The Ranked-Choice and Voting Systems Task Force is expected to evaluate the current state of Illinois’ election systems and discuss the process of implementing ranked choice voting for Illinois’ 2028 presidential primaries. It will also facilitate an accounting for how the state certifies certain election systems and equipment because supporters said 30% of Illinois’ counties are utilizing outdated voting machines and systems that are vulnerable to election security threats.

Gov. JB Pritzker said he wants next week’s speech to be a big reveal. He said the bottom line is “more of what we care about…Investing in education, investing in early childhood education and child care and early intervention and making sure, by the way, at that on the other end of the K-12 pipeline that they are also getting a great higher education.”

The Illinois Municipal League’s Brad Cole promoted legislation to exempt municipalities. “We think that this is something, not unlike all the private businesses and other entities out there, it’s going to have a financial impact,” Cole said. “Also, just the administrative impact on local governments. Some of these communities are very small. They don’t have the big back office to do stuff and it’s going to be tough to comply.”

The Illinois Municipal League’s “Moving Cities Forward” agenda calls for the restoration of the Local Government Distributive Fund to 10%. CEO Brad Cole said the increase should be included in the next state budget. “The difference is about a billion dollars a year, so if you look at some of the things that state funds have been spent on in recent years, that is being paid for on the backs of residents of communities who are not getting the full share of LGDF,” Cole said.

Illinois remains the nation’s second-most corrupt state, but despite keeping prosecutors busy the political machine keeps grinding. The cost is $550 million a year.

“The city of Chicago still has hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act…The fact that only a fraction of these funds has been spent after years does not inspire confidence that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s latest $100 million tax hike proposal will be effectively deployed to combat the city’s homelessness crisis, especially when many of the federal funds available could be deployed for these purposes but have not been put to use.”

Last year in the spring 2023 session, Illinois passed the ‘Healthy School Meals for All’ bill which provides free breakfast and lunches to all students who want it, but the bill did not receive the appropriation it needed and that has now left lawmakers in Springfield asking for the proper funding to finally kick-start this movement.

Attorneys representing the National Association for Gun Rights, the National Shooting Sports Federation, and the Firearms Policy Coalition, with the Illinois State Rifle Association and others, filed three separate petitions asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step in now to end the “defiance” of Gov. JB Pritzker, Illinois Democrats and judges in Illinois and elsewhere who, the petitioners say, have all but thumbed their nose at recent Supreme Court decisions upholding Americans’ rights to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment.

“The budget is a list of priorities,” Curran said. “The governor in his time has prioritized the non Citizen community, and in his in his six years in office, that has gone from a $1 million a year annual spend to over $1 billion a year spent in that category. The governor has definitely placed that at the top of the priority list ahead of Illinois residents. That’s where the course correction needs to happen.”

State Rep. Kam Buckner is saying it’s time for the state use all the tools it has to try and make that change happen, including pressuring Democrat leadership in Washington D.C. by threatening to pass on the Democratic National Convention. “We got to figure out what we’re willing to leverage and align with, in order to make sure that we have the resources that we need,” he said.

Jim Dey: “Though released from prison in 2004, 72-year-old Randy Steidl recently learned Gov. JB Pritzker granted him a pardon based on ‘innocence’ in mid-December. One question that comes to mind is whether Steidl’s co-defendant — Herbert Whitlock — will receive a similar pardon, and if so, when…(former Illinois State Police Lt. Mike) Callahan had a serious falling-out with his superiors over whether to proceed. The dispute ultimately prompted him to retire after 25 years and write a book titled Too Politically Sensitive about what occurred.”

With Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker about to release his 2025 budget proposal this week and Chicago budgeting only $150 million for migrants in 2024, less than half of what it spent on them in 2023, this latest twist in the migrant busing saga raises further questions about its implications for public finance at the local level.

“Let’s enforce our laws. Let’s punish people who commit crimes, and let’s make sure we give our police officers the tools they need to keep our neighborhoods safe. We don’t need barricades. We need better leadership…Their soft-on-crime policies are destroying our communities, and the people most hurt by their bad leadership are the very people they supposedly are trying to help.”