0.06% of contributions from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign employees went to Republicans in the last election cycle; 96.6% went to Democrats. Left-wing student organizations at the public university include Young Democratic Socialists, LGBT Jew, and Planned Parenthood Generation Action. It has fourteen liberal groups and four conservative groups.

Jim Dey: “(Analyst Frank Calabrese) even suggested a shocking possibility — that the GOP’s bête noire, former Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, would have gone easier on the Republicans than current Speaker Chris Welch.”

The Latino Policy Forum argues that not only did Democratic mapmakers fail to increase the number of Latino-majority legislative districts in line with population growth, but they also diminished Hispanic voting power in some districts. In addition, the group argued, the General Assembly “did not provide advocates with a reasonable timeline that would enable community input.”

The state said Illinois continues to be one of the highest providers of rental assistance among all state grantees as measured by the U.S. Treasury Department.

During testimony Thursday, DCFS officials told lawmakers 197 children spent the night in either DCFS or private agency office space. Approximately 20 children spent more than 24-hours there and one child spent just under three weeks in non-certified shelter space.

Per the constitution, lawmakers have 15 days from the first session day following the governor’s veto to accept the change or pass a complete override. That clock started Tuesday.

The Illinois State Board of Education is preparing schools for the possibility of closures due to COVID-19 outbreaks and high quarantine numbers. The state health department has identified more two dozen schools with COVID-19 outbreaks.

State Rep. Dan Ugaste said he can’t get a hearing, despite having dozens of co-sponsors, and that discounts the job the people of Illinois expect their elected representatives to do. “All this bill would do is indicate an emergency stops after 30 days and after 30 days a governor has to get authority from the legislature to continue working under such an emergency.”

All of Pritzker’s bill vetoes from this year and from the previous General Assembly have stuck, except for House Bill 684.

Housing Action says that Illinois needs 108,000 more affordable housing units in order to accommodate all the Illinois families who need them. The need for low-income housing in Illinois is even greater, with about 270,000 units needed.

The measure further mandates private schools follow public health requirements issued by the Illinois Department of Public Health in times of disaster and strips local school boards of the ability to vote against those mitigations.

Manhattan, IL, superintendent Russel Ragon said that the teachers’ union and teachers had deep concerns about parents recording them in class.

It is still in the range of 20,000 to 21,000 the university has for many years considered the institution is built to serve.

This is a 30% decrease from the previous week, when 22,258 people filed.

This is on the heals of another audit released in July by the Illinois Auditor General, which found errors in the distribution of federal pandemic assistance funds. In the report, IDES funneled nearly $155 million to potentially ineligible claimants from May 11 to June 30, 2020. Thousands of people who received money were deceased, younger than 13 or non-existent.

President of Illinois Trial Lawyers Association: “It is also impossible to reconcile McConchie’s contention that Illinois is anti-business with regular stories in Crain’s touting corporate relocations to the Chicago area, in conjunction with booming residential construction downtown.”

The House left town after the Senate passed the bill, but is expected to return in less than two weeks to approve changes to an ethics bill.