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Includes links to the original complaint and the restraining order.
Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney ruled in favor of state Rep. Darren Bailey, R-Xenia, in his case on Monday. State Rep. John Cabello said he plans to file a nearly identical suit in northern Illinois.
Meanwhile, another 50 people died in the the past day, bringing the state’s total number of deaths to 1,983.
The new rule would have made workers’ compensation benefits available to essential employees who contracted COVID-19 without having to prove the illness was contracted at the workplace. Scott Cruz, the attorney representing the business groups, said such a rule should come from the Illinois General Assembly “after proper discourse, and not the whim of the commission.”
“First of all, I think we’ve got a very well-run state,” says Lightfoot.
In a press release, Lightfoot called Judge Michael McHaney’s ruling “troubling and wrong,” and said that she stands firmly behind Pritzker’s actions during the coronavirus pandemic.
To fund the program, the state treasurer’s office made $500 million from its $13 billion investment portfolio available to local banks — mostly downstate — to provide liquidity to issue the small business bridge loans.
Workers across the state overwhelmingly voted to go on strike in over 40 different nursing homes. They say not enough is being done to keep them safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Illinois state lawmakers have not been in Springfield since mid-March, and it’s unclear when lawmakers would return. They could come back to session at the call of the Speaker, the Senate President, or the governor could call for a special session.
Comment: We respectfully disagree with Jane the Actuary on this one.
A Sox season ticket holder, Lightfoot said a decision on when and how baseball will return will be made “at the league level” — not by individual team owners nor by the governors and mayors of individual states and cities. But she acknowledged having “ongoing conversations” with the owners of both teams about “what that might look like.”
The Illinois Constitution requires a ballot initiative to be enacted via the General Assembly six months before the election that it will be on. November’s election is the last chance to change the state’s guiding charter before lawmakers are to take decennial Census data and rework political boundaries, absent public input. The final three chances for a constitutional amendment have been canceled due to the still-prevalent threat of COVID-19.
Take hotels, for example, the DeKald TOwnship assessor said. “There’s no one staying in hotels right now. So if we’re using the income approach to value the property, the hotel is worth nothing currently.”
“Why should the people and taxpayers of America be bailing out poorly run states (like Illinois, as example) and cities, in all cases Democrat run and managed, when most of the other states are not looking for bailout help?” Trump asked on Twitter. “I am open to discussing anything, but just asking?”
One of Chicago’s big corporate employers is moving to cut most employees’ salaries by 20 percent. Aon, based in London but employing about 5,000 in the Chicago area, announced the temporary pay cut today as a maneuver to “preserve operational flexibility.” CEO Greg Case and other top executives announced they would be taking 50 percent cuts in salary at the same time.
At his daily news briefing, Pritzker said raw numbers cases don’t tell the whole story, and that the focus should be on infection and death rates – how many people are getting sick and dying compared to how many people live in a county. “It would be doing a massive disservice to our downstate residents if we governed only by raw numbers, no matter where you live.”
In an 87-page order, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly gave the sheriff’s office until Friday to implement new plans eliminating “bullpens” to house new inmates being processed into the jail, providing face masks to all detainees under quarantine, and regularly sanitizing “all frequently touched surfaces and objects.”
More than 200 Chicago schools are handing out meals to needy families every weekday. School administrators, security guards, and kitchen workers who receive extra pay for the duty are distributing the grab-and-go breakfasts and lunches.
It’s one of the top-performing hospitals in the city, but Saint Anthony, 2875 W. 19th St., is also a safety net hospital serving a patient population that is especially vulnerable to exposure to coronavirus and to developing severe complications once infected.
Some states shouldn’t ease social distancing guidelines until late June and mid-July, according to the model. Others have projected dates in early May.
“Some industries will be changed and changed forever,” said Jack Lavin, CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, “and everybody will operate differently coming out of this.”
Pushed by unions, school districts abandon grades for this year. Chicago Public Schools recently agreed that assignments completed during the shutdowns will count “only if they improve a student’s grade.” That’s not enough for the Chicago Teachers Union. President Jesse Sharkey said this month that it is “just plain cruel” and “wrong to assign letter grades” this semester even on work completed before schools closed.
The nation’s weakest public pension funds may soon be among the casualties of COVID-19. Many were facing insolvency even before the virus hit and the stock market meltdown will only accelerate their decline. In 2018, the most recent year with comparable nationwide data, some of those funds had assets equal to just a few years’ worth of benefit payouts.
Illinois should be collecting and publishing antibody test results just as other states are. Scrubbing hands is good. But scrubbing key data is abuse of power.
Contracts can be adjusted when a crisis such as this makes full contract performance unreasonable. Where’s the “shared sacrifice?”
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