“Now, the state supreme courts in Texas and Arizona are about to hear cases that may fundamentally change how the activities of government labor unions are financed….Government unions weren’t happy with having to respect employees’ First Amendment rights or taxpayers’ pocketbooks, so they implemented another scheme, ‘release time,’ which forces the public to pay union salaries.”

Former state legislator Annazette Collins, 61, who worked as a ComEd lobbyist after her career in Springfield ended more than a decade ago, was indicted in 2021 on federal charges alleging she underreported income and failed to file federal income tax returns for her lobbying and consulting firm. Collins’ legislative career was also dogged by controversy; she was one of several lawmakers whose legislative scholarship awards were under review by a federal grand jury.

The bill would prohibit law enforcement from pulling people over just for speeding, improper lane usage, obstructed windshields, defective headlights, expired registration stickers, or failure to wear safety belts. Illinois FOP State Lodge President Chris Southwood described the law as one of the most anti-police proposals he’s seen. “How many lives will be lost if we can’t stop dangerous drivers?” Southwood said. “Such a law will only benefit lawbreakers, and common sense must have taken a vacation when this bill was drafted.”

Illinois is in the top 10 for states with the most residents living under the poverty line, leading members of both parties to call for changes. The national poverty rate, or those earning less than $14,580, is 11.5% and according to World Population Review, Illinois has nearly 1.5 million people, or 12.1% of the state’s population, living in poverty.

John Atkinson, of Intersect Illinois, the state’s business attraction organization: ” Illinois offers a large, skilled workforce of over six million people, half of which have bachelor’s degrees or higher. Illinois’ astounding 244 higher education institutions are among the best in the world. The University of Illinois alone graduates more engineers each year than MIT, Stanford and Caltech combined. Beyond that, our community college system is the third largest in the nation. That means Illinois is providing customized training to students of all ages to ensure they gain the skills that are most in demand now.”

“The governor has extended an invitation to the migrants, and this started six years ago when he first took office,” Curren said. “He’s been passing policies of rolling out the welcome mat throughout his six years in office, and that’s where we’re at right now.” Curren further called for a review of the state’s spending on the migrants, as he sees the governor using his executive orders to draw funds from other parts of the state budget to cover migrant spending.

Gov. JB Pritzker has indicated the best place to house the foreign nationals arriving to Illinois is in Chicago because of quicker access to a variety of resources and services. Illinois taxpayers spent over $500 million on migrant care in 2023 alone.

Attorney Robby Dube said Gotion may be avoiding ownership of the property because of tax reasons, liability reasons or even concerns about potential legislation banning ownership of domestic businesses by foreign adversaries. “Gotion’s whole argument is, ‘Well we are an American company because they are incorporated in America.’ But their parent company is incorporated in China and we believe we have the documents to show it is a [Chinese Communist Party-controlled] entity. But if the legislation is broad enough, and I think it needs to be in order to protect American interests, they could get snagged in that legislation,” said

Fears of what it would do to Chicago’s housing market and economy led a group of Chicago trade unions to refuse to endorse Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to increase a city tax on real estate sales.

“If America is comprised of 50 laboratories of democracy, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed, Illinois is the meth lab.”