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Ugaste introduced House Bill 9, which would take 25% of the state budget, around $13 billion, and use 20% to pay off state pensions and send the remaining 5% to school districts, with a mandate that they lower property taxes.
A woman whose 11-year-old son, Jayden Perkins, was stabbed to death in front of his five-year-old brother while attempting to defend his pregnant mother against a vicious and murderous attack by her ex-boyfriend has filed suit against Gov. JB Pritzker’s Illinois Prisoner Review Board and other law enforcement agencies, asserting her son would still be alive if the IPRB had not released the boyfriend from custody the day before the attack, despite an escalating series of documented threats made by the boyfriend against the woman.
FOX News also has a report on this.
“Senate Bill 2254 is interesting. As you may know, state law currently prohibits sex offenders from living within 500 feet of schools, playgrounds, and daycare centers. But the proposed law would allow all child sex offenders to move 249 feet closer to those facilities. It would establish no limit for daycare homes and group daycare homes. And, if the law passes, registered sex offenders and convicted murderers who don’t have a “fixed address” will no longer need to report weekly to the local police department. Sen. Kimberly Lightford noodled up this idea.”
Ald. Andre Vasquez, chair of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said they’ve instead been focusing on “on-the-ground” engagement in neighborhoods, like hosting Know-Your-Rights workshops. With the federal government controlling immigration policies, “It’s a little bit challenging to get things done via hearing when there’s not much legislatively that the city can do,” he said.
“I think there’s vast amounts of mismanagement here,” Rep. Marty Moylan said. “Some people are taking advantage of the system. We need to get to the bottom of this, especially if they’re asking for a billion dollars.”
Cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Houston, which already spend a substantial chunk of revenue to cover interest on their bond debt, could face more budget strains if Congress moves to strip the tax exemption from municipal bonds. New York, Illinois, Colorado, and Connecticut had the largest share of combined state and local interest. Connecticut by far had the largest share of interest on state debt, at more than 6% of its total expenditures, followed by Massachusetts, New York and Illinois.
Mayor Brandon Johnson is trying to put a 3% squeeze on city contractors, asking them to agree to reduce their prices by that amount on all invoices sent to the city to help Chicago get past “difficult economic times.”
Raoul said his best lawyers are strained with a limited budget, adding that his office is overburdened not just fighting the Trump administration, but keeping up with the state’s regular case load.
An activist group has asked a federal district court to strike down an Illinois law requiring the disclosure of nonprofit organizations’ board demographics. The DOJ has intervened in the case, claiming that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment. The intervention is part of the DOJ’s effort to eliminate DEI practices nationwide.
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