Illinois teachers unions want to end scholarships for low-income kids. They’ve funneled more than $21.5 million to current lawmakers who hold the decision in their hands, with nearly $1.5 million coming just since June 1.
“The 121 restaurateurs who signed this op-ed have invested in the city of Chicago, financially and emotionally, over many years. We ask for a government that manages with a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. We ask for nuanced and balanced decision-making. We ask for a proposal that allows operators a chance to cure any honest mistakes without the threat of a lawsuit. We ask for more time and for a true economic study with the new PTO ordinance. We ask for a thoughtful pause from
“The pilot program addresses the crucial reality that more has to be done in Chicago to get migrants to submit applications for work permits, with getting fingerprinted and photographed part of that process.”
The only substantive change to Johnson’s original spending plan approved by the Budget Committee would allow each of the 50 members of the City Council to hire a fourth employee for their ward office – a perennial demand long ignored by Johnson’s predecessor that will help speed the plan’s passage before Thanksgiving.
After Joliet rejected $8.6 million in taxpayer funds to help house and provide food to nearly 1,900 non-citizens, there are questions surrounding what the state should do with the money.
Illinois and Chicago may be able to make it easier – or more difficult – for migrants to work within their jurisdictions, but any permanent solution will likely rest with the U.S. government.
Operators say that, eventually, they will raise menu prices to find the additional funds needed to pay staffers more. Restaurant owners are not liking the arithmetic, as they try to retain employees and keep rising menu prices — which rarely come back down — from scaring off customers.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker both recently cut checks for a candidate in this month’s mayoral election in Charleston, S.C., Axios has learned. The donations to Charleston candidate Clay Middleton signal White House ambitions for both governors, as South Carolina recently moved to the front of the Democratic presidential primary calendar.
U.S. Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Nikki Budzinski, Sean Casten, Danny Davis, Jonathan Jackson, Raja Krishnamoorthi and Delia Ramirez wrote “school vouchers … perpetuate and deepen the education inequities that plague Illinois.”
Several townships and one county had successful referendums last year that created new community mental health boards, but failed to include required language informing voters of how establishing new tax to fund the mental health board would impact property owners.
New jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased to 9,066 in the week ending October 28, up from 8,624 the week before, the Labor Department said.
The prospect of having voters weigh in on the city’s flood response instead of its sanctuary city status incensed some City Council members, who want to see the latter put up for a public vote as tensions have boiled over regarding the city’s support of more than 20,000 migrants who have arrived since last year. “We just want to make sure that we get the Bring Chicago Home question on the ballot after all the work that we have done,” Ald. Maria Hadden said.
“The transformative programs by World Bicycle Relief, the (University of Illinois) Soybean Innovation Lab and Rotary are of the same spirit — low-cost, basic interventions with huge returns in fostering a better quality of life in some of the poorest parts of the world…With so many global events making the world feel dark, I take pride in the work Illinois is doing to bring light to the most vulnerable
Comment: The fraudulent workers comp award is where the serious allegations are, but Attorney General Kwame Raoul looks the other way.
Ramirez-Rosa will step down from his positions as floor reader and chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee following last week’s contentious special council meeting at which, his colleagues say, he tried to physically stop a fellow alderperson from joining a meeting regarding Chicago’s sanctuary city status. Denying the meeting a quorum would end the effort to reverse sanctuary city laws, a proposal Ramirez-Rosa and other progressive alderpeople were against.
“Venezuelans aren’t the only ones seeking asylum here. The French, Caribbeans, French Africans, they’re just ignoring the Black immigrants and I think that matters,” said Attorney Anastasie Senat at a Town Hall meeting Sunday.
Comment: CORE is the ruling faction of the Chicago Teachers Union and advocates for use of pension funds for social purposes.
It’s incredible that Illinois politicians and the teachers unions are focused on maiming – or even killing – the state’s tiny 9,700-student school choice program even though a whopping 1.2 million Illinois public school students can’t read at grade level and 1.4 million aren’t proficient in math.
Through the first third of this fiscal year, which started July 1, total General Funds receipts are up $611 million or 3.8% over the same period last year.
Mark joined Shaun Thompson Show to talk about the latest developments in the Gotion controversy. Wirepoints’ new poll shows a majority of Illinoisans oppose the plan for Gotion to build a EV battery factory in Manteno, Illinois.
A Global Times column directly highlights Gotion’s E.V. battery factories planned for Illinois and Michigan as examples of China’s expected preeminence in the U.S. market.
The penalty enhancement measure is not the only issue that could divide Democrats. Lawmakers also face a measure to extend a private school tax credit for another five years, which supporters say could prevent thousands of children whose tuition is funded through the program from having to leave their schools, and a measure that would lift a nearly 40-year-old moratorium on new nuclear power plants across Illinois
Last weekend, at least 34 people were shot, three fatally, in gun violence across Chicago, police said.
Police are investigating after antisemitic signs and flyers were found on the Northwest Side and in suburban Elmhurst and La Grange Park over the weekend. The flyers, “while not threatening in nature,” were political and from an antisemitic social media group, La Grange Park police said.
SIGN UP HERE FOR OUR FREE WIREPOINTS DAILY NEWSLETTER