“Some conservative groups such as Wirepoints argue the [better than expected tax revenue] is so real that the state no longer needs what it would get from Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion federal COVID relief bill.”

Washburn Village President Steve Forney says in addition to the difficulty in finding reliable part-time police help, complying with the reform bill would increase costs. “We know that the costs of doing this service on our own for a small community will just increase. The only thing we can do is pass that along in tax increases.”

Some central Illinois natural gas customers this weekend were told by local officials a unit of natural gas costing $3 could increase to $600.

The act was a part of a series of tax reforms and was passed by the General Assembly by a wide bipartisan margin in June 2019, with less than 10 members of both the House and Senate voting against it. Pritzker hopes that keeping the tax credits from taking effect now will allow the state to bring in more revenue to deal with the budget shortfall.

Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said they need authority from the Illinois state legislature to “untangle and integrate” Illinois’ gun owner licensing laws. There are competing proposals expected at the statehouse dealing with Illinois laws in different ways.

“State Representative Mary Flowers (D-Chicago) has filed a jaw-dropping bill, HB 80, that doesn’t propose merely ‘standards,’ or ‘guidelines,’ or even a type of curriculum. Oh no, Flowers is going for the whole enchilada. If passed, this bill would mandate the teaching of specific books on race and feminism: 20 non-fiction books and 9 fiction.”

“I think what’s incredibly important is for us to constantly be engaged in conversation and to identify where we do have the common ground,” Sen. Cristina Pacione-Zayas said. “Because we’re not going to agree, and that’s ok. But what we’ve been entrusted to do is to come to the table to be willing to have those conversations and to identify a path forward for our state.”

Pritzker said in the statement, “We are in communication with local governments to ensure they have the support they need in disaster response and recovery operations. We are also working with our federal partners to pursue federal assistance to help communities recover and to do what we can to protect ratepayers from soaring utility bills.”

Blagojevich has criticized other Illinois politicians in his “Lightning Rod” podcast including former House Speaker Mike Madigan. But he doesn’t want to see Madigan charged or go to prison, because he does not trust the justice system after what happened to him.

It’s likely impossible to collect signatures for districts when candidates aren’t sure where a district’s boundaries lie.

Deputy Minority Leader Tom Demmer noted, “Last year, the state was on the receiving end of billions of dollars from the federal government and again, it was it was programs that were overseen by the administration through emergency rules and through an unprecedented level of appropriation authority that was unchecked and unreviewed by the General Assembly. We must reengage our role as a coequal branch of government to provide the kinds of checks and balances that the people of Illinois expect.”

The sheer number of eligible residents in the suburbs has made it harder to get a vaccine than in some other counties, health experts also said. And, the number of vaccine doses allotted to the suburbs isn’t proportional to the population in the suburbs.