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In late September, Fidel Marquez pleaded guilty to a federal corruption charge and gave prosecutors their first conviction in an ongoing criminal investigation that led this summer to a bribery charge against ComEd.
In DuPage County, the total number of tracked outbreak cases directly linked to indoor dining is less than 1 percent, Mayor Steve Morley said. “The progress in COVID-19 treatments and recovery rates should also be taken into consideration.”
Mark Konkol: “Tuesday’s election results seemed to highlight parallels between late-Mayor Bilandic’s blundering 1979 blizzard response and Pritzker’s mishandling of his own perfect storm — the convergence of the coronavirus pandemic and Illinois’ shaky financial standing.”
“I think the latest round of the mitigation within the last month, particularly with restaurants and the hospitality industry who were basically saying, ‘we have not caused this. We have played by the rules,’” were an election factor, said state Rep. Jim Durkin of Western Springs, the House Republican leader.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, was irritated. “What was very frustrating to me was that almost all of the work was done with your office and the policy team without my guidance or direct input, and then presented to me as a package, and kind of ‘Take it or leave it, and by the way, we’re in a hurry,’ ”
“Whatever happens here, the pain that is endured by the people of Illinois, by the working families of Illinois is on the Republicans and the special interests and the billionaires that back the Republicans, they’ve got to step forward and help,” Pritzker said.
A group tracking the movement, called Red State Secession, counted 24 counties that approved it, with most votes being between 70 percent to 80 percent in favor.
The push to eliminate the coroner as an elected position came in part after an evaluation of the office in September 2019 by a third party — Dr. Dennis Kellar, a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist.
“No problems are immediately solved by this political loss for the governor…We don’t know what Pritzker will do, but his morning-after message suggests the fight for the soul of Illinois governance isn’t over yet.”
Centreville Township Supervisor Curtis McCall Sr. said the next steps include educating the 2,650 residents (about 37% of voters) who didn’t support the merger.
Jim Dey: “Campus speech codes, generally, have not fared well in the courts, mostly because they seek to regulate speech with unconstitutionally vague rules that lay the groundwork for barring any speech on a contentious campus issue…Both the Universities of Michigan and Illinois have tried to evade courtroom showdowns on their speech codes.”
“This election has generated a lot of emotions on all sides…Let’s channel our emotions into a productive expression of our First Amendment rights. No matter the outcome, we will get through this by remaining together, as neighbors who need each other and love our great city and country,” she said.
“The Committee is currently awaiting documents requested from ComEd, which the company has indicated they are working to provide within the coming weeks,” Committee chairman state Rep. Chris Welch, D-Hillside, said Wednesday. He added that the postponement is also out of caution to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“Illinois is the only state in the Midwest that uses a pure partisan selection method, where the justices just run as partisan members for election,” said Samuel Postell, political writer at Ballotpedia’s State Supreme Courts Project. “Illinois is, I believe, the only state in the country that allows the state Supreme Court to fill a vacancy.”
Two-thirds of voters polled favored a “fair tax” in March. On Election Day that flipped to 55% opposing it. Illinois lawmakers are now faced with a choice: Continue cutting core services for Illinoisans in need, or address skyrocketing public pension costs crowding those services out of the state budget.
According to the district, state-certified hygienists evaluated 513 CPS campuses for airborne particulates, carbon monoxide levels, temperature and relative humidity, and each school has been deemed acceptable for re-occupancy based on their results.
“Illinoisans sent a message to Springfield politicians: No more tax hikes…(A)after years of broken promises and tax hike after tax hike, Illinoisans know better,” Americans for Prosperity Action Senior Advisor Andrew Nelms said. “We are hopeful that the rejection of this measure, which would exacerbate the issues plaguing our state, is a wake-up call to our elected officials.”
“Now lawmakers must address a multi-billion dollar budget gap without the ability to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share. Fair Tax opponents must answer for whatever comes next,” said Quentin Fulks, chair of the Pritzker-funded Vote Yes for Fairness group, pointing the finger at “Republican legislators and their billionaire allies” who opposed it.
Such a system is against the law and can be addressed by Shakman, but hiring off the street and hiring from within does not violate the law and is exempt from Shakman, in Pritzker’s view.
County officials and Mayor Jim Langfelder said their plan will ease the burden on local businesses, while also addressing the fact that cases in Sangamon County are on the rise.
The results show just how far public opinion has come on the progressive income tax.
Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said the decision was a rebuke for House Speaker Michael Madigan, who had supported Kilbride. “From the legislative branch to the judicial branch, we must eliminate all Madigan loyalists and the scourge of corruption that they actively enable.”
In her victory speech, Foxx referenced her continued effort to make reforms to the criminal justice system. “They came from an era in our history that feels eerily reminiscent to this moment right now.”
Toomin has been involved in some of Cook County’s highest-profile cases, from Jussie Smollett to Jeff Fort. But this year, after a decade presiding over the juvenile courts, the county Democratic Party declined to endorse him, and he faced a groundswell of progressive activists alleging he had not done right by the county’s youths.
“Judicial retention elections usually aren’t high-profile affairs. Toomin is proof, however, that judges up for retention can get a big bull’s-eye plastered on their backs if they don’t toe the line enforced by Cook County Democratic Party overlords.”
Mark Brown: Not long ago, it was fairly common for the vote in Cook County to break down largely along racial and geographic boundary lines. We moved away from that for a while, but the race for state’s attorney threatened to take us back to those days.
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