This week, an amendment to the law was passed. However, officers did not obtain everything they needed, particularly clarification on body cameras.

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie is calling out Illinois Democrats for not repaying a state debt sooner.

The bill received no Republican support, although several members of the minority party in the Senate acknowledged what they described as considerable but insufficient improvements to the underlying law. They also chafed at being left out of the negotiations.

“…(T)he PRESS Act would uniquely benefit the Chicagoland media. Illinois has a reporter’s privilege law at the state level, but our federal appellate circuit is one of the few that do not shield reporters from invasive subpoenas. The Seventh Circuit has admitted that journalists’ investigative capabilities ‘would be enhanced’ if they were shielded from government-compelled disclosure of sources. ‘But they are not,’ it concluded.”

While not a single Republican voted for the latest amendment to the law, they took credit for provoking it with a drumbeat of criticism. “There would be no changes made without pressure from Republicans,” said state Sen. Steve McClure, a Springfield Republican and former Sangamon County prosecutor. “Those were not just minor changes in that legislation. There were some very big changes to the forcible felonies that can be detained.”

After 15 Illinois jailbirds used PPP loans to pay their bail, cynics scoffed that the program should be named the Prisoner Paycheck Program.

Despite Democrats’ changes to the SAFE-T Act, Illinois’ sprawling criminal justice reform law, a Kankakee County judge could soon take the next steps in deciding the law’s fate. Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas Cunnington is scheduled to hold a hearing and potentially issue a decision on constitutional challenges brought against the SAFE-T Act by a group of more than 60 Illinois county prosecutors.

A statement from the caucus reads, in part, “The mismanagement and incompetence have led to where it always leads – higher taxes. As a result of the vote taken today on the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund bailout, taxes on businesses will go up 12% over the next five years.”

Jim Dey:”Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz said she was ‘pleased’ with the changes Democratic legislators made while speculating that it is ‘very likely’ the law will remain controversial after the bond system is abolished Jan. 1. ‘We’re better off today (Friday) than we were yesterday (Thursday),’ she said. ‘I am satisfied — for now.'”