“There are over a dozen other states that have passed different phase-out laws that we’re already learning from,” said Josh Evans, of the Illinois Association of Rehabilitation Facilities. “In 2029 forward, regardless of productivity level, if you’re performing work, you’re gonna at least get minimum wage. And so we kind of see that as an equity and equality issue for persons with disabilities that that has been a long time coming.”

State Rep. Adam Niemerg said whatever the Democrats come up with won’t work. “The governor has said that law enforcement will not cooperate. Well, law enforcement doesn’t like JB Pritzker. There’s federal funding tied to this, and all Trump has to do is cut federal funding. We are looking at an over $3 billion deficit, mainly because of the bad policies coupled with the open borders and the $3 billion we’ve spent on illegals in Illinois.”

State Rep. Bill Hauter, also an emergency room physician, said mandated staffing ratios are not the way to address shortages. Hauter suggested Illinois become a Compact Nursing State, of which there are currently 42. “That way we can have free-flow of man-power from other states, traveling nurses, and we could expand mid-level providers and aids. We need to get faster licensing, we need to incentivize education and training, there’s all sorts of ways but imposing staffing ratios is just wrong.”

“We are going to miss out on opportunities because we can’t supply the electricity at an affordable rate,” state Rep. Dan Caulkins said. “And if we don’t fall in line with the rest of the country, we are going to be the rust bucket. We will continue to decline. Companies are gonna leave.”

Some threats from earlier this year include a bomb threat in March and a threatening 911 call in April. In early January, the FBI was investigating several state capitols that received bomb threats on the same day, including the Illinois State Capitol.

A change in state law extended the time for wage recovery to three years to give the Illinois Department of Labor more time to find employees who are owed back wages. The law also states that after three years, IDOL can send unclaimed wages to Treasurer Frerichs’ Unclaimed Property Trust Fund, so workers can still claim their money.

The Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office is under investigation by the U. S. Department of Justice for civil rights violations, but the probe may go beyond the fatal shooting of Sonya Massey. The U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights probe will investigate the sheriff’s department, but also Sangamon County Central Dispatch and the county itself.

Since the prison closed, the eponymous village a couple miles east still looks for an economic north star. Women are still incarcerated in sordid conditions at the prison they were transferred to. Layoff concerns were largely remedied by filling nearby correctional vacancies. And the shell of the prison sits as a sore reminder to some.

A clarification to Illinois’ biometric data privacy law made by state lawmakers earlier this year limits the size of damages that can be claimed in lawsuits over Biometric Information Privacy Act violations, a federal judge ruled last week. It’s an early indication that the courts are willing to apply a recent amendment to the biometric privacy law – once viewed as the strongest in the nation – to cases that are already in progress.

“The groups that chose a new national direction are the same groups of people Pritzker has consistently failed in our great state of Illinois. … Instead of taking the 2024 presidential election as a call to do better, Pritzker apparently views it as his golden ticket to the White House. He should have seen it as a reason to take a long, hard look in the mirror.”

“Governor Pritzker’s postelection press conference was the sole heartening thing I have heard since the debacle of November 5.”