Champaign County Sheriff Dustin Heuerman, who holds a master’s and doctorate, says he’s not opposed to higher education. “But we’re always talking about diversity… And then I also think about how it’s easier for some to get college education than others. It seems like a balancing act. Do we want diversity? Or do we want to only employ as police officers those who can afford to get an education on their own?”

Duckworth tweeted: “While he was practicing his two-step, America’s female warriors were hunting down Al Qaeda and proving the strength of America’s women. Happy belated International Women’s Day to everyone but Tucker, who even I can dance better than. …and we all know it was his female partner who did all the hard work.”

Republicans in Illinois’ congressional delegation, however, remained critical of the package. U.S. Rep. Mike Bost issued a statement saying Democrats should have worked harder to find bipartisan consensus. “Up to this point, every piece of COVID-19 relief legislation that has been signed into law has been bipartisan, and I have supported all five. But this time around, Nancy Pelosi pushed forward on her own bill without any input from congressional Republicans.”

City View Multicare Center, in Cicero, suffered a heavy toll earlier in the pandemic, with 249 infections among residents and workers, and 15 deaths, according to state records. Now City View is dealing with a second outbreak, with at least five reported cases in the past 28 days.

The state is expected to sell $1.26 billion tax-exempt bonds on March 17. That follows S&P Global Ratings’s decision to pull Illinois back from the brink of a junk rating by lifting the outlook on the state’s BBB- rating to stable from negative on Tuesday, citing more federal aid and the start of an economic recovery.

“I think the legislature would like a say in appropriating money, given our role,” Rep. Michael Zalewski said to the director of the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget, Alexis Sturm. “So my hope is that you could convey that to the governor’s office and we can develop a framework to work together on that.”

In January, Illinois became the second state in the country to cap insulin costs. The law caps out-of-pocket insulin costs at $100 per month, but only for people covered by a state-regulated insurance plan. That covers about 20% of the plans available in the state.

“It’s just not predictable and we wouldn’t want to be in a position where we didn’t have the resources if we had an important, complex investigation that we needed to conduct,” Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope told the committee. If a major investigation were to arise and the office runs out of money, Pope said they’d have to return for a supplemental appropriation to continue. “But if it’s not at the right time, that’s right, I wouldn’t have the funds to do the investigation.”

House Minority Leader Jim Durkin said he welcomes that House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Gov. J.B. Pritzker want a “fair map.” He continued, “And both of them are supporters of something other than what we currently have which is to the victor goes the spoils. I’m going to hold the governor and the speaker to their words that they want a fair map.”

IDPH reports around 10% of the state population is fully vaccinated. Many counties, though, continue to lag far behind the state average. Around 2% of the population of far southern Alexander County has been vaccinated, while Massac County along the Ohio River is below 4%. Fayette County reports about 4.5%.

One week after announcing a vaccine equity initiative for urban areas and communities of color, the state on Thursday announced it would also begin to direct federal deliveries of doses to nine downstate critical access hospitals. The nine locations include hospitals in downstate Christian, Ford, Hamilton, Logan, Mercer, Montgomery, Tazewell, Vermillion and Wayne counties.

The poll itself is linked here.

“Our work isn’t done until equity and fairness is a guiding principle at all of our schools,” Pritzker said before signing the bill, which was drafted by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus. Gardner described her initial reaction to Pritzker signing the bill as an “out of body experience.”

“Still, we remain a people who put up with shady pols…It’s a sad commentary on the once-proud Land of Lincoln. Corruption is one of those issues, along with taxes, that drive Illinoisans to other states, demographers tell us.”

Seven bills have been filed in the Illinois House to keep The Land of Lincoln on either standard time or daylight saving time year-round.

Illinois’ estimated claims make up nearly 8% of the estimated 712,000 filed across the country last week.

And the next increase is within sight. July 1 is when the state’s gasoline tax is set to automatically increase by as much as a penny a gallon. It is currently 38.7 cents per gallon after initially doubling from 19 cents a gallon in 2019.

“…the stimulus represents a chance for Illinois to prevent further tax increases on overtaxed residents while protecting government programs for the most vulnerable. The stimulus is a chance for Gov. J.B. Pritzker to drop his plan for nine new taxes that will take nearly $1 billion from the Illinois economy. But state leaders could also choose to squander this chance by failing to use the time offered by this federal lifeline to address the structural spending that crippled the state’s economy well before COVID-19 impacted it.”

“The lesson I took from the election in 2020 was that the voters aren’t ready for the ‘Fair Tax,’” Senate President Don Harmon said. “I still think it’s the right policy, but I’m listening to the voters, and I think they’ve asked us to come down here, sharpen our pencils, and come up with a responsible balanced budget without a general tax increase.”

Business registration records kept at the Secretary of State’s office showed at least 72 of the companies that won grant funding were considered dissolved or terminated long before the pandemic began. Five of them dissolved in the 1990s. One of them dissolved in 1987.

“The key to this is, we’re trying to curb and rein in what has become a filthy cottage industry of class action lawsuits against businesses of all sizes, of all kinds, for what are often unintentional or innocent statutory violations of the BIPA law,” said House Republican Leader Jim Durkin.

State Rep. Charlie Meier’s proposed Eviction Moratorium Clarification Act was voted down 12 to 10, but Democratic members of the committee vowed to work with Meier on similar legislation.

Former Ald. Dick Simpson, now a professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said it’s “a good idea something is being introduced…Any time you have people using the special knowledge they’ve gained as part of government to increase their private income, that opens up the area of potential conflicts that in their worst form become corruption.”

According to the migration report from “Hire a Helper,” states in the top five include New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and Connecticut. These states all lost more people than they gained.

State Sen. Terri Bryant said the governor’s lack of clarity is hurting the state’s businesses, and that his lack of clarity has people moving on without him. “When he says that he’s looking for herd immunity, what does that mean? We have reasonable people who live in Illinois. If the governor of our state were reasonable, if he were transparent, if he could show people a true plan, you might not have people going off on their own.”