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Supporters of the bill said the idea behind the legislation is to help ensure that, before their release, incarcerated youths are equipped to engage meaningfully in civics life as they reintegrate into society.
“That’s $415.4 million, to be exact — the amount of money the City of Chicago kicked into the Chicago Public Schools’ budget for fiscal year 2021. Good luck collecting that kind of cash in the future, no matter how pressing the need, if Chicago’s chief executive — the mayor — no longer has authority over the public schools.”
“As it did the last time, the utility giant is relying on union help to pitch the legislation. Nuclear plant subsidies in the labor-backed proposal would cost $600 million every year for a decade, according to Illinois Commerce Commission estimates.”
“When you saw the mayor and governor announce the reopening of McCormick Place, that’s when you started seeing some of our largest convention-centric hotels announce their reopening,” said Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association. “It shows you how important … meetings, conferences, conventions are to Chicago. … That is the bread and butter.”
The unemployment rate in Illinois is about 7%. As of May 1, nearly 450,000 Illinoisans were collecting unemployment benefits.
Senate Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 11 “prevents the passage of any future law or ordinance that may diminish collective bargaining rights. It sets a bar that we will in the state of Illinois oppose Right to Work legislation,” said House sponsor state Rep. Marcus Evans. Proposed constitutional amendments do not go through the governor; Voters will get their say in the statewide election in November 2022.
The students will have the option to learn remotely through a centralized system that does not require teachers to instruct them simultaneously with students in the classroom.
Tanya Triche Dawood, vice president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said cutting hours is cutting sales. “We’d like more than anecdotal claims, we deserve more than that, and heretofore we’ve not received anything from the city except from statements we aren’t sure are based in fact.”
Leaders at McCormick Place announced 122 events have already been booked through December 2022. Larita Clark, the CEO of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, boasted about the estimated $2.3 billion economic impact these events would produce.
Foot pursuits would only be allowed when there is “probable cause for an arrest or it is believed an individual has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime.” It would also prohibit foot chases stemming from minor traffic offenses.
Before the City Council feud, Lightfoot mayor introduced a pandemic relief package for businesses and consumers. Alderman Raymond Lopez sent the measure to the Rules Committee, where ordinances are often sent to die. “Alderman Lopez may not care about the urgency of helping our small businesses and moving things forward,” Lightfoot said. “But the rest of us do and we will.”
The family of 13-year-old Adam Toledo plans to build a home in rural Wisconsin where at-risk boys could go to escape the dangers of the city streets.
Anthony Holter, president of the scholarship granting organization Empower Illinois, said reducing the tax credit level could threaten the “lifeblood of the program.” More than 22,000 scholarships have been awarded since the program began, with a majority going toward students of color.
Ralph Rivera, a lobbyist for Illinois Right to Life Action and the Pro-Family Alliance, told a House committee that 30 public school teachers have signed on to a future lawsuit that will challenge the constitutionality of those standards.
FoxFire has a similar but separate legal challenge pending in Sangamon County.
Sen. Terri Bryant is one of the Senate Republicans who has been outspoken about the four Prisoner Review Board members unconfirmed by the Senate Executive Appointments Committee. “I’m really struck by the fact that it’s a three-person board or three-person committee that’s going to make this decision. What if it’s three that we haven’t even had the oversight on yet?”
Rep. Tim Butler, who serves on the House Redistricting Committee, said he had no notice of the court maps being released Tuesday. “I have asked repeatedly…if the majority planned to redistrict the Supreme Court. I never once got a response to that. I think this discussion of transparency and engagement, especially with the minority party, just goes straight out the window.”
“The new boss has the old boss’s ways. It came home to roost today in the indictment of the man who used to run this entire operation, and whose shadow was cast across these proceedings,” Rep. Tim Butler said. “Let’s get transparent, let’s get the data out.”
In 2017, Hayli Martenez started her Haylibug Lemonade stand in Kankakee to raise money for her college fund. Shortly after being profiled in the Kankakee Daily Journal, city and county health department officials paid the 11-year-old a visit and told her to shut down the stand or face fines.
A republication of our Wirepoints column. Having now passed in both the Illinois House and Senate, the amendment will now go to referendum on the November 2022 ballot.
Federal prosecutors said Tim Mapes, 66, of Springfield, repeatedly lied to a grand jury March 31 about Madigan’s relationship with ComEd lobbyist and Madigan confidant Michael McClain. Mapes was granted immunity just before the testimony, but prosecutors said he perjured himself and obstructed justice by lying about Madigan and McClain’s relationship between 2017 and 2019.
She said it would curb crimes and disturbances outside stores, as well as boost the pandemic-decimated hospitality industry by potentially driving more people into bars and restaurants if they want a drink after 10 p.m.
Liz Rupel, policy organizer for the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, said more money for the Partners for Conservation Fund could help the state more aggressively meet the 2015 goals outlined for a strategy to reduce harmful runoff from farms: a 45% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorus going into Illinois waterways by 2025.
One of the bills with strong momentum in the final week protects districts from pandemic-related enrollment losses as they apply to state funding. About 35,000 students, or 1.9%, left public schools with significant declines among kindergarten through third-graders.
Neither state Rep. Will Davis nor state Rep. Tom Demmer could say when budget details would be released of if there’d be time for public review and feedback.
The resolution calls for school districts to begin adding classroom time this fall and continue for three years. State Sen. Kimberly Lightford said the federal dollars coming from the American Families plan would cover it.
The bill would require public universities to designate an employee as an Undocumented Student Resource Liaision to help students without documentation get access to aid.
Senate Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 11 provides that “no law shall be passed that interferes with, negates, or diminishes the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively over their wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment and workplace safety….”
Gasoline averaged $3.24 in Illinois, with Chicago at $3.58 on May 26. Doing the opposite of what Pritzker advocates is the cheaper option: Every state surrounding Illinois had gasoline cheaper than $3 per gallon, with Missouri the cheapest at $2.73.
“Let’s say you’ve been planning on leaving the Chicago area for another city. Well, yesterday’s release of the March CoreLogic Case Shiller home price indices by S&P Dow Jones says you’re basically screwed.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot: “Welcome Back, Beaches.”
But some of the measures in the mayor’s Chi Biz Strong initiative would also take some decision-making power away from aldermen, meaning parts of the package could face pushback.
Parents of students at a private Catholic school in Chicago are raising concerns that “woke” ideology that has infiltrated secular schools has also extended into Catholic schools.
She’s introduced the proposed change as part of a package of changes her office said would help businesses recover from the pandemic. “This initiative will address public safety and nuisance issues by limiting the nighttime sale of packaged goods …,” the Mayor’s Office said in a news release.
The Chi Biz Strong Initiative includes initiatives in the areas of financial relief, an overhaul of city processes, and worker protections.
Mike Glasser, president of the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance, said that landlords reported 54 percent of tenants behind on rent were already late before the virus hit. “We’re suggesting to the governor: let’s start with those pre-COVID situations. If tenants without permission have a dog that’s a problem, that is not under control, we should have the ability to control that situation as well.”
The Chicago Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund (PABF) is one of the worst funded public pension plans in the United States today, with a funding ratio of only 23 percent. A group of retired and disabled officers, along with widows, has long questioned the trustees and management of the struggling pension, and formed the CPD Pension Board Accountability Group to get better answers.
University of Chicago Law Professor Craig Futterman said the hacked emails show the disconnect between Lightfoot’s reform rhetoric and her actual policy platforms. “Overall, they continue to reveal an attitude of the highest level of the administration that isn’t one that’s embracing reform, but one that is most concerned with ‘how do we look’ and actually what they reveal is a lot of behind the scenes, ‘what can we do to thwart reform?’ ”
“When a community that is Muslim has the largest per capita population in Illinois and has zero representation at the state level… you’re pitting (minority groups) against each other and you’re pitting us against you and that’s now how it works,” said Dilara Sayeed from the Illinois Muslim Civic Coalition. “Right now these draft maps aren’t built with us. They are built for us.”
“I don’t think it’s any one thing that’s ever the silver bullet that gives ComEd its power. It’s all of these practices combined,” said Abe Scarr, director of Illinois PIRG. “And this one is particularly egregious because it’s ComEd appearing to be charitable but using our money to do it and then getting political advantages out of it, as well.”
And Larsen isn’t the only paroled killer the state can’t find. Other parolees the department considers absconders include Alfred Myles, 63, who was convicted of a killing in Chicago in 1986, and Shannon Smith, 26, who was on parole for robbery when, according to the police in Elgin, he fatally shot his sister outside a bar in 2018.
“We had the ‘shelter-in-place’ rule, and overnight we had 400 people living here that we could no longer move through the system,” Neli Vazquez-Rowland, the founder of A Safe Haven, said. “We couldn’t get them housing, or even job interviews. We were clearly not at the top of the list in terms of prioritizing resources.”
“What can you do to spread some love this weekend so we can drive out all this hate? You don’t got to be no activist. You don’t got to be running for office,” said Jahmal Cole, of the organization My Block, My Hood, My City. “Get on the block. Meet some people. Say hello.”
“The three areas in which Lightfoot has failed most significantly are on budgetary matters, education, and crime”
Drafters of the proposal have made it deliberately and deceptively ambiguous and misleading, but also radically broad and open-ended. By creating a new constitutional right for themselves and their agenda they would be throwing a cluster bomb toward everything in their way. The amendment’s full impact may not be entirely certain but it would, for sure, clear a path to new, unimagined public union power.
Illinois Republicans can’t decry the redistricting process and then vote to cement union power in the state constitution. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Dan Proft and Amy Jacobson on Chicago’s Morning Answer to discuss.
Governor Pritzker is seeking a $1 billion dollar tax hike on Illinois businesses. Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski joins Scott Slocum on WJOL to discuss this and the union power grab constitutional amendment.
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