“It’s not like there’s going to be a mass effort to send people to suburban locations,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “It’s just that when there isn’t enough room at hotels in the city of Chicago and people are arriving with a few hours notice, that we end up having to send them where it is possible to provide immediate shelter.”

The Gift Ban Act prohibits state officers and employees from receiving gifts from prohibited sources exceeding certain dollar amounts. AG candidate and attorney Thomas Devore says that Gov. J.B. Pritzker is violating state law by supplementing the taxpayer-funded six-figure incomes of his top administrative staff members with his own personal fortune.

While small businesses create 69% of all new jobs in Illinois, the state was ranked last in the nation in 2021 for growth in high propensity businesses applications, or companies the IRS deemed more likely to create jobs. Illinois also ranked third-worst in the Midwest for business formation rates in 2021 despite receiving the 1oth highest number of business applications in the nation, and the most in the region. More than 92% of applications to start businesses were denied.

“It’s a Catch-22, because taxpayers’ expenses are going higher and governments’ expenses are going higher, and the governments have to raise taxes to pay for it,” said Sheila Weinberg, CEO and founder of Glencoe-based Truth in Accounting. “It does seem unusual that if they have these large reserves, then why do they need to keep raising taxes?”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker extended the public health emergency in August and it will remain in effect until at least Sept. 17. Pritzker said more than 34,500 Illinoisans have died in the pandemic and added “predicting what will happen in the future in this pandemic continues to be a difficult task.”

The Illinois Supreme Court has appointed Illinois Appellate Court Justice Joy Cunningham to fill Burke’s vacant seat on the court for the remainder of her term, through Dec. 2, 2024. Burke’s term as chief justice ends Oct. 24, and the court has selected Justice Mary Jane Theis as the next chief justice.

Peter Sopczak, the Johnson County Sheriff, reiterated what’s going to happen in Illinois at the start of the new year saying, “anyone sitting in jail right now with all these pending charges, they’re going to be let out — the gates are open and they’re going to be let out onto the streets.”

For more than two years, lawyers for the state of Illinois fought against a lawsuit filed by the former chief of staff to powerful Sen. Michael Hastings. But earlier this year, the state paid $100,000 to the ex-chief of staff to Hastings and her lawyer to settle the case, which included accusations of racial and gender discrimination against the Democratic lawmaker. The state also hired a private attorney who represented Hastings — with the payments to the outside counsel’s firm adding up to nearly $47,000.

Gibson City Mayor Dan Dickey learned Aug. 23 that the Tax Abatement Ordinance filed with Ford County was not applied to the tax formula, resulting in a much higher rate for the City portion of the property tax bills for Gibson City residents and businesses. He says there is still time to adjust the bills so taxpayers aren’t paying more than they have too.

The University of Chicago comes in at No. 6, and Northwestern University ranks No. 10. The other two Illinois universities that ranked in lists the top 100 are University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, at No. 47, and the University of Illinois Chicago, also known as UIC, at no. 97.

Critics say permanent tax relief is needed in one of the highest taxes states in the country. “The plan has checks arrive just before the election and then tax reductions expire right after the election,” state Sen. Dan McConchie said.

Growth in overall sales and tax revenue is slowing, largely because Illinois has far fewer retail locations per capita than other states. Meanwhile, the effort to give Black and Brown entrepreneurs a fair shot at potentially lucrative retail licenses has also been hobbled by bureaucratic delay. Now hey’ve hit another snag. The state of Illinois says the applicants can’t take on investors until they have their shops built out, inspected and open for business. Yet to build out those shops, some applicants need capital. Most banks still aren’t willing to lend to marijuana

“Criminal-coddling policies are having serious political consequences for Democrats in other states. Much more importantly, they are having tragic, life-altering, and life-ending consequences for the innocent victims of the criminals whom these policies seem almost designed to enable. Chicago, always a dangerous city but in 2022 quite possibly the Mecca of murder, could yet become much worse than it is now, believe it or not.”

J. Hanley, Winnebago County State’s Attorney: “This convoluted series of steps will not only delay justice for victims and strike fear into the hearts of witnesses, it will place an unnecessary burden on law enforcement to find defendants who they’ve already arrested and serve them with a piece of paper asking them nicely to come to court…One can hear the wheels of justice beginning to grind to a halt.”

Nationwide one in every 4,072 housing units had a foreclosure filing in August 2022. States with the highest foreclosure rates were Illinois (one in every 1,926 housing units with a foreclosure filing); Delaware; South Carolina; New Jersey; and Florida.