Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon said the program hasn’t worked as intended. “So at the initial stages they just didn’t have the people…Some of them reportedly are being kind of repurposed now because they don’t have as much contact tracing to do but a lot of them are dedicated contact tracers only with these long term contracts.”

The BGA found that recent Chicago IG investigations have looked into failures of the Chicago Police Department during the George Floyd disturbances and racial bias in the gang crimes database. They have debunked Rahm Emanuel’s claims about saving $11M from the city’s switch to a grid-based garbage collection system. They’ve exposed corruption in contracting for red-light cameras. By contrast, the LIG has published findings in only nine cases since the office was formed in 2003.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined with 22 other attorneys general on an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court asking to reinstate the federal eviction moratorium.

Illinois Manufacturers’ Association’s Mark Denzler said one element of the law signals to him that it is bad policy by who is left out. “It’s always telling when the government passes a law that imposes, in this case, a new 6% penalty, and they exempt themselves from it. I don’t know if there’s a clearer way to say if it’s such a great policy why did the state exempt themselves from the same law?”

Many of the reforms provide more rights for people accused of crimes and victims. People in police custody will be allowed to make three phone calls, and barriers are removed to help more people access the state’s victims’ compensation program.