Illinois Rep. LaShawn Ford, who has for years championed legislation to restore voting rights to convicts currently behind bars, said the time may finally be right to get it passed — when the General Assembly is back in session in November. His team says approximately 30,000 Illinois prison inmates were ineligible to vote in this week’s election.

Sales taxes for qualified clothing and school-related items will be reduced from 6.25% to 1.25% for a 10-day window from August 5 to 14, saving consumers $50 million.

The race for the Second District seat is expected to be intense this summer and fall, as Democrats seek to block Republicans from flipping the majority on the court and potentially cutting into the Democratic stranglehold on Illinois politics and constitutional law.

“Even with the high prices, people are going to still go,” AAA spokesperson Nicholas Jarmusz said. “They will find ways to trim other aspects of their travel budget or their household budget.”

Sherry Cheesewright, who owns Sherry’s Fireworks in Clinton, Indiana, said Illinoisans are a big part of her business – and business has been steady this year despite a slight increase in prices related to 40-year-high inflation. “I bring them in from, my gosh, Charleston, Decatur and Champaign. Last night a guy drove an hour and a half from a town I haven’t even heard of. Once they find me, they tend to come back here.”

AAA data shows skyrocketing gas prices have hiked Illinoisans’ average fill-up from $57 last year to $92 today. Of that, more than $19 is for local, state and federal taxes.

The governor didn’t reissue the COVID-19 executive order limiting county inmate transfers to state prisons, but on June 24, 2022, he did reissue the order limiting DHS from taking inmates deemed unfit for trial. “If the governor is using COVID as the reason to not transfer, well, COVID still exists in our jail too, but the problem is these inmates need help,” Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said.

That includes some income tax rebates, property tax rebates, a suspension of the state’s 1 percent tax on groceries, and a six-month pause on the scheduled inflationary increase in the state’s motor fuel tax.

Pritzker, who fueled speculation about White House ambitions this month with a speech in the first presidential primary state, New Hampshire, and has raised eyebrows with generous donations to battleground state governors, added that he’s not pushing for a challenger to step forward.

“I’m running a campaign to get Democrats elected and to beat Republicans,” Pritzker said when asked whether helping the primary campaign of a conservative Republican could backfire. “And I want people to know what we believe in and what they believe in. And so, the messages that I’ve talked about on TV are all messages about amplifying the differences between Democrats and Republicans.”

“We are now a protected class our hair is a protected class how bout that,” state Sen. Mattie Hunter said.

Democrats pumped up Mr. Bailey in advertising as a pro-life, pro-gun Trump supporter, knowing it would appeal to GOP primary voters. While many Republicans are ready to move on from Mr. Trump, Democrats find it politically useful to keep him around. It’s hard to take seriously their anguish about the condition of democracy when they gamble on helping Trumpian candidates. They’d better hope the GOP tsunami