The Republican from Machesney Park is the second GOP lawmaker to challenge Pritzker’s legal authority to extend the stay-at-home order longer than 30 days. He’s filing on his own behalf and on behalf of all people in Illinois – a key distinction from Bailey’s lawsuit, which only applied to the lawmaker himself.

Comment: Yet not one dime of cuts in Illinois, and Pritzker is proceeding with a planned pay raise for state workers.

Comment: While this article does not mention Illinois, it is directly pertinent because Sweden has taken a radically different approach to the pandemic than Illinois.

“The way we think about regions is really in health care zones,” he said. “You know, where are the hospitals, how many beds are available at the hospitals that would serve a certain area of the state, rather than the way sometimes people talk about regions of the state as well.

In addition to deploying nurses to long-term care facilities around the state, Pritzker said IDPH and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation have simplified the hiring process for nurses so facilities suffering from staff shortages due to illnesses can quickly hire temporary staff.

Pritzker said during his daily briefing Wednesday that lawmakers are considered “essential workers” and they can reconvene at any time, but that it is up to legislative leaders to make that decision. Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan, said in an interview Wednesday that calling lawmakers back into session would go against the advice of public health experts about how to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

In another sign of hope, Gov. JB Pritzker said plans are being made to scale down the emergency hospital assembled at McCormick Place. The original plan was to staff for 3,000 beds in the convention center.

“There are huge disparities in how much of state budgets go towards basic day-to-day expenditures vs. the paying off of debts, such as, again, the 25% of funds that Illinois directs to pension debt. And there are proving to be equally significant differences in how states are responding to the pandemic; in some cases, trying to manage as prudently as possible; in others, spending aggressively with no seeming regard for where the money will come from. “

“One-size-fits-all is not a good plan,” he said. “My home county is 29 people per square mile. The city (of Chicago) is over ten thousand people per square mile.”

Under Illinois law, areas under a disaster declaration can waive fees and change due dates on property taxes. All 102 counties in Illinois are considered disaster areas by both the state and federal governments because of COVID-19.

St. Anthony provides critical medical services to a mostly poor population on Chicago’s near-west side, according to the complaint. In mid-February, the state owed it at least $22 million in Medicaid money, due mainly to private Medicaid Managed Care Organizations’ failure to comply with Medicaid Act requirements, the hospital says.

“It all reminds me of story about a guy who knew a lot about politics and human nature: Paul Ricca, the boss of bosses of organized crime in America.”

The Illinois Supreme Court has struck down previous petition-driven attempts to change the state’s method of redistricting, saying they did not meet strict legal requirements for citizen initiatives to alter the state constitution. These rulings have basically determined that only Illinois legislators can change how the state’s legislative maps are decided.