“Pritzker said. ‘Some elected leaders are allowing this continued rise in positivity to balloon out of control while taking no action. These mayors and city councils and county boards need to take some responsibility for keeping their constituents safe. I promise them: that responsibility pales in comparison to what could come when the hospitals in your area are filling up and there aren’t enough nurses or doctors to save their constituents’ lives.'”

Friday, Illinois’ 2nd District Appellate Court ordered a reversal of Kane County Judge Kevin Busch’s decision to grant a temporary restraining order to prevent the enforcement of a state-ordered indoor dining ban at restaurants in Kane and DuPage counties.

It remains unclear when exactly the governor might make such a decision on another stay-at-home order, but he did note which metrics he’s watching. “I guess I one thing I look at every day is are we are we bending the curve as we, back in the spring, we were doing – are we bending the curve?”

Jim Nowlan, a former president of the Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois: “Think of the revenue side of state and local finance as a four-legged stool. The legs are the income, sales and local property taxes plus fees, hundreds of them. In Illinois, the property tax leg is way too long; the sales tax peg is skinny and short; our present income tax leg is, we contend, about the right length and, last time we looked, Illinois license and fee revenue was less than in most states.”

Cannabis industry analyst Andy Seeger says October’s sale figures do not rise to the market’s potential. He says Illinois should be on pace to sell around $1.2 billion in weed this year.

Kent Redfield, retired political scientist at the University of Illinois Springfield, said his sense is that voter dislike of Madigan was a “huge factor” in Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride failing in his retention bid, had an indirect influence on the tax amendment’s failure and was “some blame” in suburban legislative races. But he said the key is to follow the money.

“We’ve done everything that the Republicans have asked us to do since Day 1, just not as fast as they would like,” Committee Chair Chris Welch said. “Because they would like to play politics with it.” It’s unclear when the committee will next meet.

“While we recognize this virus that’s out there, we also recognize that there is a flip side to it and that is that these businesses need to survive and they need to strive and so does this town,” Sherman Mayor Trevor Clatfelter.

The rule from the Illinois State Board of Education published in the Illinois Register on Sept. 11 lays out “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards for all Illinois Educators” on page 176. “The culturally responsive teacher and leader will,” among other things, “Assess how their biases and perceptions affect their teaching practice and how they access tools to mitigate their own behavior (racism, sexism, homophobia, unearned privilege, Eurocentrism, etc.).”

The goal of the RFP is to award a contract Nov. 30. As to the cost, the request calls for a “fair price.”

Ballot measures fail in Alaska, California, and Illinois. Colorado even passed a tax reduction. In fiscally strapped Illinois, one of nine states with a flat income tax, Gov. J.B. Pritzker led a campaign for a constitutional amendment to allow a graduated or progressive tax. Mr. Pritzker promised it would hit only the rich and threatened voters with budget cuts and other broad-based tax increases. Illinoisans called his bluff, voting 55% to 45% against the tax hike.

Mark Konkol: “His Saturday sidewalk parade has only further eroded the credibility of his pandemic leadership, and those ‘not scientifically founded’ metrics guiding his coronavirus response and his political future. It’s just the latest example that our governor lacks the self-awareness and commonsense to see how dangerous it is to tell the people he serves to do as he says, regardless of his own actions.”

While the national labor market has been steadily recovering since April, adding jobs and dropping the unemployment rate since then, Illinois’ recovery has begun to falter in recent months.

In Chicago, most voters were supportive of the measure with more than 71% voting “yes.” The greatest support came from the city’s majority-Black wards, where more than 82% voted for the graduated income tax, according to an analysis of tallies as of Thursday.

“The best way out of the state’s corner is to pass real pension reform and a program for economic growth to make the measures less biting. If a constitutional amendment is necessary to get around existing provisions in the state constitution, so be it. “