“Could Illinois residents finally be saying enough is enough? Could powerful politicians finally get the idea we don’t trust them any further than we can throw them? Could Republicans in Springfield, all but confined to cold storage the last couple of years, actually begin to exert some legislative muscle?”

It’s not just a handful of lower-ranking or freshman members of the House who are planning to not support the speaker for another term.

Rich Miller: “A narrow loss would’ve been one thing. But after voters overwhelmingly rejected taxing a relatively few upper-income people, it’s going to be hugely difficult to convince Democratic state legislators to make up for those billions in lost revenues by increasing the state’s flat tax on everyone.”

Mayor Stephanie Acri told News 8 that this grant budget came from leftover funding allocated for businesses affected by I-74 bridge construction and traffic, as well as from money procured from the CARES Act. “I found small businesses to be pretty tenacious. If there’s a way, they’re gonna figure it out. But we need to be there with them on the journey of trying to figure it out.”

“Pritzker is frustrated because hiking taxes through graduated rates would have been easier than the budget reforms he now must confront. And the 2.8 million voters who rejected the amendment need to stay the course and keep pushing for discipline.”

Both sides agreed that the anti-amendment side did a better job of putting real “faces” behind their cause, including a man standing outside his home doorway and declaring, “That’s crap.”

But counting will continue in Lake County and elsewhere, and more updates are expected over the next nine to 10 days.

A consultant did tell voters before the election that residents would save about $430 in their annual property taxes each year when Centreville Township is eliminated as part of the longer term plan. However, that was the only financial detail residents received about how the merger would affect them.

Jim Dey: “Democrats don’t really care about Madigan’s ethically marginal approach to government and politics. They do care when Democrats start losing elections, results for which Madigan’s shady reputation is largely responsible. That they cannot forgive.”

It’s not just businesses that could be on the hook for grant dollars. In Springfield, Alderman Andrew Proctor worried about what would happen if the city codified restrictions that differed from the governor’s.

“The challenge of designing a plan now, of course, is that there’s so much about the vaccines that we don’t know,” Pritzker said during a news conference. “The most defining characteristic of this plan is that it’s adjustable as we go forward and learn more.”

“They’re not even remotely doing their due diligence on this,” one victim of fraud said. “The state is just sending our money in the easiest of fashion without even picking up the phone call and calling to see if anyone was terminated…To me, they are not honoring their obligations to watch over our money.”

The governor and his staff will not be required to quarantine for 14 days.

Said Jesus Solorio, chairman of the Illinois Republican Hispanic Assembly, “Democrats should be terrified of what they are seeing on a national level, it might take a little longer in Illinois, but I know we are going to persuade more Hispanics to vote Republican.”