“The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois,” Pritzker’s office said Monday. “The General Assembly passed the bill and the Governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church, and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder.” Regarding the dozens of sheriff’s offices vowing the flout the law, Prizker’s office said law enforcement offices don’t have the authority to “pick and choose which laws they support.”

“Reform in the states continues despite little notice in the national media, and the latest example comes from Wisconsin. Badger State Republicans are proposing a major tax cut and reform that includes a flat rate of 3.25% on income.”

Wrote the coalition of 14 senators, “It is of the utmost importance that we invest in our nation’s workers and families through paid family and medical leave programs to provide much-needed financial security, cost-savings for businesses, reductions in government public assistance expenditures, and stimulation for local economies.”

Among them, Iroquois County Sheriff Clinton Perzee said he would not use his jails to detain people exercising their civil rights.

In a ranking of the 2022 funded status of all 50 states plus Washington D.C., Washington D.C. and Washington State top the list with aggregate funded ratios of 103.4% and 102.9%, respectively. Illinois and Kentucky have the worst funded pension plans in the nation at the end of 2022.

See Wirepoints’ own column on this new report linked here.

In her previous term, Gabel served on the Appropriations — Human Services Committee; the Energy and Environment Committee; and the Insurance, Museums, Arts and Cultural Enhancements Committee. Gabel sponsored legislation requiring birth centers to obtain state licenses to operate, which passed in August 2021. She also sponsored a bill making it more difficult to circumvent vaccine requirements, which passed in November 2021.

Today’s affordability crunch in expensive coastal cities creates an opportunity for the Midwest. The trouble in Illinois is that when you add property taxes to the cost of housing, the state is no longer on par with its Midwestern neighbors. In 2022, Illinois had the second-highest property tax rate in the country. Altogether, Illinois ranks fourth in the country for the highest tax burden on residents when accounting for all state and local taxes—higher even than California, the state with the highest income taxes in the country.

Pipeline opponents are asking for a six-month moratorium on the pipeline permitting process while the regulations are being developed. “Right now, there are not even any setbacks as to how close the pipeline can be to a house,” farmer Karen Brockelsby said.

In doing so, Raoul joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in arguing that the debt relief program is lawful and appropriate.

The governor is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make Illinois the 15th state to have laws regarding mandatory paid leave. “What it’s going to mean is that more businesses close, more businesses can’t survive, and the very people you are trying to protect won’t have jobs at all,” state Rep. Deanne Mazzochi said.

Motor fuel tax is the state’s leading source of transportation funding and makes up 52 percent of Illinois’ total transportation revenue and 82 percent of its contributions to the federal highway trust fund. The report’s main policy recommendation is implementing a vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, fee – an idea previously floated by Gov. JB Pritzker during his initial gubernatorial campaign in 2018.