that county is paid and that the pay is to mostly come from state taxpayer funds. "[Under the proposed law] 80 percent of the salary would be reimbursed [by the state] and right now the state does that for public defenders, state's attorneys, the assessor and the sheriff,” said McDonough County Clerk Gretchen DeJaynes.
State Sen. Terri Bryant said the governor can’t be trusted that the site closures would be temporary. “The Governor previously used the line of temporary closures when it came to both the DuQuion and Dixon Springs Structured Impact Programs in order to avoid the closure process laid out under the State Facilities Closure Act,” Bryant said. “To this day, neither site has been reopened despite line items within the budget."
House Bill 5152 would give a $500 tax credit to anyone who moves to Illinois to teach, get or provide health care, including abortion and gender-affirming care, from states with more restrictive laws regarding access to lawful health care. "I'm not saying you have to come here and provide abortion care or provide gender-affirming care, because I am just as concerned about the emergency room physician who doesn't want to have to watch a patient die," State Rep. Kelly Cassidy said.
The executive order tasks the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services with leading the state’s effort to establish payment models and financial structures that support access to new sickle cell disease treatments and other new high cost drugs and treatment within the Illinois Medicaid program, and creates the Advisory Council on Financing and Access to Sickle Cell Disease Treatment and Other High-Cost Drugs and Treatment.
Chicago, in the blue state of Illinois, appears for the moment to be bucking that trend. Company representatives who spoke with Crain's say they remain committed to their efforts designed to address opportunity inequities.
Currently, companies can be held liable in civil court for $1,000 in damages for each violation; it means every time an employee uses their fingerprint to punch the clock or enter a restricted area, the company could be held liable if they did not get consent. If the proposal becomes law, damages would change to $1,000 per person.
The Task Force report proposes changes to the Pretrial Fairness Act appeal process that aim to balance efficiency with thorough review of pretrial release decisions. There are many more appeals since the Pretrial Fairness Act was implemented on September 18th, 2023. The number of appeals went from an average of 17 per year to a projected 4,557.
Teachers unions have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to certain Republican candidates’ state legislative primary campaigns, a national trend that can be seen in incumbent state Rep. Adam Niemerg and primary challenger Jim Acklin’s race for the 102nd Illinois House seat.
Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: "Illinois’ modest improvements to its fiscal health was buoyed by temporary federal aid that also grew spending to unprecedented levels. The state budget has increased by nearly $13 billion since Pritzker took office. Now that it’s run out, Pritzker’s balancing the budget on the backs of recovering suburban businesses and offering 'tax relief' by cutting funding sources for local governments."
The push comes after similar efforts in Michigan and Minnesota shook Biden’s reelection campaign, with more than 150,000 voters choosing to vote “uncommitted” over the president in those states’ primaries. “Uncommitted” isn’t a ballot option in Illinois, so groups are instead calling voters to either leave the presidential ticket blank or write in “Gaza.” The Chicago area is home to the largest Palestinian population in the U.S.
Spring enrollment at Illinois Community Colleges increased for the second straight year system-wide. Opening Spring 2024 enrollment increased by 5.1 percent from the previous spring according to the Illinois Community College Board’s Spring 2024 Enrollment Report.
Farm Bureau president and Ogle County farmer Brian Duncan tells Brownfield they’re watching several proposals closely. “Illinois adopting California emission standards; allowing municipalities to reach out and place restrictions on crop protection products is one we’re going to be talking about. ... Certainly, we don’t want to go down the California prop 12 road.”
The company also has plans to build a subsidized facility in Manteno. The company has drawn the attention of the House Select Committee on the CCP and prompted legislation to be introduced on Capitol Hill. Gotion Inc.’s plans have become an animating issue in the township’s local politics, with many locals expressing their discontent with the company’s presence because of its ties to China and the CCP by way of Gotion High-Tech.
Jim Dey: "Plenty of downsides threaten its opportunities, including the state’s heavy long-term debt, tough competition for its manufacturers, and population issues that pose problems for the future of higher education. Those are some of the conclusions in a State of Illinois Forecast Report done by Moody’s Analytics and recently released by the Illinois Commission on Economic Forecasting & Accountability. ... 'Weak demographic trends and deep-rooted fiscal problems, such as mounting pension obligations and a shrinking tax base, represent the biggest hurdles to the longer-term outlook,' the report states."
District officials say the owner of a $400,000 home would pay $170 more a year in property taxes starting in 2027 because they would not borrow the money until the district finishes paying off the bonds it sold to build Prairie Knolls Middle and Country Knolls Elementary schools in 2006.
Tom Weitzel, retired police chief of the Riverside Police Department: "If we continue down the same path we’ve been on, there’ll be more domestic violence murders and mass murders, and the victims will fill the morgue. And we’ll look at each other and ask, 'What could we have done? What should we have done?'"
Comment: Gotion is the Chinese electric vehicle battery maker planning a very similar plant for Manteno, IL, which faces intense local opposition as well as a lawsuit to stop the plant.
The Department of Healthcare and Family Services estimated at least 6,000 people will lose coverage come May 1. During a Joint Committee on Administrative Rules meeting Tuesday, Healthcare and Family Services chief of staff Dana Kelly reportedly told lawmakers the state would save more than $13 million by cutting out ineligible recipients.
“The woke left is coming after me for peeing on a tree during my college days,” state Rep. Adam Niemerg told me not long ago.

Top Chicago Stories

Teachers unions, including the Chicago Teachers Union, have a long history of acting as an arm of the Democrat Party. While CTU uses students as political pawns, dozens of Chicago schools had zero students meeting grade-level expectations in either reading, mathematics, or both in 2022, according to Wirepoints.
A spokesperson for Pritzker said in a prepared statement that the governor’s priority is to ensure newly arrived migrant families have shelter, food, and a path to independence. “Schools are also able to access federal funding for many new arrived students under the federal McKinney Vento law to support homeless services,” said the governor’s office. “The Governor also proposed a $350 million increase in K-12 funding and new students will be incorporated into funding formulas at their districts moving forward.”
In addition to 10 board members elected later this year, Mayor Brandon Johnson will appoint 10 members and a president. Johnson had pushed for the hybrid model, and legislators ultimately acquiesced. The new law also includes maps for the 20 districts: seven majority-Black districts, six majority-Latino districts, five majority-white districts and two in which no group has a majority.
The Student Power Forum and Parade to the Polls, hosted by Chicago Votes, La Casa Norte and the Chicago Teachers Union, took students of voting age at participating district high schools out of the classroom for the morning on a district-approved field trip to the CTU headquarters to make posters, learn about candidates and march to the polls together.
The non-partisan integrity of the event was under question by conservative groups, with the effort starting with a congressional candidate forum hosted earlier this week at the headquarters of the Chicago Teachers Union, a staunch advocate of Bring Chicago Home.

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There are concerns from environmentalists, like NiCHE Canada's Isaac Green, that dyeing the river sends the wrong message to Chicago's residents. "Even if the dye itself isn't ecologically harmful, the process of dying the river can sustain harmful ecological ideas," Green says. "The dye allows people to believe the river isn't 'natural,' therefore justifying its treatment as a sewer."
It comes after weeks of upheaval among some community members who objected to the way leaders, including Joslyn Bowling Dixon, handled a Palestinian cultural event, eliminated two staff positions, at least one of which related to diversity, equity and inclusion. Dixon, they said, was trying to position the library as a place for books only — an outmoded practice — and away from the community hub Oak Park’s library strives to be.
Young children in Black and Latino communities were potentially exposed at even higher rates, according to the study, which looked at household testing data from 2016 to last fall. A study by Johns Hopkins and Stanford researchers, published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics, used artificial intelligence to estimate the extent of exposure of children across the city to water from home faucets containing lead.
At the event, one television reporter asked a student listed as attending Michelle Clark High School, “Did your teachers encourage you to vote for [Bring Chicago Home]?” The student responded, “yes.” Another network reported that a leader or volunteer with the Parade to the Polls was chanting a pro-tax-hike message to students as they walked to the polling place: “We will not give up the fight! Housing is a human right!”
Data from the Illinois Comptroller shows the state has spent more than $58 million on asylum seekers. This doesn’t include other funding sources such as medical assistance, rental assistance or other benefits from local governments.
There are currently 20 "sustainable community schools" within Chicago Public Schools. All but one of the 12 elementary community schools fall below the district average for reading proficiency. All have lower math proficiency than the district average, which is already lower than the state average. All eight of the community high schools perform below the district average in both reading and math. Despite these dismal results, Chicago Teachers Union leadership wants to increase the number of these failing community schools tenfold.
Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said the U.S. Secret Service will be responsible for securing the inside of the convention sites at the United Center and McCormick Place. “This will allow CPD to focus on everything going on outside of the convention, including large-scale, First Amendment activity,” Snelling said.
"Whatever revenue totals that fiscal experts predict will be collected from any new Chicago taxes, the result will likely be less than what they forecasted. ... People can move out of Chicago. Businesses can relocate. Positions offered could be declined when job seekers learn they'll have to pay a city income tax. Some states have no income tax at all. The city's property taxes are onerous, and Chicagoans endure the second-highest sales tax rate in the nation."
This year’s decline in booked days is due to a drop in setup and teardown days for NASCAR. Last year, NASCAR took up 41 days in Grant Park. The race will take over parts of the park for 29 days this year.
According to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s statement issued on Friday, the 60-day stay limit has been extended for 5,673 individuals who were originally scheduled to exit shelters beginning on Jan. 16. The city says it will continue giving new shelter residents a 60-day notice upon entering the shelter system.
"Though neither is on the ballot, Johnson’s early unsteady tenure at City Hall and the aftermath of Foxx’s embattled time as top prosecutor provide the backdrop for a Democratic primary asking voters whether progressivism has gone too far or not far enough amid continued concern about crime and the complex issue of dealing with migrants primarily sent from the Texas border."
Of the nearly three dozen migrants expected to be evicted from shelters Sunday as the city begins enforcing Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration’s 60-day shelter stay rule, just three were removed. The remaining 31 migrants were given extensions; 27 because they are still in the process of applying for public benefits and four due to pregnancy or disability. Fewer than 11,000 migrants remain in shelters, according to the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications, and around 2,000 are expected to have to exit by the end of April.
“Because of how contagious measles is,” Chicago Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo “Simbo” Ige said in a statement. “I anticipate seeing more cases. Since the outbreak, Chicago officials say the migrant shelters have screened incoming illegal aliens for the virus and administered vaccines for those who do not already have it.
School registration should go hand in hand with facilitating access to immunizations, said Dr. Olusimbo Ige, Chicago Department of Public Health commissioner. State law typically requires all students to receive MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) immunizations, unless a parent or guardian submits either proof that the child previously contracted measles or a medical or religious exemption. Fewer than 1% of students had a religious or medical exemption as of November, CPS said.
"Much like marriage license fees help offset the costs to the state of providing marriage licenses and updating government records, modest real estate transfer taxes are justifiable when they help compensate for government services reasonably associated with the transfer of property. The proposed tax increase in Chicago, however, would go far beyond that scope, with proponents seeking to take advantage of an existing revenue stream to generate large amounts of new revenue for unrelated purposes."
CPD has warned about at least seven other robbery crews that detectives believe are actively working neighborhoods sweeping from the Eisenhower Expressway to Rogers Park.
"Since 2000, Chicago has lost 231,000 people net despite the fact that the U.S. population has increased from 281.4 million to 341 million. With 60 million more people, Chicago lost nearly a quarter of a million souls. How is that even possible?"
"Downtown office vacancy rates already reached another record high at the end of 2023 at 23.8% – nearly double the pre-pandemic rate – and a hefty tax on property sales will only make Chicago’s commercial real estate less attractive. Without new businesses coming into the city, more and more Chicagoans will wonder why they’re still putting up with high state and local taxes. Fewer jobs and services will give them less reason to stay."
One bill would prevent the closure of selective-enrollment schools and any changes to admissions policies at those schools for the next three years. The other would let local school councils retain the power to decide whether they want on-campus police — a right they would lose by next school year under a new safety plan. The legislation is an example of lawmakers seeking to use state power to override Chicago’s authority over its schools.
The glorification of a man whom Hamas praised as “immortal” offers a glimpse at the simmering anti-Israel hatred and antisemitism that has taken root on campus in the wake of the October 7 massacre of Israelis, Jewish students tell National Review.
In one case, former village empoloyee Samysha Williams claims she was fired by Henyard in retaliation for refusing to force those applying for new building permits in the village to donate to Henyard's campaign.
“The situation and circumstances have gotten worse over the last year,” said Chicago Transit Authority union leader Keith Hill. “The crimes that we're seeing on the system, we didn't see before COVID. We didn't see this many weapons being brought on the system. We didn't see people being robbed.”
"Fewer officers is a major factor in the 50 percent drop in annual arrests since 2019 and in the rise of violent crime incidents overall. Arrest rates for violent crimes in 2023 were 11 percent. Unfortunately for Chicagoans, it is highly unlikely a perpetrator of a crime will ever be caught, even in murder cases. ... Meanwhile the SAFE-T Act’s elimination of cash bail will put even more violent criminals back on the street."
"Will (Mayor Brandon) Johnson’s Bring Chicago Home proposal include a workforce development strategy? Data shows a job is the most effective way to help people get out of poverty. Will Johnson’s plans include an education component? We know higher levels of education are associated with lower levels of poverty."

Wirepoints Research and Commentary

I continue to run into parents who don’t know what to think about DEI in their children's schools even as an increasing number are waking up to how divisive DEI has become. Unfortunately, that pushback isn’t slowing down efforts in Illinois – not if what’s going on in Chicago’s progressive North Shore is any indication.
Gotion seemingly is used to CCP-style top-down rule, regardless of what people want, and so far that’s what it’s getting from state government in Illinois and Michigan.
We reported recently how Chicago’s metro area lost population again for the third year in a row. Those same U.S. Census estimates show that population losses across the state remain widespread: 93 of Illinois’ 102 counties have experienced population loss since 2020.
The latest 2023 Census population estimates show migration and population changes have largely returned to their pre-pandemic patterns across the country. Metro Chicago’s loss of 16,600 people is the 3rd-highest decline among the nation’s metropolitan areas. Only the Los Angeles area (down 71,000) and the New York City area (down 65,000) lost more people than Chicagoland.
I recently met two businessmen deeply concerned about Joliet and its future. At the top of their worries was education, including the coming closure of one the city’s Catholic schools and the dismal results of the city’s public schools. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. They should be deeply alarmed.

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The bill's future is subject to an important debate about free speech and national security, with opinions split not just within each party but within factions of the left and the right.
Ted joined Dan and Amy to talk about Illinois State Rep. Kam Buckner's dismissal of the dismal educational outcomes in Chicago, the fact that the Chicago Teachers Union is pulling children out of class to have them vote, some of the damaging bills coming out of the General Assembly, and more.
Weekly crime statistics from the Chicago Police Department: Report through 3/10/2024.
We recently highlighted that Alabama will become the nation’s next state to offer school choice to all of its students. Unsurprisingly, some in social media scoffed...for Alabama is a Southern state and must have stereotypical poor student outcomes. What those detractors don’t know is that states like Tennessee, Texas and Alabama have reading results roughly on par with Illinois, even though Illinois spends 60% to 80% more per student than those states.
  Once again, it's deny, delay, extend and pretend. Pritzker’s new pension proposal is nothing more than that.
Illinois lawmakers’ decision to end school choice last year is making Illinois look increasingly extreme as more and more states across the country embrace educational freedom.

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