In all, JB Pritzker has now personally donated $1.5 million to aid the campaign of Democratic Dane County Judge Susan Crawford in the race to replace retiring liberal State Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. On campaign donation records, Pritzker is again listed as “Governor.” And he again is using a Chicago address associated with The Pritzker Group, a venture capital firm.

If Republicans in Congress don’t act and preserve the status quo, state Rep. LaShawn Ford said continued litigation will cost taxpayers. “But I guess it is a zero sum game, you know if we have to take money from our general revenue fund to divert it to fight the case that could reduce other spending powers in higher ed,” Ford said.

“Now you have to have the county whose gonna take on these responsibilities,” says Patrick Sellers, the Freeport Township supervisor. “They can still levy up to 90 percent of the original township levy, so I don’t know where you’re saving money by doing this.”

Now, a new report from the Illinois General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, which is free from gubernatorial control, shows the state faces as much as a $1.2 billion shortfall and potential tax hikes. That illustrates the financial consequences of inaccurate projections.

Abughazaleh is a 26-year-old content creator who lives on the North Side of Chicago. She’s challenging an incumbent Democrat in a solidly blue state, in the solidly blue 9th Congressional District, which covers part of Chicago’s North Side as well as a smattering of nearby suburbs including Democratic strongholds Evanston and Skokie. Rep. Jan Schakowsky has been the congresswoman there since 1999 (the year Abughazaleh was born) and has not lost an election since.

Jim Dey: “Not too many downstaters are familiar with (state Sen. Michael) Hastings, who has aspirations for statewide office. He’s best known for conflicts with his former wife that included allegations of physical abuse on his part and prompted Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker to call for Hastings’ resignation from office.”

“Across Illinois we have an opportunity to leverage unspent federal bond capacity for the 4 percent Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) allocations awarded annually to Illinois. The Build Illinois Homes Tax Credit creates a stable, predictable funding source for affordable housing development and leverages existing federal tax credit sources.”

Gov. JB Pritzker recently proposed an overall $2 billion increase to next year’s state budget. But he also recommended cuts to several programs, including reducing the cover crop insurance credit budget from $960,000 to $660,000. Demand for the Fall Cover for Spring Savings program — which offers a $5 per acre discount on the following year’s crop insurance premiums — has outpaced state funding every year since its inception six years ago.

Some attorneys general have organized a roadshow to take their cases directly to voters. On March 20, five attorneys general—Mayes, Ellison, Kwame Raoul of Illinois, Letitia James of New York and New Jersey’s Matthew Platkin—spoke to more than 1,000 people, almost all of them Democrats, gathered at a high school in suburban St. Paul, Minn.

“For decades, I led big-city school districts across the country. I’ve seen firsthand how the Department of Education’s bureaucratic expansion—in Republican and Democratic administrations alike—yielded little in terms of student achievement.”

Illinois community colleges saw a record-breaking surge in enrollment this spring semester, according to the Illinois Community College Board’s most recent enrollment report, even as some four-year universities have struggled. “The pandemic had a profound effect on enrollment and Illinois community colleges continue to aggressively recruit and retain students as enrollment rebounds,” the report said, adding that the state “is outpacing growth nationally.”