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A statement from the caucus reads, in part, “The idea that these legislators would seek refuge in Illinois because of ‘partisan’ legislative redistricting is the very definition of irony given that Illinois’ own maps look like a 3-year-old drew them in crayon. The faux outrage must be called out.”
“The agency suffers from systemic problems that go far beyond funding,” said Rep. Tom Weber. DCFS is required to report cases of death, serious injury, torture and other types of abuse to law enforcement within 24 hours. However, auditors found the agency failed to notify local police and state’s attorney offices on time for 17 of 40 reports tested. Local enforcement personnel and state’s attorneys were notified four to 270 days late.
“As our energy demands grow, driven my electric vehicles, electrified heating and the rise of AI data and infrastructure, we need to know: is our grid ready? Is it resilient? And more importantly, is it equitable?,” said Ald. Gilbert Villegas.
As schools weigh compliance, state Rep. Paul Jacobs anticipates proposals to replace lost federal funding with state dollars. “You’re going to see it,” Jacobs said. “Illinois, with the way it’s traveling, is probably going to try to pick up some kind of money. Where? I have no idea. The general fund doesn’t have it.”
State Rep. Ryan Spain filed House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 19 this week to require a two-thirds majority for a quorum like Texas, instead of a simple majority as Illinois has now. “If the governor is so happy with what’s taking place in Texas and, helping those legislators, I hope he would support having the same quorum requirements in the Illinois General Assembly,” Spain said.
“Democrats’ hypocrisy is worthy of Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy.’”
Pritzker presided over a congressional redistricting in Illinois in 2021 that received an “F” for its partisanship from gerrymander.princeton.edu, a website that specializes in tracing gerrymandering across the nation.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker portrayed his party as the victim of conniving pols and pledged to respond in kind. Yet, it was Pritzker who approved the redistricting that guaranteed that, while Republicans represent almost half of the voters, they will receive less than twenty percent of the congressional seats.
“For months leading up to the implementation of the Pretrial Fairness Act, Illinoisans were warned about ‘the end of days’ and ‘the purge.’ But two years later, we can see that crime did not go up after the Pretrial Fairness Act. In fact, certain serious crimes have plummeted. … We are proud to live in a state that operates in evidence and reality instead of fear.”
“Rest assured when the city attorney comes before the gaggle of city council members to spin another yarn about how it is a wiser and cheaper course of action to settle than try the case, the majority of uninformed geese in the council chambers will nod in agreement and cast their vote to make the men rich.”
Ted Dabrowski would run to be the Republican Party nominee. The Wirepoints president said the state should be in a better position. “We should be a top five state for economic growth, for jobs, for education and right now we’re losing people,” Dabrowski said. “What I’ve found is it’s become too expensive to live here, there aren’t enough good jobs, and our kids aren’t reading properly. Governor Pritzker has had seven years to fix those things, but they’ve gotten worse under him.”
This expansion of sustainable community schools (SCS) from 20 to 36 locations — costing $500,000 per school annually— is rolling out as CPS continues to lay off staffers and cut services to close a $734 million budget deficit in the next two weeks. Skeptics of the model want more data and community input in the SCS process as well as scrutiny over ties between partner organizations and the CTU.
The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability’s to limit the reasons Chicago police officers can make traffic stops is moving forward even though its own in-house survey found that a majority of city residents do not want any restrictions placed on CPD’s ability to stop drivers. And in a move critics call troubling for a city commission that is supposed to be committed to transparency in policing, the CCPSA did not release its survey results until the 18th District panel filed a Freedom of Information Act request.
“Preckwinkle, who has done more than any Democrat to destroy Chicago, will finally be held accountable before the voters by a fellow Democrat? She sucked up to George Soros to install the do-nothing Kim Foxx, the lickspittle newspapers protected her and she helped install the hapless Mayor Panic Attacks Mayor Johnson. Now she is finally being challenged? And I never thought that I’d see the day. But that day is here.”
This slew of closures was hardly unique in the city in the months during and after the pandemic. More than 4,400 Chicago businesses closed during that stretch; in the restaurant industry, almost a fifth of Chicago’s restaurants closed between March 2020 and August 2021. But Bryn Mawr Avenue also faced the rebuilding of the Red Line’s north branch, which saw the closure of the Bryn Mawr station and construction-related headaches for more than four years.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” said Burnett, adding that he is still waiting to hear if he is going to get the CHA job after a confirmation vote was delayed at the board’s July meeting. “I can live on $120,000 a year, no problem. I’ve got my fingers crossed, but if I don’t get it, I’m cool.”
St. Charles police said a possible threat was made just after 7 a.m. Wednesday at the Q-Center Hotel and convention complex. Roughly 400 people were immediately evacuated. Police and the Kane County Sheriff’s office bomb squad conducted a search of the center and said “no device was found.”
In fact, $56 million in property tax refunds have been held up since May. County Treasurer Maria Pappas expressed her frustration with the situation: “Mr. Kuznar’s story is not unique and that’s immensely frustrating to me. He’s among 25,000 taxpayers and 2,200 taxing agencies owed hundreds of millions of dollars that we can’t pay due to the ineptitude of Tyler Technologies.
Chicago 33rd Ward Republican committeeman Jason Proctor said CPS needs to do better. “Thirty-thousand dollars per student and scores have not improved. That’s a problem,” he said. At least three CPS institutions spent more than $90,000 per student last year. “We need to do better with what we have. We need to have a foundation of fiscal responsibility to the taxpayer,” Proctor said.
Illinois’ stagnant job growth, rising taxes, and cultural divisions took center stage as Dan Proft welcomed Ted to discuss the state’s economic challenges. “We don’t create jobs in Illinois,” Ted warned. “It’s dismal.” This lack of opportunity is fueling population loss, with residents and businesses choosing to relocate to states like Texas, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
Ted joined Ray Stevens to talk about the new pension bill that will provide some Chicago police officers and firefighters with higher pensions but will ultimately cost the city billions. Plus, Ted tackles the Texas Democrat lawmakers who fled to Illinois in order to prevent an important vote on redistricting.
“We have reached a point of no return,” Mayor Johnson said Tuesday. “The systems that people rely upon — education, health care, housing, our transportation — they are woefully underfunded, and everyone knows that. Everyone knows what, you know, my commitment is to progressive revenue. I can’t do this by myself.”
“Look, I get the position that the governor was in. It’s a veto-proof majority. He was in a tough position,” Johnson added of the support the bill received in the General Assembly. “I understand that, and I’m going to continue to work with the governor around ways in which we can generate the revenue to respond to pensions, transportation, education.”
“When a member of Congress publicly declares allegiance to another country over the United States, it’s bound to raise eyebrows — and for good reason. That’s what happened when U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez, speaking at an event in Mexico City, said: ‘I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.'”
The late night host held up a map of Illinois’ congressional districts, noting the unusual shapes of the 17th and 13th congressional districts, as the state becomes a focal point during the latest redistricting talks. “It’s like the stinger on a scorpion down there,” Colbert said of the 13th District, which stretches from central to southern Illinois. “We handed it over to a kindergarten class and let them decide,” Pritzker joked. “…That’s our independent commission.”
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