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Top Illinois Stories
Cook County, IL was the second biggest loser. But blue counties lost population even in states that had big gains. Of the 50 counties with the biggest net gain of population, all but four voted for Trump in the past three elections.
Illinois’ 2026 budget included a $500,000 grant to Goal Digger Divas United, an amount more than 10 times the organization’s highest recorded annual revenue. The organization’s non-profit status was revoked for failure to file its federal 990 tax form three years in a row. While the status was reinstated early this year, it had not been at the time the state budget was passed.
State Rep. Regan Deering said the Illinois gas tax hit 48.3 cents per gallon last July 1 and another increase is looming in 80 days. “Springfield here put the gas tax on autopilot, and taxpayers are indeed paying the price,” Deering said.
Pritzker: "This is not foreign policy, it’s a deranged mad man threatening to wipe out an entire country. It's past time. The 25th Amendment must be invoked."
The Illinois Supreme Court justices argue their interests in ensuring Illinois state courts remain free of even the "appearance of impropriety" and bias override the ability of retired judges to exercise First Amendment rights, at least if they expect to be able to land temporary judicial assignments in the future.
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Sponsors said renters shouldn't be surprised by charges included in their rent, such as fees for after-hours service requests, renewing a lease, or routine maintenance. The bill states that all non-optional fees should be explicitly disclosed on the first page of a lease agreement. Tenants would not be liable to pay fees if they are not shown on the first page of a lease.
State Sen. Elgie Sims Jr. said Illinois-based companies get work in Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida and Georgia. “We are hearing it across the board, ‘I can get business elsewhere and I can’t get business from my own home state.’ That’s a problem,” Sims said.
“I ordered that audit. I reviewed that audit as a member of the audit commission. It's one of the worst in the state history,” Rep. Charlie Meier said of the state’s Department of Human Services. “Faculty failures, personnel failures, lack of reporting, no oversight. You name it. It's in there. Gov. Pritzker and his leadership at DHS has been a total failure.”
John VanVleet, 53, was the training coordinator at Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg when he retired in January 2025 and took a partial buyout. “People always say, ‘Oh, the government can and can’t do this!’ he said. “I’d rather have a contingency; we see the government do all kinds of stuff they shouldn’t do.”
State Rep. Ryan Spain said now the revenue from the tax is being moved from downstate to Chicago transit. He added the bill can work with the budget because Chicago did not need as much money as they received. “This sales tax that I'm speaking about was promised as a delivery into the Road Fund,” Spain said. “Those dollars have now been rescinded and transferred beginning on July one to fund Chicago land transit.”
“The result of this effort to not work together with the federal government to resolve the issues, particularly related to immigration and enforcement of our laws, has resulted in huge problems in our state,” said state Rep. Patrick Windhorst. The bill’s legality has also been questioned.
Rep. Marti Deuter is pushing a bill that would allow drivers to have a speed control device installed in their car rather than having their license suspended. “Speeding is a chronic problem on our streets and is a threat to public safety,” Deuter told a House committee last month. “Speeding is a factor in nearly half of all deadly crashes. Risk of fatality increases as speed increases.”
Politicians in Michigan and Illinois are pushing for help to build barriers and blast annoying sounds to repel the fish. Meanwhile, boaters are taking matters into their own hands.
“For the benefits, it is true that data centers bring revenue. In Aurora, that will mean approximately $1.6 million annually in both property and utility taxes to the city each and every year,” Aurora Mayor John Laesch said. “Aurora residents living near data centers have described a constant low-frequency hum day and night. It's not loud in a traditional sense, but persistent. People have described trouble sleeping, increased stress, a loss of quiet in their own homes."
State Rep. Blaine Wilhour said the board should do its due diligence about federal tax credit scholarships that would not cost the state a dime. “I really don’t want to hear people come in here and talk about inequity in education and all this when you’re just leaving that stuff off the table because of politics,” Wilhour said.
Meanwhile, not far from Evanston, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson plans to hold a public engagement forum called "Repair Chicago" to "gather lived experiences of harm of Black Chicagoans" as part of an effort to implement reparations. On the state level, Illinois’ reparations commission released a report laying out what it called the state's history of harms against Black residents.
The poll findings underscore the growing affordability crisis facing many Illinois residents, particularly in the state's urban centers like Chicago. “The pension buyout program moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension," said Mark Glennon, founder of Wirepoints.
Both reports highlight the dramatic increase in the use of tax increment financing Statewide, along with the cost of that growth to local taxpayers. Just in Cook County over the past 30 years, TIF district property tax collections have increased by 1034 percent from $160 million to over $1.8 billion in 2024.
Walmart has notified the state of plans to close the Matteson facility and its impact on 111 employees.
State lawmakers have increased annual K-12 funding by more than $2.5 billion since 2017. More state funding should mean easing the burden locally, Pritzker said. “But you know what? School boards didn’t take the hint,” he said Monday. “And so they’ve continued to ratchet up property taxes over and over and over again, and that has led to a continued very high property tax burden on homeowners across the state.”
Sponsors said lawmakers, state agencies and the public should have accurate and consistent information when making decisions about criminal justice policy, corrections funding and public safety programs.
llinois' bond sales would total $3.2 billion in fiscal year 2027 under provisions of Gov. JB Pritzker's executive budget, the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability found in its analysis of the spending plan. The state's outstanding principal would climb to $29.9 billion and debt service would hit $3.8 billion for general obligation bonds and $435 million for Build Illinois bonds, CGFA said in its analysis, released last week.
On March 31, President Trump signed an executive order attempting to establish a national list of eligible voters and directing the U.S. Postal Service to transmit mail ballots only to those on the list. In the order, the president threatens states and election officials with criminal prosecution and the loss of federal funding if they do not comply with his demands.
One of the key issues the union won't accept is the proposal for a 1 percent raise.
The Traveling Animal Acts bill would ban circuses traveling through Illinois from featuring specific wild animals, including big cats like lions and tigers, bears, and primates. Illinois was the first state to ban elephants in traveling shows back in 2017.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, joined by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, filed the petitions for judicial review against U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Ellison argued the U.S. Department of Energy “unlawfully” invoked emergency powers to keep the plants operating, a move he said will increase costs for ratepayers throughout the Midwest.
While lawmakers have appropriated $30 million to the State Police for vehicle replacement each year since fiscal year 2024, the actual revenue that goes into the fund is about a third of that amount or less. In fiscal year 2025, for example, lawmakers gave ISP $30 million in spending authority, but the agency ultimately spent about $7 million due to the fund’s slower revenue pace.
The proposed incentive package, HB 910 House Amendment 1, would be devastating for Illinois’ property tax crisis. Although approved megaprojects would pay steeply discounted property taxes, a clause in the bill allows a taxing body to count the cash value of the megaproject in its total assessed value.
"If government is going to ask taxpayers to contribute, it has a responsibility to protect and manage that money wisely."
Illinois consumers who bought health insurance on the state’s Affordable Care Act exchange are paying 26% more for coverage, on average, than they did last year, and the number of people who enrolled in the plans dropped nearly 4%, according to the state. Though that 26% average increase in monthly premiums is surely tough for many, it’s a far cry from the 78% average jump that state regulators previously said could occur if the federal government didn’t renew enhanced premium tax credits and people stayed on their plans from last year.
Since 2020, the state has gotten $15.6 billion in federal aid related to the COVID-19 pandemic. While that funding was temporary, Illinois has permanently increased what it spends. That has caused a fiscal problem for the state, with projected budget deficits totaling nearly $21 billion during the next five years. Expenditures are forecasted to grow nearly 20 percent in that time, but revenues only 11 percent in that time.
Top Chicago Stories
A city spokesman said council members were told starting in 2024 that part-time staff should work under 700 hours in order to stay below the threshold of being entitled to pension contributions, per state law. “If they elect to have a part-time staffer work more than the prescribed hours per the pension code, they are required to make allowance for that within their appropriated expense budget,” the spokesman said.
Board member Che “Rhymefest” Smith, who abstained from the vote, said the board spends too much time talking about politics. “Fifty-four percent of our time is wasted on politics, and government things, and I’m not saying politics ain’t important, but what are we doing as a board when we only spend 14 percent of our time talking about student outcomes?” Smith said.
Roughly 20,000 approved certificate-of-error refunds, worth more than $46 million in total, are currently stuck at the Cook County Treasurer’s Office. Between late December and early April, the treasurer processed only about 1,343 refunds, worth roughly $2.57 million. That pace barely dents the backlog, and taxpayers and local taxing bodies say the delays are putting real pressure on their budgets.
The downtown office vacancy rate ticked up during the first quarter to an all-time high of 28.6% from 28.2% at the end of 2025. The share of available workspace in Chicago’s urban core is up from 26.5% a year ago and 13.8% when the COVID-19 pandemic began, having now hit new record highs for 15 consecutive quarters. But competition is stiff for large spaces in prime buildings. More Highlighted Chicago Area Stories
The works are meant to build context around some of the 41 monuments deemed problematic by a city commission. Hector Gonzalez created "Tierra Nuestra" (Our Land), featuring a young man of mixed Mexican and Native-American heritage standing on a horse with a boom box on his arm in front of the current "Signal of Peace" monument at Diversey and the lake.
"'Violating people's Constitutional rights does not make us safer,' (Mayor Brandon Johnson) exclaimed. Not that illegal aliens have Constitutional rights, mind you."
Fabian Jeffers’ criminal history - nearly 90 cases in Cook County, including 16 felony matters - stretches back to the Bush administration. No. The other Bush administration. This time, prosecutors didn’t ask a judge to hold him, so he was released.
Emmanuel Andre, the deputy of policy for the Cook County Public Defender's office, will be deputy mayor for community safety. At the Public Defender's office, Andre helped expand the county's Restorative Justice Community Courts and co-founded Circles and Ciphers, a "hip-hop infused restorative justice organization led by and for young people impacted by violence."
The complaints center around a report on antisemitism that former city human rights commissioner Nancy Andrade was leading — responding to data showing a rise in antisemitism hate crimes across the city. Andrade accuses the mayor's team of trying to micromanage the process and dilute the report.
Chicago police said Kenyae Franklin was walking near Safe Achieve Academy of Chicago when a white vehicle with three to four men inside approached, and one of them opened fire.
"Cities such as New York and Chicago are in deep financial trouble. Broadly speaking, they have two options: Make the difficult but appropriate choice to raise taxes and reduce the scale of government, or continue to live in a state of denial, increasing their pension obligations while also promising their residents more services."
Claims of secrecy and deception are at the heart of the pending lawsuit against the CHA. The mayor says it is about transparency, and while he supports the private lawsuit, he would not say what steps the city might take to prevent the newly hired CEO from starting later this month.
Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon said 28.6 percent is a terrible vacancy rate. When asked what people in the private sector could do about high office vacancy rates, Glennon said so-called civic leaders have been far too complacent and understated in their criticisms of government. “They’ve got to really take the bull by the horns and force some reforms on the city. It would start with crime. That's clearly a solvable problem if the city would get on it, and that's one of the factors that contributes to people not wanting to go downtown and makes work from home more popular,”
The statement also called for CPS CEO Macquline King to keep partnering with community leaders to “protect every student’s right to a public education, regardless of immigration status." The signees included nine alderpeople and six state lawmakers.
Neil Steinberg turns a murdered Loyola student into a prop for his immigration sermon — and calls it journalism.
"If you live in Chicago, you are far more likely to be shot or murdered than in surrounding communities. They reflect policy choices, enforcement failures, and a justice system that has too often lost sight of its first duty: protecting innocent people."
As with 2026, the majority of last year’s clearances were “exceptional.” A total of 156 cases, more than half, were closed without charges filed. Of those, 26 involved suspects who were dead. The remaining 130 were labeled as “bar to prosecute” because the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office declined to approve charges.
"On the South Side, we have lived with it for years: open-air drug markets, gang shootings that turn playgrounds into war zones and politicians who lecture us about 'equity" while the body count rises. We watched as certain criminals were coddled, released and protected while the Black families trying to raise children in peace paid the ultimate price. "
In Chicago, real-estate developer Marc Calabria bought a 485,000-square-foot office building for $4 million. The building sold for $68.1 million a decade ago. It will be converted into an urban farm and education center.
In comments Monday on Fox News, Mullin questioned whether cities that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement should continue to host international arrivals with full customs processing.
There are “some very serious cases” still coming out of Midway Blitz, U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros warned. “You can’t commit a serious crime in this district and think that that’s OK,” he said. “There will be consequences.”
Johnson’s so-called “reparations” initiative is not a serious policy agenda. Rather, it is a political defense mechanism designed to rally his base, shield him from criticism, and distract from the growing discontent within the very communities that feel left behind by his administration’s decisions, especially his migrant policies.
In yet another jaw-dropping display of elite hypocrisy, Barack Obama’s Chicago Presidential Center – long derided as the “Tower of Doom” – now requires proof of U.S. citizenship or lawful permanent residency just to enter a ticket giveaway for its grand opening ceremony on June 18, 2026. Two landmark studies on the Chicago Police Department just dropped. Here’s what they revealed.
The City of Chicago has spent almost $160 million paying private lawyers to fight wrongful conviction lawsuits since 2016, but The Chicago Tribune found there is “little evidence that the strategy has paid off financially.”
Chicago voters’ appetite for the union has shifted — drastically — and politicians have noticed. The CTU was a kingmaker, but its endless support for new and higher taxes coupled with organizational scandals, its latest “May Day” push to cancel school for a day and recent electoral defeats suggest the mighty has fallen.
The Financially Distressed City Law allows home-rule municipalities in the top 5% of tax rates and the bottom 5% of tax income per capita to apply for fiscal relief via a state takeover of finances. The law was invoked once before, in East St. Louis in 1990. The Department of Revenue determined that while Harvey meets the requirement of being in the top 5% of tax rates, it is not in the bottom 5% for tax yield per capita, according to the letter.
"The door is open, then, for Illinois and Chicago to return to D.C. and ask for federal assistance. If granted, taxpayers nationwide will pay for the Windy City’s fiscal recklessness. And the bailouts likely won’t stop there. Officials in other cities, such as Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York, will be watching closely. If Chicago can get a bailout, why not the Big Apple?"
Wirepoints Research and Commentary
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do. 
The state's existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis. SIGN UP HERE FOR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER
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Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them. 
Borrowing for current and past operating expenses, blanks for use of funds and more make Chicago's bond sale planned for next week smell mighty bad. Mark Glennon's interview is in the first ten minutes starting here.
It’s March, which means we are being subjected the dumbest annual study going about how well Chicago is doing.
“You didn’t have to be a wizard t.o see it,” Glennon said, recalling that warning signs were evident as far back as the early 2000s when state revenues faltered after the tech bubble burst. The fiscal trajectory of many major cities, he said, has long reflected a pattern of expanding government commitments without sustainable funding models. Full interview here.
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