“From my perspective, if you were to spend a lot of money right now advertising your candidacy for a down ballot race, it would be kind of lost in the shuffle of everything else that’s going on,” said Charlie Wheeler, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

“We have to compete with states like Ohio and Indiana,” Rep. Mike Halpin said, “and until we can convince either the federal government or our sister states to stop that race to the bottom, we need to provide what we can to good Illinois companies that want to expand their operations here.”

“We don’t want to gloat over people in a war zone, but, yes, this is beneficial for Southern Illinois wheat producers – to the extent that they have not priced that crop yet,” University of Illinois agriculture economist Mike Dougherty said.

Consider the budget, ARP funds, and crime.

“The public aspect recently hit the front page with news stories about lawsuits filed against the state in connection with the deaths of more than 30 residents, beginning in November 2020, at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home….Public-health issues don’t generally translate to the political realm. But they have here in the most unusual, costly and tragic sets of circumstances.”

Jim Dey: “For example, just how much of a problem is it that Illinois continues to lose people and jobs while neighboring states gain both? So far, voters en masse have not shown much interest in those issues. At the same time, our elected officials have done little more than pay lip service to them.”

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, a Democrat who met with the state’s congressional delegation in Washington this week, told Route Fifty on Thursday that despite having a $1.7 billion surplus, the state could use the money on other things besides paying tens of millions in interest.

“Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker is also promising to ‘alleviate some pressure on Illinois’ working families,’ after having doubled the state gas tax to 38 cents a gallon in 2019. His proposal: Suspend this year’s inflation-adjusted gas tax increase (two cents a gallon) and send $300 property tax credits to middle-income homeowners. That’s about as much as inflation is costing the average household in a single month, and it doesn’t come close to offsetting higher property taxes from increasing housing values and pension payments.”

In the letter to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, 15 elected officials outlined the case of Mexican immigrant Norberto Navarro, who is being held in the Will County jail until he appears as a material witness in a criminal court hearing next week.

School districts across the state continue to divert money from classrooms to boost the pensions of retiring educators despite multiple attempts to curb the practice.

Of the 11 states that collected recreational marijuana tax revenue in 2021, just four — California, Colorado, Illinois and Massachusetts — spent money on such restorative justice and equity programs. Illinois spent the most, devoting almost a quarter of its marijuana revenue to such programs.

The governor says he increased DCFS’s budget by millions of dollars during his time in office and encouraged them to hire more staff.

Current regulations prevent winemakers who produce more than 25,000 gallons from selling directly to local restaurants and retailers. HB 2976 would increase the production cap and allow direct sales (self-distribution) of a portion of produced wine.

“Both of them have a challenge for elected officials,” Jim Watson, Executive Director of the American Petroleum Institute-Illinois, said of the statewide taxes on gas. “If you decide to cut, reduce, end the sales tax that we put on gasoline, that’s going to cut resources for and funding for local governments. Or, you can reduce the Motor Fuel Tax, but that funding goes to expenditures on capital projects like redoing our highways and building our bridges.”

After three confirmation fights in which Democrats vigorously opposed former President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin is working to convince Republicans to not return the favor.

The sweeping criminal justice reform bill changes various policies and practices across the entire justice system including the courts, prisons and law enforcement agencies.

“We are looking at ways we can reduce the gas tax across the State of Illinois, because we recognize, even since I introduced my budget, that war has broken out and the result of that war is that oil prices have gone through the roof,” he said.

“Into the ever-changing risk calculations are layers of different experiences, as mask mandates are lifted and workers are increasingly asked to return to the office. For some, COVID-19 has been mostly an inconvenience, upending lives but not killing loved ones. For others, the losses include family, friends or neighbors, and shape perceptions of how best to act.”