“I do give credit to the administration for their prioritizing paying down any of the debt that we incurred,” said former Rep. Tom Demmer, the House Republicans’ longtime budgeting point man. “On the other hand, I’m still concerned about some of the spending growth relative to what we expect our economic and revenue growth is going to look like.”

DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick will not face possible censure from the DuPage County Board after he agreed to enforce “all state and local laws” after a discussion which included talk about the state’s new assault weapons ban with DuPage County Board Chair Deborah Conroy and DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin, according to a joint statement from the three released Monday.

In Illinois, the two entities that oversee the legislature are the Legislative Ethics Commission and the Legislative Inspector General. The Legislative Ethics Commission acts as a “quasi-judicial body,” while the Legislative Inspector General performs the actual investigations into alleged wrongdoing. The Legislative Ethics Commission is almost entirely comprised of active lawmakers, the very people the commission should be holding accountable.

Aspokesperson for Illinois State Police confirmed that ISP took enforcement action earlier this month against a business for “openly advertising the sale of banned weapons.” The statement said the investigation is ongoing and additional information wasn’t immediately available.

“The government is over a barrel here, and even worse, the negotiating is collusive,” attorney Philip Howard said. “The unions helped JB Pritzker get elected, and then they come in and sit on his side of the bargaining table.”

According to Pew Charitable Trusts, for November, the consumer price index rose nearly 7% in Illinois over the past year. Nationally, increases ranged from a high of more than 8.3% to less than 6.1%. Justin Theal, state fiscal health officer at Pew, said, “If inflation persists, and if high prices stick around for quite some time, that does tend to lead to decreased consumer demand and then therefore decreased sales taxes for states over time.”

“Without an anti-right-to-work constitutional amendment in place, union bosses feared that it would become more and more difficult over time for their allies in the Illinois Legislature to defend maintaining the labor-policy status quo…. But no sensible person should regard the adoption of Amendment 1 as a victory for workers. Instead, by locking in a system that already foisted on Illinois a net loss of nearly 300,000 residents in their peak-earning years from 2011 to 2021, Amendment 1 can be expected to lead to even greater out-migration in the future.”

Jonathan Jackson was named to the House Foreign Affairs Committee along with Rep. Brad Schneider of Highland Park. Jackson also gong to agriculture committee along with Rep. Eric Sorensen and Rep. Mary Miller. Sorensen also going on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, along with Reps. Sean Casten of Downers Grove and Bill Foster. Rep. Delia Ramirez is joining the Homeland Security and Veterans’ Affairs committees. Ramirez and Budzinski will be joined on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee by a fellow Illinois member and new chairman of the committee, Republican Rep. Mike Bost as well as their Democratic colleague Rep.

Soaking the rich used to be mostly a game for left-wing politicians pushing higher marginal rates on upper-income taxpayers. Now local utilities want in on the action. As my colleague Steve Daniels reported Jan. 19, gas companies Peoples Gas and Nicor are seeking regulatory approval for a new regime of income-based rates. Electric utility Commonwealth Edison plans to offer a “progressive” rate plan next year.

As of Friday, there were 1,690 bills introduced from both chambers – 156 in the state Senate and 1,534 in the House. A common thread in the bills was income tax credits applying to a wide spectrum of eligible taxpayers, state agencies. and departments. Here is a sampling of tax credit-focused bills that have been introduced.

Such a feat will require solutions to staffing shortfalls, school capacity limitations and an increase to the state’s nearly $600 million early childhood education block grant program. “If universal meant that the state was going to help pay for the preschool rooms, I could understand it, but I couldn’t accommodate any more kids than I have now,” Burr Ridge Principal Tracy Ritchey

Illinois lawmakers have called on IDES to publish a state audit detailing how much fraudsters stole in unemployment benefits during the pandemic, but that report has never surfaced. In Congress, House Republicans plan to launch their first investigation into fraud during the pandemic. The U.S. House Oversight Committee said it will hold a hearing Feb. 1 on what it calls the “rampant waste of taxpayer dollars in COVID relief programs.”

“While the FDA has dithered, dallied and delayed, more than one million of America’s kids have started vaping,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin stated this week calling on the agency to obey the court order requiring them to take action by September 2021. and remove all unauthorized e-cigarettes from store shelves.

The gaming discipline generated $290 million in state tax revenue for the 2022 calendar year.

According to LawnStarter, Illinois ranks as the ninth best state for those seeking to live off the grid. Illinois scores highest in the safety category, which includes measures like air and water quality, measures of natural hazards, access to health care, and the crime rate. The state’s lowest ranking category is affordability.

California lawmakers passed a law that would pay fast-food workers more—and the world’s biggest fast-food chain is slamming it. In a letter on McDonald’s website, the company’s president of the U.S. division, Joe Erlinger, says the measure “makes it all but impossible to run small-business restaurants.”

Eight states last week introduced bills or announced plans in a coordinated effort to increase taxes on the wealthy. The approaches to hiking taxes vary, but all would make the richest Americans pay more. The efforts are all in blue states—California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and Washington—and their prospects are uncertain.

“Volkswagen filed a federal lawsuit in December that described a bill which overwhelmingly passed both Illinois legislative chambers and was signed into law in 2021 as, ‘crony capitalism at work: redistributive legislation that takes hundreds of millions of dollars from some (but not all) motor vehicle manufacturers and, for no public purpose, deposits that money directly into the pockets of politically favored Illinois (car) dealers.’ The automaker claims the law is costing it an extra $10 million a year.”

In Illinois, ranked choice has received little support from either of the two major parties. “We prefer runoff elections between the candidates receiving the top two vote totals,” says Steve Boulton, chairman of the Chicago Republican Party. “We see a mandate from a majority of the voters as a critical part of the legitimacy of our democratic system. [With ranked choice] voters are forced to rank candidates that they do not prefer at all, and even vehemently oppose.”

“There is nothing inherently wrong with allowing those who will have to live with a project like windmill farms to have an effective say about where they are located. One might even call that a common-sense approach.”

State Sen. Steve McClure, a Republican from Springfield and a former Sangamon County assistant state’s attorney, raised a concern that the bill allows “criminals that are dangerous to change their names.”

The shortage is not universal; several counties in the region, including DeWitt, said they were fully staffed. But for those who are affected, it comes as prosecutors across the state are preparing for significant potential changes under the Pretrial Fairness Act, a component of the broader criminal justice reform legislation known as the SAFE-T Act.

White County Circuit Judge Scott Webb asked Assistant Attorney General Darren Kinkead, “If the House speaker and the Senate president say they’ve read it, there’s no need to put it on the legislators’ desks?” Webb listened to Kinkead’s response and said, “You are saying there’s no way to enforce the three readings doctrine?…The way this was done concerns me greatly.”

The State of Illinois will receive $760 million in opioid settlement funds. Twenty percent of the $760 million allocation will go directly to the State and another 25% will be split among counties and eligible municipalities. The remaining 55% of funds were designated for the Illinois Remediation Fund to be used “exclusively for programs and purposes that address the opioid crisis in Illinois.”

The scope of work provides for removing and replacing the historic site roof, repairing damaged plaster, replacing wood flooring, basement waterproofing, restoring the perimeter fence, upgrading three elevators, remodeling the existing public restrooms, replacing the fire alarm system, replacing plumbing systems, and for the abatement of asbestos-containing materials.

Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, said until the state shores up its pension problem, taxes will continue to increase. “The real issue is that we owe tons of money, more than any other state in the country, in pensions to public sector employees. Because we have not set aside the money, we do not have the money to pay for it. The government is going to have to come after everybody with higher and higher taxes.”

State Sen. Dave Koehler was listed as not voting. He said there were things he supported and things he didn’t, but declined to elaborate. “Legislation, as always, kind of shades of gray and sometimes on these kinds of issues I just felt I couldn’t go either way.”

In his December ruling, Judge Thomas Cunnington determined the pretrial provisions of the SAFE-T Act violate the separation of powers principle. “The court finds that had the Legislature wanted to change the provisions in the Constitution regarding eliminating monetary bail as a surety, they should have submitted the question on the ballot to the electorate at a general election.”

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has warned the College Board that his state will reject a revised Advanced Placement African American studies course “designed to appease extremists like the Florida Governor and his allies.” He said in his letter, “One Governor should not have the power to dictate the facts of U.S. history.”

Treasurer Michael Frerichs blamed Congressional Republicans, saying “This is not about fiscal responsibility, this is about whether checks for Social Security recipients and Medicare benefits are paid. Extremist Congressional Republicans are using this routine bipartisan procedure in an attempt to force cuts in social security, medicare, and other programs.”

“The suburban tax base utilizes Chicago’s infrastructure to earn their disproportionately higher income, yet their taxes fund already wealthy towns,” the plan from Brandon Johnson states. “A Metra ‘city surcharge’ will raise $40 million from the suburbs.” The Chicago Teachers Union organizer and avowed Socialist said his plan would also increase the Chicago hotel tax – which is already the highest in the nation.

The law, which he asserts is a “clear violation of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution” and also of the Illinois state constitution, “places (McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally and other prosecutors) in an impossible ethical quandary of enforcing new, unconstitutional criminal offenses against citizens who are lawfully exercising their constitutional rights.”

The metro areas which had the largest over-the-year percentage increases in total nonfarm jobs were the Lake-Kenosha IL/WI Metro, the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island IA-IL MSA, the Rockford MSA, and the Chicago Metro Division.

In its filing Thursday, Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office argued that Cunnington’s decision was “flawed,” arguing that the state constitution does not require Illinois “to maintain a system of monetary bail.” Raoul’s office also cited dictionary definitions of bail going back to before the United States was a country that never connected bail with the act of putting down a cash deposit.

The base in-state tuition for undergraduates starting next school year at the Urbana-Champaign campus will increase to $12,712 a year, a $238 increase. The base in-state tuition for undergraduates starting next year at the Chicago campus will be $11,178 a year, a $208 increase.

Chris Davis of the Illinois chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses said that actions in Springfield directly affect small businesses. “We are ranked second worst in the nation and we still continue to pass mandates and taxes on to employers that makes it more difficult for job creators to create positions for workers.”

According to the National School Choice Awareness Foundation, Illinois offers tax deductions for most students in private or home schools, and state-run scholarships for students under a certain income level. The state does not, however, offer a full-time, statewide online public school option, unlike a majority of U.S. states.

Since the ban was enacted, at least seven lawsuits have been filed in state or federal court seeking to overturn the law on various grounds.

Among them, Jasper County Sheriff Brandon Francis said his officers would not enforce the law, saying his oath is to the constitution and not to the governor. “I don’t have any fear from not enforcing this. When I took my oath as sheriff, the second line in my oath was to uphold the constitution of the United States of America.”

And even though parts of the bill received criticism, many lawmakers who opposed those elements said they felt compelled to vote for it anyway because other parts of the bill were too important. Those necessary provisions included enabling certain rural hospitals to draw upon more federal funds, distributing federal disaster aid to ambulance services impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and extending the deadline for a shuttered hospital in Chicago’s west suburbs to reopen under new ownership.

Since 2010, CTU has funneled $2.05 million to candidates running for the Illinois House of Representatives and an additional $528,000 to Senate candidates. That includes more than $1.2 million to 89 out of 175 current lawmakers2 in the Illinois General Assembly.

“Consolidating the cases will prevent unnecessary duplication of litigation in four different cases, promoting judicial economy. And as each case is at the initial stages of litigation, no party will be prejudiced by the consolidation,” ISP’s motion says.

“What about the blue states, then? Pritzker shows they’re happy to continue using the College Board as a route to leftist national dominance of our education system.”

“When lawyers turn up to make arcane legal arguments that invite death, agony and the lifelong pain of loved ones left behind, let’s hope the courts begin to say, no, that is not what America is all about. Let’s hope lawmakers at every level seek sensible new laws that will continue to make it harder for people to shoot others with guns.”

“Over the last decade, American states have increasingly sorted themselves into two groups. Often, these are described as high-tax, highly regulated places such as California, New York, and Illinois, on the one hand, and low-tax, less regulated states such as Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Indiana, on the other.”

“With the help of Democratic supermajorities in the legislature, Pritzker has passed laws that urban and suburban voters love and rural voters hate — on guns, on abortion, on the environment. His success has deepened the already deep divide between Chicagoland and Downstate, reawakening a secession movement that has inspired 27 Southern Illinois counties to pass resolutions in favor of forming a 51st state, so they won’t have to be governed by Pritzker and them big city libruls.”

García, who is also running for Chicago mayor, has received criticism from his opponents for receiving donations from the now-federally indicted cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried while García served on the committee that regulates aspects of the digital assets industry.

“In Illinois, we reject any curriculum modifications designed to appease extremists like the Florida Governor and his allies,” Pritzker wrote in the letter to the College Board.

In order to meet the 2040 requirement of getting up to 90%, the city would have to find other ways to get the money. They said this could be through sales and income taxes.

Senate Minority Leader John Curran said he would introduce legislation to block the tax change.

The legislation would provide counties with “guardrails” for siting wind farms, and would create a commission that would oversee and approve wind turbines everywhere but Chicago. Gov. J.B. Pritzker said it is needed so projects are not held “hostage” by local opponents.

State Rep. Tom Weber, who filed a request for an audit of the department in April 2022, also called for Smith to be replaced. “This annual report shows a 40% increase in deaths in children who were on DCFS’s radar. Gov. Pritzker may not want to admit it because he chose Director Smith as his guy to control the agency, but it is clear it is time for a change.”

The tests aren’t going away. They’re required by federal law for school accountability purposes, and even harsh critics of tests say they’re one of the only ways to measure inequities between schools. And the stakes are heightened now: Test scores plummeted during the pandemic. Illinois is slated to spend $28.4 million on the test this school year.

Illinois is losing residents five times faster than any of its neighboring states. Worse, the data disproves a common notion that people are leaving Illinois because of the weather. While Illinoisans left the state, neighboring Kentucky, Wisconsin, Indiana and Missouri each gained residents from other states – and they don’t get their own, special weather.

More than 71,000 people collecting public pensions from six statewide retirement plans have moved out of Illinois, taking more than $2.4 billion annually with them; That’s roughly 18% of all the pensioners in those systems. Florida leads all migration destinations, followed by Arizona and Wisconsin.

Starting January 1, 2024, Illinois employees will be entitled to earn and use a minimum of 40 hours of paid leave (or a pro rata number of hours) during a twelve-month period as designated by the employer.

The Marshall Project’s analysis of the Census Bureau’s government payroll data found that from March 2020 to March 2021, nearly 80% of cities saw a decrease in both the number of overall government workers and the number of sworn officers; In cities with more than 1 million residents, such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the number of sworn officers dropped twice as fast as the national average.

In their lawsuits, the NRA and Illinois Gun Rights Alliance both argue Gov. JB Pritzker and his Democratic allies in the General Assembly simply chose to ignore the Supreme Court’s rulings when enacting the Illinois law.

Although the NRA is not listed as a plaintiff, it joined the National Sports Shooting Foundation to bring forth the suit, similar to what it did in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which was ultimately taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court. In that case, the court struck down New York’s concealed carry gun law with a 6-3 majority, ruling the law prevented law-abiding citizens from exercising their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

The large response comes after DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick said he would not enforce the ban. He is one of more than 80 of the 102 sheriffs in the state who said they are not enforcing the new law.

Democrats finally have a strategy to stop billionaires from fleeing high tax states: Block the escape routes. That’s the logic behind coordinated moves in progressive states to tax wealth. The reforms aren’t likely to pass immediately, but they illustrate the increasingly open socialist goals of progressives and their public-union backers. The Illinois plan would treat billionaires’ unrealized capital gains as income, taxed at 4.95%. The targets would

Illinois lawmakers have called on IDES to publish a state audit detailing how much fraudsters stole in unemployment benefits during the pandemic, but that report has never surfaced.

Gov. JB Pritzker downplayed the temporary restraining order and legal filings. He said the lawsuits don’t represent the state. “These are folks who were in the super minority among the public, super minority in terms of elected officials, people who lost elections.”

The biggest barrier to affordable college in Illinois is pensions. Rising pension costs push up Illinois tuition, forcing students to pay the difference.

Governor JB Pritzker signed a bill Monday that would eliminate the rest of the pandemic unemployment debt by using the state’s surplus in revenue to pay it off. Businesses will pay back the state by putting money into the Rainy Day Fund.

In the latest hit to the agency, a class action lawsuit alleges the department has “willfully and wrongly” left dozens of children in its care in juvenile jails for months at a time. “We’ve been pressing the governor for over a year now about all the chaos at DCFS and he simply chooses not to respond,” state Rep. Dan Ugaste said.

Jim Dey: “(State Sen. Robert) Martwick said he favors progressive rates because they would pave the way to property-tax cuts. Legislators have for years promised property-tax reductions in exchange for increases in the state’s flat rate. Illinois’ first flat income-tax rate in 1969 was 2.5 percent. It currently stands at 4.95 percent. Meanwhile, property taxes levied by local units of government have steadily increased and are among the highest in the nation.”

The Temp Worker and Fairness Safety Act would make it easier for workers to sue temp agencies, unionize and strike. It would also make it harder for temp agencies to use noncompete clauses and other tactics to discourage workers from moving to permanent employment with a client.

Caulkins said Monday evening that more than 250 gun owners and about a half-dozen gun dealers have agreed to sign onto his litigation in Macon County Circuit Court. Caulkins said he and some others also plan to file a federal lawsuit in the coming days.

Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health: “It is time to remind ourselves that in 2023, we have effective tools we didn’t have in 2020. And we have something even more powerful: knowledge and experience.”

“Last week, PlayIllinois estimated that legalizing online casinos in Illinois could net the state an additional $105.6 million in tax revenue annually…Yes, $105 million in additional tax revenue would be a drop in the bucket for an Illinois state pension debt that was nearly $140 billion as of December 2022…Yet, something has to be done to tackle this massive pension problem.”

Until now, counties have enjoyed wide latitude in setting the rules for where wind and solar energy arrays can locate. The new law would preempt local ordinances more restrictive than the new state standards.

Preliminary data released by the Illinois State Board of Education shows overall enrollment dropped by about 31,000 students — or 1.7% — between last school year and the current one, according to numbers as of Dec. 14. Chicago Public Schools accounts for at least a quarter of the decline.

Hopkins Park Mayor Mark Hodge said access to natural gas will likely bring economic opportunity. He hopes a closed manufacturing plant will soon get a new occupant. “It’s still good structure, good roof, and it’s able to be occupied, but nobody wanted to mess with it because it’s too much to heat it, too much for electric, too much for propane.”

DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick released a statement later Monday in response to U.S. Reps. Sean Casten’s remarks: “There is absolutely nothing that we are doing or not doing that would make a mass shooting more accessible in DuPage County. In fact, I have asked on multiple occasions to increase penalties on all existing gun crimes.”

“And a lot of these great candidates we had this past time put their heart and soul and their family treasure into these races only to be impacted by the top of the ticket, something they have no control over,” Illinois GOP Chairman Don Tracy said. “So, I think we almost have a fiduciary duty to look at our primary and determine whether neutrality is the best policy.”

Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office filed the petition in the 5th District Appellate Court in southern Illinois, arguing that Effingham County Judge Joshua Morrison had abused his discretion and the plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed in their lawsuit, thus the restraining order was granted incorrectly.

An Effingham County judge on Friday issued a temporary restraining order preventing the state from enforcing the gun ban on 866 plaintiffs who sued, including several gun stores. Monday, attorney Thomas DeVore announced the second case was filed in White County where he has 1,690 plaintiffs, 62 of which are gun stores, spanning across 92 counties.

Under a proposal being introduced by Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, anyone with a net worth of at least $1 billion would have to pay 4.95% of it off the top to the state each year regardless of whether investment markets are rising or falling and notwithstanding underlying economic conditions. “The bill’s prognosis is good,” said Guzzardi, whose measure also will be sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago. “The pandemic has only deepened the already wide economic disparity in this state. We need to act.”

“Companies should commit to re-examining their commitments to DEI and to providing greater DEI disclosures. This includes greater use of data across companies’ efforts to consider diverse talent. The current external pressures suggest companies that do not adequately and proactively tell a comprehensive story about the effectiveness of their DEI initiatives and their impact on employees, operations and the communities they serve will be called on to do so by their internal and external stakeholders.”

Some educators say the massive disruption of the pandemic is behind the increase in extreme student behaviors. It could be particularly to blame with younger students. They might have been at home for part of preschool or elementary school— crucial developmental years where kids learn so many social-emotional skills. Mel Gilfillan, president of the Rockford Education Association, says that’s what he sees.

Gillespie, Illinois, teacher and parent Katherine Prange: “Some students feel the ‘different normal’ means lowered standards — from students, teachers and the education system. Others feel cracks and crevices in their educational foundation, and still, some students feel that the passion for education was lost in the sea of COVID-19. Whatever students feel, their frustration, antipathy and uncertainness about the future are evident.”

U.S. Reps. Sean Casten, Delia Ramirez, Bill Foster, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Mike Quigley, and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia have sent DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick a letter chastising him for saying he won’t enforce the ban. “As Sheriff, you do not have the authority to set enforcement priorities based on your personal views of a law’s constitutionality. Moreover, by choosing not to enforce the law, you will put the safety of DuPage residents and law enforcement officers at risk,” they wrote (with link to the full letter).

After Friday’s decision, Gov. JB Pritzker said to expect an appeal and criticized plaintiffs who he said were advancing ideology over public safety. Sheriffs across the state have said they will not enforce the gun ban and registry.

“Well, of course. Let’s be honest about it. When that information is found, it diminishes the stature of any person who is in possession of it because it’s not supposed to happen. … The elected official bears ultimate responsibility,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said.

“(The list) outlines a highly skewed 42-book list of mandatory reading for every public elementary, middle and high school student,” Beth Feeley wrote in a 2021 column for the Chicago Tribune. “Not every book on this list reflects the critical race theory-inspired ideologies like those of included authors Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. But 42 books — almost 10,000 pages — on race? The reading list will dominate the curriculum.”

Jim Dey: “The rule at ComEd, the filing asserts, was to do whatever it took to keep the powerful Chicago Democrat happy. In return, ComEd knew from experience, (former Speaker Michael) Madigan wouldn’t block ComEd-favored initiatives in the legislature. But what happened if ComEd couldn’t make Madigan happy? Company officials didn’t want to find out…”

“In Illinois, for instance, only 1 in 5 students performs at grade level in either math or English. In Chicago, the results are even worse, and those for black students are worst of all. Among Chicago’s African American students, only 1 in 10 performs at grade level. These results would have been damaging 50 years ago. In today’s economy, they are devastating. What can be done? The easy answer – more funding – is wrong.”

Tom Weitzel retired Riverside Chief of Police: If law enforcement leaders cannot stay out of the political fray and refrain from making purposefully inflammatory statements for their own personal gain, the profession is doomed.

In 1967, when many campuses were inflamed and the University of Chicago was under internal pressure to announce opposition to the Vietnam War, the university produced the Kalven Report, which said campus free speech and the academic mission depend on a “heavy presumption” in favor of institutional neutrality regarding political matters:

The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) announced today that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.7 percent, while nonfarm payrolls were almost unchanged, down by just -800 in December, based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and released by IDES.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a measure that would change guidelines for how defendants who are unfit to stand trial are placed in proper care. The measure, however, is being criticized by the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association.

Illinois voters rejected a proposal in 2020 to change the state’s flat income tax to a graduated tax. There are currently discussions to try the measure again. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, however, said that’s not on his radar.

“Taxes due should be paid, but government should not be able to seize a home, sell it, and keep the proceeds above what it is owed. Examples of this behavior are not uncommon. In addition to Minnesota, 12 other states allow home-equity theft, including New York, Illinois, Alabama, and Nebraska.”

Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “In 2021 Illinois received more new business applications than any other Midwestern state, but only 6.7% of those applications were expected to result in business formation within one year of applying…There are too many compounding costs specific to the state that present challenges. Illinois has the third-most cumbersome regulatory code in the United States with 278,475 individual restrictions and requirements.”

Chris Davis, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said small businesses have struggled with supply-chain issues, inflation and finding workers. Mandatory paid leave would be “one more tax imposed on them by the state of Illinois that’s just going to be difficult to manage.”

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation made some adjustments since the last round, with a goal of improving its social equity candidate reach. Among them, the online applications are a little bit more bare bones and the fee has droppped to $250 from the $2,500 that it was in the last round.

In the ruling, Effingham County Judge Joshua Morrison said he believed attorney Tom DeVore and his clients were likely to prevail on their claims that the new weapons ban violated their rights under the Illinois state constitution to keep and bear arms, and their rights under the state constitution to equal protection and due process. He further found the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on their claims that the state’s Democratic supermajority unconstitutionally rushed the legislation through the Illinois General Assembly during a lame duck session, providing virtually no opportunity for lawmakers or Illinois citizens to debate or discuss the

Mayoral challenger Jesús “Chuy” García is not accused of wrongdoing, and through a spokesman, denies he played any role in the push by former House Speaker Michael Madigan to appoint Juan Ochoa to the utility’s board, which is one of the centerpiece allegations in the ComEd bribery conspiracy case set for trial in March.

The lawsuit seeks to represent all individuals placed in DCFS care since Jan. 1, 2018, that spent at least seven consecutive days incarcerated after a court order for their release upon request. The plaintiffs estimated the class includes “well over 100 children.”

The judge’s order and opinion linked here.

“As we see in California and elsewhere, too often bad policy developed in progressive states are exported elsewhere, and Illinois’ type of installment loan rate cap is being considered by federal policymakers. However, instituting a national interest rate cap would prevent low-income Americans from accessing loans to pay the bills for necessities like water and electricity.”

The legislation carries risks for Illinois, which is still smarting from the departure of hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, a frequent critic of the state tax code and the owner of Citadel LLC. To combat a potential pattern of billionaire outmigration, state Rep. Will Guzzardi said, the states have to collaborate. “That’s part of why we are working as a multistate coalition. We want to send a message that there is nowhere to hide.”

Here, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin comments on the debt ceiling, classified documents found at the personal properties of Joe Biden and Donald Trump, arson at Peoria Planned Parenthood, and Illinois’ role in the presidential primary.

According to the Illinois Policy Institute’s research, since 2020, Illinois lawmakers have seen more yearly increases than every other state except New York, which is highest in the nation for lawmaker pay.

“We’re going to say that for all the stocks and financial instruments that you all own, we’re going to value your assets, and when they go up in worth, we’re going to tax them, just like it’s income,” said state Rep. Will Guzaardi, who sees this as the start of a nationwide movement.

Coalition members and Illinois state Rep. Will Guzzard said, “We are going to treat those unrealized gains like income, because that’s what they are for these billionaires, they’re not making income from going to work and getting paid a salary like the rest of us do, they make their income from moving around these esoteric financial instruments and its time we tax that just like we tax the income for everybody else.”

“That’s not something that I’m focused on in this session. We’ve done lots of work to balance the budget and close corporate loopholes,” Gov. JB Pritzker said, speaking to reporters by phone from the Davos, Switzerland economic forum. Pritzker said he wants to work on property tax relief.

David Greising, of the Better Government Association: “If Pritzker returns to Davos in 2024, it shouldn’t be just him and staff again. To make the trip worth repeating, he might consider organizing a posse of business leaders — and putting together a plan to get business done.”

This lawsuit filed Thursday tells the story of nine kids who spent anywhere from 45 days to six months wrongfully incarcerated. As of Thursday evening, seven kids were still locked up when they should not have been, according to Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert. Between them, those seven kids have logged over 239 days under lock and key for doing nothing wrong.

During a conference call with members of Illinois’ media Thursday, Gov. JB Pritzker addressed critics who said he’s “hobnobbing” with “leftist global elites.” He responded, “It’s important for Illinois to be seen on a world stage as a destination for the companies that exist across the world.”

“I do not believe defaulting on our national debt is a prudent decision for our credibility, or our economic and financial stability,” U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood said. “However, we must take steps to reduce our debt and limit out-of-control spending coming from Washington.”

In particular, Pritzker touted Illinois’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act and the $45 billion capital infrastructure plan known as Rebuild Illinois. “We’ve made it very clear when looking for nation-leading legislation, and leadership on fighting climate change and clean energy developments, that you don’t need to stop at the coastal states,” Pritzker added.

The drop in union membership among Illinois workers continues a 33-year downward trend for the state, which saw union membership at 20.8% in 1989 compared to 13.1% in 2022.

In New York and Illinois, for example, the proposed bills would change the rules around capital gains and estate taxes to tax unrealized gains even if an individual hasn’t sold the asset. This so-called mark-to-market form of taxation has been proposed at the federal level by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR).

The Opening Doors program is designed to aid lower-income people of color who have historically faced steeper barriers in their path toward homeownership with $6,000 in forgivable assistance for a down payment and/or closing costs. Originally launched in December 2020, Opening Doors has assisted more than 7,100 homebuyers with $43 million in Rebuild Illinois capital funds.

In a statement, IDHS said it had to correct a “technical issue,” that caused the backlog.

“Basically every major gas and electric utility in Illinois has filed for a rate increase at once,” Illinois Public Interest Research Group director Abe Scarr said. He said the timing has to do with changing state regulations, including the expiration of laws that largely removed authority from the Illinois Commerce Commission.

IDHS Inspector General Peter Neumer is asking legislators for a change in law that would allow his office to report workers engaged in similar misconduct to an existing statewide registry. Under the current system, state workers who help their colleagues by lying to or misleading investigators can face termination if they’re caught, but findings against them can’t be reported to the registry and nothing would prevent them from going to work in another health care setting.

Once signed, beginning January 1, 2024, the Act will require nearly all covered Illinois employers to provide its covered employees up to 40 hours of paid leave per year, to be used “for any purpose.” The Act applies to all employers in Illinois, including units of state and local government and government agencies. It does not, however, cover school districts organized under the School Code or park districts organized under the Park District Code.

“This hard-bound copy of the historical record is offered as a limited edition and signed by Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who served on the committee. All proceeds will benefit charitable organizations working to uphold and defend democracy in America,” a description of the book says on the website for Kinzinger’s Country First PAC.

As the state of Illinois prepares to integrate more electric vehicles into its economy, the five-time senator acknowledged that the federal government must find a way to recoup a significant loss of motor fuel tax revenue. “It is not unfair to say to the drivers of vehicles, even electric vehicles, ‘Are you prepared to pay your fair share of some of the infrastructure in America if you keep up with the growth of the economy?'”

When asked for clarification on the meaning of Pritzker’s remarks about “reluctant members of his (President Joe Biden’s) own party,” Jordan Abudayyeh, the governor’s deputy chief of staff for communications, said, “I think the Governor’s words were pretty clear here and I’ll let them speak for [themselves].”

When asked about companies saying they are thinking of leaving, Pritzker says “that’s not what we are hearing.”

The request distributes the increase to the public universities based on the percentage and number of students at each institution receiving federal Pell grants, IBHE Executive Director Ginger Ostro said. The board is using the federal grants, which are awarded to students with great financial need, as a temporary funding procedure while the Commission on Equitable Public University Funding seeks a more permanent solution.

Pritzker gave an additional $27 million to the Democratic Governors Association, federal Internal Revenue Service reports showed.

After it was revealed several collections of classified materials were found at the home and private office of Democratic President Joe Biden from the time he was vice president, Pritzker said there should be an independent investigation, but said the Trump stash story is “vastly different…Where he was literally hiding documents and refusing to turn them over whereas this White House has turned them over and has encouraged an investigation.”

Attorney Thomas DeVore was given an emergency hearing Wednesday for the case he filed in Effingham County state court the day before. “We had argument for about two hours on the elements of whether the temporary restraining order would be an appropriate thing for the judge to do,” DeVore said. “Judge took it under advisement and said he will issue his opinion by the close of business on Friday.”

“If you really believe in something, you don’t give up after one loss,” state Sen. Robert Martwick said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

The No. 1 reason United Van Lines was given for people leaving Illinois was jobs, with more than one-third of respondents listing it as a primary reason ahead of family and retirement. Housing and employment opportunities have both been made worse by poor public policy in Illinois.

A republication of our Wirepoints column.

Allowing Illinois municipalities to create these districts will boost budgets for local tourism bureaus and make Illinois more competitive in efforts to attract visitors and events that bring visitors to Illinois, Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association President Michael Jacobson said. More than 200 cities and 19 states already have similar districts in place. “When you look at the additional funds that those districts have generated to local convention and visitor bureaus, our Illinois… groups were falling behind,” Jacobson said.

“When we pass a law like this, it will be safe, legal and regulated, which will automatically put it under the health care regimen and provide people with the safety that they need by trained licensed facilitators and in healthcare settings,” Rep. La Shawn Ford, the bill’s sponsor, said.

The law in question aims to hold the firearms industry legally liable for what the prosecutors label “irresponsible sale and marketing of firearms when that conduct results in harm to the public. In the amicus brief submitted Wednesday, the coalition led by Raoul asserts the law’s legitimacy to protect residents public health, safety and welfare.

Theirs is the first federal lawsuit related to Illinois’ gun ban and registry, against the governor, the attorney general, the Illinois State Police director and state’s attorneys and sheriffs from several counties. It follows two other suits that were filed in state court Tuesday.

California’s public-sector pensions have a staggering accounting hole of $274 billion, according to the latest report from the Equable Institute. Illinois public-sector pensions are in the hole to the sum of $210 billion — and you could argue that is even more remarkable because Illinois, the U.S.’s sixth most populous state, has just one-third the population of California

Despite having been in the House only since 2018, Mike Marron is moving toward the top in senior leadership in the House Republican caucus.

The Faculty of Academy of Cultural Competence and Equity (FACCE), outlined learning objectives, which include the ability to understand the “historical and societal context of issues related to social injustice, inequity, and oppression.”

DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick believes the new law violates Second Amendment rights and his office will not arrest those who do not register their weapons, nor will it arrest or house anyone charged solely with not complying with the act. The DuPage County board voted in October to support state and federal legislation banning the sale of high-powered weapons and high-capacity magazines.

State Superintendent Carmen Ayala’s budget proposal calls for a $350 million boost for K-12 schools, or about 4%, plus a $60 million increase to early childhood education. The rest of the requested increase relates to transportation, special education, and free meals. But some education advocates say a $550 million increase in K-12 funding is needed to fully fund all districts under the state’s evidence-based funding formula.

In a phone interview, Sen. Rob Martwick, who represents portions of Chicago’s Northwest Side and adjacent suburbs, said he still believes the state, and particularly middle-class families, need the income and lower property taxes, respectively, that a graduated income tax would bring, even though voters in 2020 rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to do that by about a 10-point margin.

Gov. JB Pritzker has denied speculation that he plans to run for president in 2024 and said President Joe Biden had done a good job, but still says there are things that need to get done on a federal

As of Jan. 1, 2023, individuals in 38 health care professions in Illinois are now required to take racial bias training. The Illinois Administrative Code states that implicit bias occurs automatically and unintentionally, but affects behaviors, judgements and decisions.

The first lawsuit was filed in Crawford County, followed quickly by a lawsuit filed in Effingham County. Attorney Tom DeVore, the former Republican candidate for Illinois Attorney General, has also asked the court to issue an order barring the state from enforcing the law while the latter lawsuit is pending. A hearing on that restraining order request is scheduled for Jan. 18.

Illinois state lawmakers, with the OK of Gov. JB Pritzker, have boosted their pay 25% since 2018, but their constituents have seen incomes grow far slower. The median household’s income has grown 11%. The average worker’s salary has grown 18%.

State Rep. Blaine Wilhour told Tucker Carlson, “I think that we are in danger of losing our country if we don’t stand up, if we don’t wake up… I didn’t leave the farm to go to the General Assembly to stand by and watch somebody like J.B. Pritzker trash our Constitution. He trashed it during COVID with his illegal lockdowns. He trashed it with his so-called SAFE-T act, letting violent criminals out on the street, and now he’s coming after our guns. We won’t comply.”

One hundred and seventeen thousand people in Illinois, representing 9,000 participating employers, are saving money for their retirement through Illinois Secure Choice.

State Superintendent Carmen Ayala was one of the key players guiding Illinois’ 852 school districts during the pandemic. Now, she is retiring after 40 years in education, and just as schools are starting their recovery from the fallout of COVID-19.

The multi-year rate increase request is part of the state’s Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, a clean energy bill requiring Illinois utilities to get 40% of their power from renewable sources by 2030. If approved by state regulators, ComEd customers will pay an average of $17 per month more for delivery charges by 2027, the utility said.

Other Illinois gas providers are also asking for the state to approve increases.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates Illinois soybean farmers raised 677.25 million bushels on 10.75 million harvested acres with an average yield of 63 bushels per acre.

Some of his goals his transition team highlighted include expanding library access, release public education campaigns about fraud prevention, improving marketing for the organ donation program, and shorten wait times at Secretary of State facilities.

Indiana University’s Student Health Center, the University Health Services for University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Illinois’ McKinley Center all provide hormonal injections for students and other services they claim are “gender-affirming care” without parental notification and often with great medical risk.

“The fact is, a township government is the closest a person can get to a true participative government, one which represents the least number of people and can, thereby, be more responsive to an individual’s needs than can a larger government plagued by bureaucracies.”

The number of visitors to the McCormick complex currently forecast for this year (2.5 million) by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority will still be fewer than in 2019 when between 2.8 million and 2.9 million people attended about 270 events, including conventions at McCormick Place, college basketball games at the complex’s Wintrust Arena, shows at Arie

“The assault weapons ban is the law of Illinois,” Pritzker’s office said Monday. “The General Assembly passed the bill and the Governor signed it into law to protect children in schools, worshippers at church, and families at parades from the fear of sudden mass murder.” Regarding the dozens of sheriff’s offices vowing the flout the law, Prizker’s office said law enforcement offices don’t have the authority to “pick and choose which laws they support.”

“Reform in the states continues despite little notice in the national media, and the latest example comes from Wisconsin. Badger State Republicans are proposing a major tax cut and reform that includes a flat rate of 3.25% on income.”

Wrote the coalition of 14 senators, “It is of the utmost importance that we invest in our nation’s workers and families through paid family and medical leave programs to provide much-needed financial security, cost-savings for businesses, reductions in government public assistance expenditures, and stimulation for local economies.”

Among them, Iroquois County Sheriff Clinton Perzee said he would not use his jails to detain people exercising their civil rights.

In a ranking of the 2022 funded status of all 50 states plus Washington D.C., Washington D.C. and Washington State top the list with aggregate funded ratios of 103.4% and 102.9%, respectively. Illinois and Kentucky have the worst funded pension plans in the nation at the end of 2022.

See Wirepoints’ own column on this new report linked here.

In her previous term, Gabel served on the Appropriations — Human Services Committee; the Energy and Environment Committee; and the Insurance, Museums, Arts and Cultural Enhancements Committee. Gabel sponsored legislation requiring birth centers to obtain state licenses to operate, which passed in August 2021. She also sponsored a bill making it more difficult to circumvent vaccine requirements, which passed in November 2021.

Today’s affordability crunch in expensive coastal cities creates an opportunity for the Midwest. The trouble in Illinois is that when you add property taxes to the cost of housing, the state is no longer on par with its Midwestern neighbors. In 2022, Illinois had the second-highest property tax rate in the country. Altogether, Illinois ranks fourth in the country for the highest tax burden on residents when accounting for all state and local taxes—higher even than California, the state with the highest income taxes in the country.

Pipeline opponents are asking for a six-month moratorium on the pipeline permitting process while the regulations are being developed. “Right now, there are not even any setbacks as to how close the pipeline can be to a house,” farmer Karen Brockelsby said.

In doing so, Raoul joined a coalition of 22 attorneys general in arguing that the debt relief program is lawful and appropriate.

The governor is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make Illinois the 15th state to have laws regarding mandatory paid leave. “What it’s going to mean is that more businesses close, more businesses can’t survive, and the very people you are trying to protect won’t have jobs at all,” state Rep. Deanne Mazzochi said.

Motor fuel tax is the state’s leading source of transportation funding and makes up 52 percent of Illinois’ total transportation revenue and 82 percent of its contributions to the federal highway trust fund. The report’s main policy recommendation is implementing a vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, fee – an idea previously floated by Gov. JB Pritzker during his initial gubernatorial campaign in 2018.

“And both chambers gave the governor a big win with the passage of his $500 million Large Business Attraction Fund. There are hopes that the governor can use at least some of that money to persuade Stellantis to transform its about to be closed Belvidere plant to one that makes electric vehicles.”

Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. said a huge portion of the gaming revenue early on, possibly 85 to 90 percent, will go toward filling the near-$100 million shortfall in pension funding for Danville’s police and fire departments.

“Pritzker was sworn into office for his second term as governor on January 9. He said this during his inaugural address: ‘The right to privacy and bodily autonomy demand[s] that we establish a constitutional protection for reproductive rights in Illinois.’…And he certainly wasn’t for ‘the right to privacy and bodily autonomy’ when it came to COVID policies and mandates.”

“Right now, in front of the 5th appellate district, we still have a case pending on behalf of my department of correction employees,” Thomas DeVore said. “We are not going anywhere.”

“Governments cannot create demand; they cannot create revenue,” said Todd Maisch, president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. “So that means that small businesses must decide how to cut costs. Way too few members of the legislature understand that basic fact.”

Pritzker’s attendance will likely lead to more speculation about whether he’s trying to raise his profile as he, perhaps, considers a bid for the presidency – if President Joe Biden chooses not to run for reelection. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another possible presidential contender, will also attend the forum.

“This mandate is only going to increase the cost of employing people in the small business sector, which of course creates most of the jobs in the state of Illinois and across the nation,” Todd Maisch, the president and CEO of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, said.

Jim Dey: “(former Illinois House Speaker Michael) Madigan has kept a low profile since he was removed from his long-held speaker post in 2021. He even avoided showing up in court with his lawyers for arraignment. That was the case again this week when (Judge John) Blakey set the (2024) trial date.”

“The Second Amendment says the people have the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense purposes. That right is not limited to arms that just existed back in 1791 and it’s not the government’s place basically to say what firearms someone needs or should have or should want for those self-defense or other lawful purposes,” Wheaton-based attorney David Sigale said. “Those claims have to be analyzed under a historical tradition test, and when that test is applied I don’t think that these restrictions are going to hold up as passing muster.”

Illinois restaurants continue to tread lightly as adversity hits them from multiple directions. The combination of inflation, rising costs, staffing shortages and current and potential employees demanding higher pay can be a recipe for disaster.

A new bill would eliminate the current 10-year waiting period for felons, allowing them to change their name once their sentence is complete. State’s attorneys can still file objections for name changes to people on registries, people convicted of identity theft, and people with a pending criminal charge, as well as appear at the name-change hearing.

Sheriffs and state’s attorneys from across the state have said they won’t enforce a gun ban and registry, saying it violates Illinoians’ rights in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Attorney General Kwame Raoul responded, “As law enforcement agencies, there’s overlapping jurisdiction as well, so if they don’t do their jobs, there are other people there to do the job.”

Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement, “Our work on clean energy, our investments in infrastructure, and our dedication to technological innovation and growth are all world-class, and I’m excited to perform my role as Chief Marketing Officer for Illinois on the world stage.”

Now, base salary for members of the Illinois General Assembly starts at $85,000. The National Conference of State Legislatures classifies Illinois as “full-time lite,” meaning they serve smaller districts and work shorter sessions than full-time lawmakers, but are highly paid, employ large staffs and perform legislative work for at least 80% of their jobs.

The Senate will not have standing committees for commerce, pensions, redistricting or ethics. Senate President Don Harmon reassured Republicans that ethics bills will be heard in the Senate Executive Committee.

Given that the secretary of state’s office also tracks business registrations in the state, the Giannoulias administration will launch a video series to connect business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs to state resources.

State lawmakers approved the bill Tuesday which, among other items, would shield reproductive and gender-affirming health care patients and providers from legal action originating across state lines.

The recent Supreme Court decision that changed the landscape on the Second Amendment is known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The high court’s 6-3 ruling in that case last June 23 said judges must rely on the Second Amendment’s text and the history of gun regulation to decide the constitutionality of gun laws — and not on the strength of the public safety purpose of those laws. The decision overturned New York ‘s restrictions on concealed-carry gun permits.

“Speaking of the Supreme Court, how is H.B. 5471 likely to fare against the inevitable constitutional challenges? In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court said the Second Amendment covers arms ‘in common use’ for ‘lawful purposes,’ a description that plainly applies to the guns and magazines that Illinois has banned. Last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the justices said gun control laws must be ‘consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.'”

“The whole process is a politician protection racket, as if they aren’t already insulated well enough by the public’s inattention to public affairs and fading memories.”

Disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich had a “f——— golden” opportunity to fill a U.S. Senate seat. Ex-City Treasurer Miriam Santos had potential political donors whom she argued should “belly up” with campaign contributions. And now, former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan allegedly had a host of cronies who “made out

Gov. JB Pritzker says he is confident that the new bill, which would ban the purchase, manufacture or transfer of assault weapons and extended magazines in Illinois, will withstand legal scrutiny, and says that sheriffs are required by their oath of office to enforce the law.

“This annual report shows a 40% increase in deaths in children who were on DCFS’s radar,” State Rep. Tom Weber said. “Gov. [JB] Pritzker may not want to admit it because he chose Director [Marc] Smith as his guy to control the agency, but it is clear it is time for a change.” DCFS Director Smith has received eight contempt of court orders after failing to place youth in proper care in a timely manner.

State Rep. Avery Bourne said the legislation trumps a recent measure that gave counties local control. “I cannot adequately express the frustration and the disenfranchisement my constituents and many rural Illinoisans feel when they see this kind of legislation passed that goes directly against a policy passed just two years ago.”

“If I pull somebody over for speeding going 65 in a 55, and I don’t write them a ticket, does that mean I’m not enforcing (the law)?” Illinois Sheriffs’ Association head Jim asked. “And I know we’re talking apples to oranges here, but…my point on this is that officers have discretion. We don’t arrest everybody we could or else our jails would be totally overrun.”

Under Senate Bill 208, workers begin to earn paid leave on their first day at a rate of one hour of leave for every 40 hours worked, up to 40 hours of paid leave for the year. They can begin using their leave after 90 days, although an employer may allow them to use it sooner.

Former state representative Ed Sullivan of Libertyville, a lobbyist for the Illinois State Rifle Association, said the bill, “flies in the direct face of the (New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc v. Bruen) decision, the (District of Columbia v. Heller) decision and the (McDonald v. City of Chicago) decision and is patently unconstitutional…Unfortunately, Illinois Democrats don’t have lawyers that can read case law.”

Centene has been paid $370 million under Illinois’ YouthCare contract since 2020, government records show, yet produced an individualized plan of care for fewer than 8% of the Illinois foster children who had the greatest need during the first quarter of last year. The failures forced foster parents to grapple with a health care program that was often underperforming and in disarray.

“Prioritizing the equitable distribution of funds in this program will assist families with limited income in finding affordable homes.,” said state Senator Cristina Castro. Since 2005, the Rental Housing Support Program has subsidized rents so that low-income families only have to pay 30 percent of their rent while living in a partnered home or complex.

Diamonds Family Restaurant Owner Buki Limani said the cost for eggs has gone up more than 200%. “Business is good, but it’s impacted out bottom line,” he shared.

According to the Illinois Gaming Board, $1.03 billion was bet on sports in the state, the second consecutive month the handle has topped the billion dollar mark. “Very promising because two billion dollar months in a row will put the year at very close to $10 billion in handle, so that’s pretty significant,” said Dave Briggs with PlayIllinois.com.

“Everybody in Illinois and especially in our district is being hammered with high gas and food prices that have them struggling,” state Rep. Dan Caulkins said. “I think it’s an insult to working families in this state to do this. It shows a lack of concern and is yet another example of how detached from reality the Democrat Party is in Illinois.”

Possession of guns legally purchased before Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the measure Tuesday are grandfathered in, but owners must eventually register each weapon’s serial number.

State Rep. La Shawn Ford presented the Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens Act, or “CURE Act,” as the first bill during the opening session. Ford says people in Illinois deserve more tools to address mental health issues, including use of psychedelic plants and fungi.

Jim Dey: “To paraphrase a great man, the fight over gun-control/gun-safety laws is not at an end; it’s not even at the beginning of the end. Contrary to what some might think, it’s not even the end of the beginning…Even the governor has to know that his declaration of victory is, at best, premature.”

Elmhurst Democrat Jenn Ladisch Douglass’s election was certified in late November. But Deanne Mazzochi has not publicly acknowledged her loss. Even an Elmhurst GOP official who recently reported on the outcomes of local races excluded Mazzochi’s result.

With new and returning lawmakers taking office and the spring legislative session starting today, there is already buzz around addressing literacy in Illinois, creating voting districts for Chicago’s elected school board, and increasing funding for early childhood and K-12 schools in the state’s budget.

“The updated plan intentionally strives to integrate social and environmental justice perspectives into recommendations in every section to better serve economically and socially marginalized individuals and communities in Illinois.”

When Senate President Don Harmon spoke during Wednesday’s ceremony, he quoted what a long-ago Chicago police superintendent once told a group of new officers: “If you lack integrity, get out! Get out now, because you will be found out.” The Senate’s 40-member Democratic super-majority includes Sen. Emil Jones, III, currently under federal indictment.

McHenry County Sheriff Robb Tadelman said was one of numerous law enforcement officials throughout the state who shared messages on social media in the aftermath of the bill’s passage. Their arguments center around their stance that the bill, which makes it illegal for Illinois residents to purchase, transfer or manufacture assault weapons and extended magazines, violates the Second Amendment.

With counties across the state saying they won’t enforce a gun ban, or are Second Amendment sanctuaries, and some publicly saying they won’t comply with a looming registry, Pritzker said Illinois State Police will be responsible for enforcement.

Open heat, double bypass surgery for columnist John Kass. We wish him a speedy recovery.

Retailer Dan Eldridge said while future sales are prohibited absent court action, they can complete sales for regular customers who started the background check before the ban went into effect. “However, there’s no similar treatment of magazines, so the magazines themselves would not be deliverable, so now we’re in the position of delivering non-functioning firearms to people.”

“At the top of the order for my legislation is to introduce a bill to deal with people that have depression and mental health issues,” State Rep. LaShawn Ford said. “That will be to entertain and start the conversation on legalizing mushrooms in Illinois.”

More than 742,000 Illinoisans voted by mail in the November 2022 election, the most ever during a midterm year. Statewide, over 4.14 million Illinoisans voted in November, the second most during a midterm year since 1998.

“(W)e find it troubling that the Legislature refused to allow the voice of the voters to be heard in determining if the bail provisions found in Article 1, Section 9 of our Constitution’s Bill of Rights should be amended. In the past, the Legislature trusted the will of the voters to determine if amendments to the Constitution should be approved. Yet the Legislature deliberately chose to prevent the voters from having a say in the elimination of cash bail. In doing so, the General Assembly showed they did not trust the will of the people.”

Jim Dey: “News of the December report will no doubt be received with concern by Gov. JB Pritzker. He’s on record as relying on continued strong revenue gains to finance the ambitious spending plans he disclosed Monday when sworn in to his second term.”

The provisions include strengthening the policy on sexual harassment, prohibiting threatening behavior and words in the workplace and specifically banning employees and contract workers from contributing to the Secretary’s political fund.

“Unintended consequences normally go against law enforcement when legislation comes along,” Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Bullard, a former member of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council, said, describing Amendment 1. “But now there’s an unintended consequence with the new government union amendment to the state constitution. It states that language in a collective bargaining agreement now will trump state law.”

To meet that future demand, Democrats included provisions in their bill meant to grow Illinois’ reproductive health care workforce, like speeding up the process for granting temporary permits for all doctors, physician assistants and nurse practitioners to address health care shortages in all areas, not just reproductive health care.

Pritzker, flanked by victims of gun violence, including survivors from Highland Park during the bill signing ceremony in the Capitol rotunda, said he took the unusual step of signed the measure right away so that it could take immediate effect “and we can end the sale of these weapons of war as soon as possible.” Signing the measure was Pritzker’s first official action of his second term.

The Illinois Freedom Caucus’s statement on Gov. JB Pritzker’s second inauguration speech reads, in part, “Spending other people’s money is not leadership. Real leadership would be addressing the long-term problems of the state and putting aside the enormous power you have accrued by finally ending the endless emergency proclamations.”

Among them, prosecutors also intend to call Ed Moody, the former Cook County Recorder of Deeds and longtime 13th Ward precinct captain, who will testify Madigan told him it was ok that he was being paid by ComEd for doing next to nothing because he was “a valuable political operative” and that campaign work “was what was important to Madigan.”

“This phenomenon is not exclusive to the coasts. Over two dozen counties in Illinois, including four in the southern portion of the state that border ruby-red Kentucky, have taken steps to leave Illinois for redder pastures, including by passing non-binding resolutions that encourage local officials to explore the possibility of leaving the state.”

“That would make folks on both sides of the Mississippi River happier. Southern Illinoisans would go from a Blue state where it’s easy to get an abortion but hard to get a gun, to a Red state where it’s hard to get an abortion but easy to get a gun. St. Louis, on the other hand, is a Blue city trapped in a Red state.”

Previously, under the law, Illinois lawmakers had required vote counters to ensure mail-in ballots were genuinely cast by eligible registered voters by comparing the signatures on the returned ballots against the voter registration card, signed by the actual voter, and kept on file by the local election authority. However, under the changes, county clerks and election officials will now be allowed, or perhaps even directed to compare signatures on mail-in ballots to the signature that had appeared on the application to request a mail-in ballot.

If the bill goes into effect, those who are 21 and under who have been given life sentences after the bill has gone into effect will be able to petition for parole after serving 40 years.

The measure allows Illinois-based gun manufacturers to sell certain weapons and components banned by the legislation, but only to customers in other states, countries and law enforcement. Some worried the measure will impact revenues for their rural hunting communities.

Bailey said the Second Amendment protects ownership of all firearms, even ones that weren’t invented at the time of its drafting.

Durkin said he plans to return to his private law practice in the Chicago area, but he also plans to continue giving speeches and offering his opinions on issues he thinks are important. As for the future of the Illinois Republican Party, Durkin said he sees plenty of young talent within the House GOP caucus, including some who are leaving office.

While supervisory employees have not traditionally had a right to unionize, House Bill 5107 redefines who constitutes a “managerial employee” within CPS to include only those who negotiate with unions or formulate district-wide policies. What does that mean? Principals and other important administrative staff within the district will now be able to join a union.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch will be leading the investigation of classified documents found at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center, nearly two years after President Joe Biden nearly fired him.

While the governor has relaxed many of the mandates over the span of nearly three years, he maintained last summer he keeps the disaster proclamations going to be in line with the federal disaster proclamation as a way to capture more federal funds. Of $4.4 trillion in total obligations from federal COVD-19 tax funds, Illinois has at least $107 billion of that in obligations, according to USASpending.gov. Of all neighboring states, Illinois has more per capita of obligation from COVID-19 federal tax funds.

Senate President Don Harmon, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Gov. JB Pritzker issued a joint statement Monday evening: “After continued negotiations between the leaders, stakeholders and advocates, we have reached a deal on one of the strongest assault weapons bans in the country.”

“Given a choice between money in consumers’ pockets and profits for pawnbrokers, I side with consumers. After all, I work for the people, not the pawnbrokers. Why should low-income families be expected to fund and sustain predatory lenders?”

Big corporations have been fleeing Chicagoland for more business-friendly jurisdictions. But now Allstate says that its big headquarters downsizing is because employees prefer to work from home. How long before these remote workers want to join the flight from expensive Illinois governance?

As more people test for the virus at home and fewer people report cases to authorities, wastewater testing has become a more reliable form of determining community COVID-19 levels. “It gives the general public an idea, and they can decide for themselves,” said senior research scientist Sandra Gesing. “Maybe it’s time to wear a mask again, for example.”

John Bambenek of Abolish Townships Now: “One of the standouts of a unit of government operating unchecked and below the radar, yet driving up the score on property taxes, is township government…You’ve heard of the divine right of kings, but you may have missed the divine right of township officials.”

Jim Dey: “Legislators and law-enforcement officers complained both then and later that they had no chance to read, study or debate the measure. Their charges were met with a knowing chuckle and haughty dismissal. But that warp-speed approach could be — and ought to be, if the Illinois Constitution means anything — a fatal flaw that requires the Illinois Supreme Court to strike down the SAFE-T Act.”

The governor didn’t give specifics about how much it would cost to expand preschool and make college more affordable; The inauguration is mostly pomp and circumstance. But in early February, Pritzker is expected to release a budget proposal for the 2024 fiscal year. The legislature must approve a state budget by June 30.

Between FY20 and FY22, the inspector general’s office also identified 24 cases where it took investigators between 27 and 303 days to make an initial in-person contact with an alleged child victim after potential abuse or neglect was reported to the DCFS hotline. “In these cases, the Department failed to fulfill an essential responsibility in protecting children,” acting inspector general Ann McIntyre wrote.

Researchers at WalletHub compared all 50 states on more than 50 metrics, including the states’ annual family income, quality of schools, unemployment rate, housing costs, and a number of other family-friendly factors.

State Sen. Darren Bailey expects the measure to be struck down in the courts. “You’ve got to know that the actions that you are taking right now are tyrannous. You also must know that I and millions of other gun owners in this state will not comply.”

Alongside giving pay raises to state legislators, constitutional officers including the governor and lieutenant governor and executive agency directors, the measure puts $850 million into the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund.

State Sen. Steve McClure said county jails around Illinois don’t have the resources to deal with inmates who have severe mental health issues. “To create a piece of legislation that causes people that need mental health treatment now to not get that and not have any timeline that is firm that says to DHS that you have to get this person out of local custody is a disgrace.”

“The hope we share, the hope I expressed at my first inauguration, was born of a truth lodged firmly in my heart – that Illinois has always stood at the intersection of American ambition and human resilience. And that combination is what has made this the greatest state in the union,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has extended his emergency powers into his second term. When the newest proclamation ends Feb. 5, Pritzker will have held emergency powers for 1,060 of 1,483 days in office, or over 70 percent of his tenure.

Chicago’s federal court has been trying to play catch-up this year following the lengthy delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Madigan confidant Michael McClain is set to go to trial in March, along with ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker, and onetime City Club President JayDoherty. Also set to go to trial this year are Timothy Mapes, Madigan’s former chief of staff, and Chicago Ald. Edward M. Burke.

House Bill 4245 was filed by state Rep. Jay Hoffman and requires irrigation contractors to have their work looked over by a state-licensed plumber or face a $10,000 fine.

State Sen. Chapin Rose worries about radar disruption for tracking tornadoes and concerns the turbines can kill wildlife like raptor birds. “Why is that important, because they’re the ones who keep all the other species in check. They’re the ones that eat mice and rats that prevent vermin from spreading disease. Oh, monarch butterflies, let’s screw that up too. Why is that important? Because we need to eat.” Rose said local jurisdictions are already doing what’s best for their jurisdictions.

The typical career state pensioner earns more in retirement than Illinoisans do working. Households now pay over three times more than they did nearly two decades ago to cover the costs.

“We saw the smokestacks and steel mills go down and yet those communities aren’t given the jobs that they deserve and that they need,” state Sen. Robert Peters said. “This is an opportunity for us to re-engage an industrial revolution that is built on a dream.”

“The shaky economy and Illinois’ long-standing financial problems foreshadow difficult times. Perhaps that’s why Pritzker recently hinted that he’ll devote considerable attention toward the state’s long-term financial woes, much of which stem from public pension systems that are $140 billion underfunded…But his professed interest in righting the financial ship conflicts with another priority he shares with legislative Democrats, that of large increases in social spending.”

An Assault Weapons Ban for the state of Illinois is still on the table after an expected vote on the bill Sunday during a Senate session didn’t take place. And though the Senate is scheduled to reconvene Monday, the clock is ticking to take action on the bill before the 103rd General Assembly is sworn in Wednesday.

During late night session over the weekend, Illinois lawmakers approved giving legislators, statewide officers and executive agency staff pay raises, amid more than $1.7 billion of other spending of tax resources.

Rich Miller: “It seemed to some that a few counties may have been coordinating their efforts to thwart the attorney general’s efforts to dispute their TRO demands.”

“I’d like to think my husband and I have become partners in knowing everybody counts, especially fighting for the voiceless and the powerless,” says the first lady, who chuckles about “their vastly different backgrounds growing up.” She has spent the past four years curating a collection of Illinois art and historic furniture for the newly rebuilt

Paul Faraci has lived in the Champaign area for 45 years. He has a long history of working in local and state government, including for the State Treasurer’s office.

A 20-year veteran of the legislature, Durkin represents House District 82, which includes portions of Lemont, Darien, Burr Ridge, Willow Springs and Willowbrook. Durkin’s replacement will be named by Republican officials in his district.

In contrast to the chaos in Washington, no tense moments are expected this week in naming the Illinois House speaker, given that Welch’s House Democrats won a modern-day record 78 seats — a group Welch now calls “The Great 78.”

“With this dynamic, not to mention speculation that he could be eyeing a 2024 presidential run should President Joe Biden step aside, all eyes are on the course Pritzker seeks to chart as he sets course in this second term.”

In DuPage County this past election, an election official was comparing mail-in ballot applications to verify signatures on the ballots, not the original voter signature on file with the county’s elections office. A lawsuit over the issue is pending. A Senate amendment to House Bill 45 filed Friday strikes out of state elections law the requirement an election authority compares the signature of a mail-in ballot with the official voter file held by the county clerk.

Jim Dey: “Some critics of (Judge Thomas) Cunnington’s decision were quick to lambast his work as shoddy and political, certain to be rejected by the Supreme Court. But a close examination of his arguments reveals problems that proponents of the SAFE-T, in their rush to pass the new law, either ignored or overlooked.”

Alongside giving pay raises to state legislators, constitutional officers and executive agency directors, the measure puts $850 million into the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund known as the rainy day fund, gives hospitals statewide a one time $460 million payment to help with the increased cost of nursing, puts $400 million into the Large Business Attraction Fund and deposits $72 million into the Disaster Recovery Fund.

The Chicago-based burger restaurant operates 40,000 restaurants in over 160 countries with a total of two million staff in its franchised outlets. Around 13,000 of those locations are in the United States.

“A raise of 15.9% is unheard of in recent times. Secretive House action in 2019 inserted a 2.4% cost-of-living adjustment to increase base salaries to about $67,800.”

“Mr. White, 88, is retiring as Illinois secretary of state after a career that took him from the pews of Martin Luther King Jr.’s church to statewide office.”

“It’s important for employers and employees to be aware of the new laws taking effect Jan. 1, and those already in effect,” said Illinois Department of Labor Acting Director Jane Flanagan.

State Rep. Tony McCombie who will soon become House minority leader, told The Center Square she would like to see changes to the SAFE-T Act, but as for eliminating cash bail, it is pretty cut and dry. “Definitely the [Pretrial Fairness Act], the no cash bail, is in my opinion there is nothing to negotiate there. That is in the constitution and that is what it is.”

Legislation in Springfield would mandate the National Sex Education Standards for schools. Currently, school districts can opt out and a large majority have. According to Awake-Illinois, only 25 schools have adopted some or all of the National Sex Education Standards, while

With this latest round of approved licensees, the number of licensed transporters in the State of Illinois now stands at 222.

Outgoing State Rep. Tom Morrison said he was worried about current trans youth someday regretting their decision to seek gender-affirming care, particularly if they choose to go through surgery, which Morrison decried as even more readily available in Illinois “because now it’s being subsidized by everyone.”

As lawmakers return to Springfield, the clock is ticking to expand the Invest in Kids Tax Credit Scholarship program which helps more than 9,000 low-income students find the school that best fits their needs.

“The no-bail law’s opponents hold, essentially, that these provisions create a system where judges require bail of “sufficient sureties” for pretrial release while considering the safety of crime victims in setting the amount, and that if the legislature doesn’t like that, it should amend the state constitution, not just pass a statute stripping another branch of government of the ability to do what the constitution says…But these arguments have weak points, as a carefully written brief from the defendants shows.”

The court has directed lawyers on both sides to present written arguments from Jan. 26 to Feb. 23. Oral arguments would then be scheduled during the state Supreme Court’s March term. The order does not indicate when a decision in the matter might follow.

The receipt of this property will allow the State the opportunity to provide upgraded facilities for the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and one or more other State agencies. Currently, DCFS has two facilities in the Marion area. The consolidate of additional leases in the area result in a potential annual savings of up to $1 million.

For the year, Illinois adult-use cannabis dispensaries sold over $1.5 billion worth of products, an increase of more than 12% from 2021 and 131% from 2020.

State Representative Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) said, “The legislation pushed by Cook County Democrat lawmakers tonight is overreaching and certainly unconstitutional.”

Rep. Kelly Cassidy filed the bill Thursday afternoon; More than 20 representatives of the working group signed on as co-sponsors. Later that day, the bill passed the House Executive Committee 9-6 along party lines. And in the evening, the bill passed 67-41.

In late December, a Kankakee County judge found the cashless bail component unconstitutional but left the rest of the SAFE-T Act intact. That means, despite the legal pause on cashless bail, major changes to Illinois’ criminal justice system are, or will be, underway — regardless of what the state’s high court decides.

In Illinois, 33% reported that they couldn’t pay their December rent on time and in full. That is an increase of 5% over December 2021.

According to Speaker Chris Welch, the legislation would not remove guns from people who already own them. “If this bill were to become law, there will be no removal of these weapons from people who already own them. It’s important to highlight that we are not taking any guns away from lawful gun owners.”

“A lot of the things that are in the SAFE-T Act come from advocates that are anti-police,” Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Bullard said. “Law enforcement leaders are really taxed not to align themselves with this thinking, not to think that there’s compromise when there’s a group of people that just believe that cops are racists, that cops are murderers, that cops are all these ugly things.”

David Greising, of the Better Government Association: “DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin…points out, too, that the long road to bail reform is creating costs and uncertainties for prosecutors and taxpayers across the state. DuPage County spent around $20 million on a courtroom designed to handle cashless bail, Berlin reminded me, and hired more than a dozen lawyers — prosecutors and public defenders — in part to deal with bail provisions of the SAFE-T Act.”

A sampling of the pork that soon may be coming to Illinois if Congress passes this spending bill includes $500,000 for downtown building demolitions in Astoria (population 1,100); $6.7 million for Illinois Electric Bus and Charging Infrastructure; $2.9 million for a zero-emissions bus fleet; $625,000 for a minority-owned business dashboard; and $2 million for a community-driven air quality and environmental justice assessment.

Replacing Tim Butler, Coffey is a lifelong resident of Springfield resident and owner of the Papa Frank’s restaurant. Coffey currently serves as the Chairman of the Springfield Metropolitan Exposition and Auditorium Authority board, which governs the Bank of Springfield Center.

Former Rep. Rodney Davis, on CNN said on Tuesday, “I don’t think anybody from Illinois would be surprised by that vote,” about Miller’s not backing Kevin McCarthy.

Of the 171 kids on the DCFS radar who died between July 2021 and June 2022, many died from natural causes. But 18 were homicides and 30 were accidents.

State Sen. Terri Bryant said this legislation is bad and is being quickly forced through during lame-duck session. “We have sex offender registries and so forth for specific reasons, so why would you want to let them change their name and put that back on a victim to try to figure out what’s going on.”

Justin Carlson of the Illinois Policy Institute said that high amounts of state debt leads to increased taxes on things such as cell phone service. “Unfortunately, this stems from Illinois’ long-standing financial issues. It’s got a long history of poor budgeting practices and overspending.”

Greenwich, Connecticut, and Macoupin County, Illinois, each will get $500,000 under the alliance’s membership agreement, according to documents obtained through public records requests.

When Democrat Nabeela Syed and Republican Brad Fritts are sworn in as Illinois state representatives this month, both will be 23 years old, recent college graduates and among the youngest legislators to ever serve in Springfield. Despite their policy differences, the pair’s arrival in Springfield will mark the advent of Gen Z in the Illinois General Assembly, bringing a new generation’s perspective to an institution that has long valued age and experience.

“Our Caucus’ mandate is to make the lives, livelihoods, and opportunities for the African-American community better. I’m confident that under my leadership, we will make more progress in undoing the unjust and institutional racism black Illinoisans often find themselves facing,” she said.

According to the court schedule, Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office has until Jan. 26 to file its opening brief. That will be followed by a response brief filed by Kankakee County State’s Attorney James Rowe and other prosecutors from the original suit that must be filed by Feb. 17. Raoul’s office must file a final reply brief by Feb. 27 before oral arguments the following month.

The mayor and City Council of Zion, population just under 25,000, passed a rental inspection ordinance in 2015 that required all property owners to apply for certification for any residences they wanted to lease. Part of the requirement to get a rental certificate was to allow any rental unit to be inspected by city officials every year. If a landlord fails to follow the rules, they can be fined $750 per day until they comply.

“Predatory loans have drained billions from Black, brown and lower-income communities in our state,” Rep. Sonya Harper said. Speaking separately to reporters, representatives of the pawn industry argued that they need to be treated differently from other kinds of lenders because they operate under a different business model.

“Some states have an annual deficit here or there like for a recession or something like that, but then they get back in the clear,” Pew state fiscal health manager Joanna Biernacka-Lievestro said. “Illinois unfortunately is recording annual deficits every year.”

“I’m disappointed that there’s a delay in the implementation,” Pritzker said. “Justice shouldn’t be delayed.”

Illinois State Police said the automatic renewal of FOID cards will allow staff to focus on clear and present danger reports, firearm restraining orders, and FOID correlations and enforcement.

“There’s no evidence that that actually fixes or solves any problems, it’s just gonna turn regular people into felons in the state of Illinois which is going to lead to stripping people of their Second Amendment rights,” said Madison County Board member Michael Turner said.

“The whole purpose here is fairness, and I think we will continue to fight for that,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “Those of us who believe in this know that there is even more to do, but I am comfortable and confident that this is constitutional.”

If approved, the rate hike would raise the average residential gas bill by $9.28 per month beginning in January 2024, Nicor spokeswoman Jennifer Golz said Wednesday.

A national republication of our Wirepoints column.

The Illinois Supreme Court has not made public a timeline for when it will act, though justices have said they will act expeditiously. The court will rule with a 5-2 majority of Democrats.

The business of Congress cannot get started until a speaker is chosen. Illinois Democrats, including Reps. Robin Kelly and Jan Schakowsky, shared photos of themselves eating popcorn during the proceedings, seemingly relishing the chaotic nature of the vote.

LaHood – whose district now runs from northern border of Illinois south past Peoria – does have bona fides within his party. The Illinois Republican sits on the Ways & Means Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. His name has been mentioned as a possibility to head the NRCC heading into the 2024 election.

Former U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush achieved some legislative goals in the congressional lame duck session, including criminal justice reform and economic development efforts targeting underrepresented groups. But a signature effort to open up all FBI files related to its civil rights-era COINTELPRO operations did not pass before time ran out.

“This bill before the General Assembly simply provides the opportunity for people to have the consideration for parole after they’ve served 40 years,” said Lindsey Hammond, the Police Director for Restore Justice Illinois, an organization supporting the bill. “HB 1064 does not guarantee that people will be released into the community or that they will automatically come home, it just gives them that opportunity to have that consideration.”

The top Illinois cities for netting U-Haul customers are Chicago, Melrose Park and Champaign. Other notable net-gain markets include Peoria, Evanston, Joliet, Danville, Rolling Meadows, Arlington Heights, Quincy, Decatur and Carbondale.

Illinois already allows online sports betting, which has been a cash cow for the state. Researcher Heather Fletcher said Illinois is one of five states to watch in 2023 for possible online casino legalization. “Specifically for Illinois, once the market is mature it could mean $240 million, and that is if it’s taxed the same rate as sports,” she said.

“I don’t dispute the idea that agritourism, especially when it comes to wine, is powerful for the state’s economy and important,” state Rep. Michael Zalewski said. “If this helps them with that, then it is all the more reason to get this bill done.”

The typical career state pensioner, which excludes employees also qualifying for Social Security, collected $82,478 in benefits in 2021 while the median working Illinois resident earned just $46,634 a year.

The lame-duck session is the final chance for legislative action on the thousands of bills introduced over the past two years. Even more bills have already been introduced this week.

About two-thirds of the new auto investment revealed over the past two years is going to sites in the U.S. South, the data shows, tilting activity farther away from the Great Lakes region, the auto industry’s stronghold for a century. Rivian, which began building vehicles in Illinois in 2021, has committed to a second factory in Georgia to open in 2026. And Stellantis said last month that it is indefinitely idling a 1,350-employee assembly factory in Illinois.

Illinois will be represented in Washington by 17 members of the House. The state has lost at least one congressional seat every ten years since the 1940s, when it had a 27-member delegation, due to slow population growth. The three Republicans Illinois is sending to Washington — Mike Bost, Darin LaHood and Mary Miller — are the fewest ever.

Outside of the elimination of cash bail, other portions of the SAFE-T Act, including new requirements for body cameras and other police reforms, were allowed to stand.

Packed into the big omnibus spending bill that Congress approved on Dec. 22 was well past $300 million for member-designated projects. The earmarks are derided by some as pork politics at its worst. But every member of the Chicago area’s congressional delegation—except for the now-retired Adam Kinzinger, R-Channahon—sent out a press release claiming big wins for their district.

Tim Butler retired from the General Assembly to become the executive director of the Illinois Railroad Association Dec. 31. Rep. Jason Huffman, a deputy sheriff in the Menard County chair, was sworn in Monday to replace Butler for the rest of the session ending Jan. 11.

The Predatory Loan Prevention Act that passed in 2021 instituted a 36% APR interest rate cap on loans, but some pawnbrokers still charge over 200% for loans. A judge in Sangamon County Circuit Court granted pawnbrokers an injunction in September 2021 allowing them to continue charging higher interest rates.

Pritzker acknowledged the need to address the high burden of real estate taxes on Illinois residents, one of the state’s most vexing issues and one closely tied to education funding as local school districts make up the largest share of homeowners’ property tax bills. But Pritzker put the onus to deliver relief largely on local governments: “Local governments have the ability to do it right now — and should.”

“I’m not taking anything away from white male former prosecutors, but that was generally the category of individuals who were appointed to the federal judiciary in the past,” U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said. And while many of those judges showed “no prejudice in the courtroom as far as I’m concerned, we felt that people who walked into our U.S. federal courtrooms should see, sitting on the bench, the diversity our country.”

“If the governor renews his effort to bring back the graduated income tax or steps up the timetable for increasing the minimum wage, he will completely erase $350 million and probably increase costs to small businesses by at least a billion dollars,” said Todd Maisch, of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce.

Twenty universities and community colleges in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan comprise the Midwest Semiconductor Network. More educational institutions are expected to join. “It’s about pooling our resources together and becoming a collaborative team to help raise up the quality of the workforce, and also the quality of impact that we have on the future of microchips and semiconductor manufacturing,” Ken Christensen, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs of Illinois Tech, said.

According to data from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Illinois’ current reserves would allow the state to operate for about 12 days, the fewest of any state. By contrast, Wyoming could operate for nearly a full year on its reserves.

Franklin County Sheriff Kyle Bacon said that from what he can tell of the SAFE-T act, “there’s not a drug offense other than one involving a firearm or a high-level drug offense that is detainable.”

Ramirez met Boris Hernandez in October 2020 describing her relationship as ‘one of those pandemic loves.’ Hernandez has lived in the US for most of his life but even though he is legally married to Ramirez, a US citizen, it still means together they are a ‘mixed-status family’ and he is still not a US citizen, nor could her vote for his wife.

Illinois’s life expectancy rate is 76.8 years in 2020, down from 79 years in 2019 and 78.8 in 2018. The CDC also reports the leading cause of death in Illinois is heart disease.

The float featured 30,000 flowers and many aspects of the State of Illinois, including an Abraham Lincoln bust, a Route 66 sign, and the Garden of the Gods. The 24-foot-tall float took four months to build and nearly 22,000 volunteer hours to create.

In Roberts, Matt Vaughan, president of the village board in the Ford County community of 350, was surprised and ecstatic about the grant award. For more than five years, the village’s backup well had not been functioning, and a former water superintendent had been falsifying documents, he said. “I’m just a small-town guy and I don’t understand the federal government but it just makes you wonder if they were able to sneak this in for us what else is in there? We’re blessed to be able to get the money and frankly I don’t care where it comes from. We

In the fight against climate change, national goals are facing local resistance. Piatt County, IL scheduled 19 nights of meetings to debate one wind farm.

“I’m not thrilled about anyone’s tax returns being made public, whether it was the Republicans doing it to 50 private not-for-profit entities in 2014 or Donald Trump’s returns being released today,” Krishnamoorthi told MSNBC. He argued that Trump’s returns show that the presidential auditing process “was completely broken.”

The $1-an-hour increase vaults Illinois’ minimum wage above Hawaii’s current $12-an-hour rate, making it the 15th highest minimum wage in the United States. The highest belongs to the District of Columbia, which will pay minimum wage workers $16.50 an hour starting Jan. 1.

Jim Dey: “The over-the-top reaction reflects the extent to which racial grievance is driving the SAFE-T Act debate. That members of minority groups disproportionately suffer at the hands of the criminal element is rarely mentioned.”

“The emergency motion for supervisory order is allowed,” the Supreme Court ruled Saturday. “In order to maintain consistent pretrial procedures throughout Illinois, the effective date of the Pretrial Fairness Act … is stayed during the pendency of the appeal … and until further order of this Court.”

Depending on who you ask, members of the billionaire Pritzker family of Chicago are either the proud descendants of a financial genius who are doing good by funding progressive causes —

“Prosecutors have, for now at least, abandoned their practice of convicting and imprisoning former governors. But there are plenty of other big fish in the sea, as demonstrated by two major public officials awaiting trial on corruption charges.”

Attorney Scott Redman, founder of Illinois Independent Craft Growers Association, compared 2022 to wading through a bog. “Most craft growers are very disappointed about where they are; Many of us are nowhere closer (to opening) than we were a year ago. Now, with limited capital, people are scaling back, to start small and generate some revenue.”

The order is a blow to the state’s Democratic leadership, and particularly Democratic elected officials in Cook County, who had indicated their intention to ignore the ruling from Kankakee County Judge Thomas Cunnington.

Officials at South Dakota’s universities say the move should boost enrollment and lead to more graduates remaining in South Dakota. The regents said about 30% of nonresident students remain in-state following graduation.

According to an order from the State of Illinois Department of Insurance, the fund has failed to file an annual statement for the fiscal year ending on April 30, 2022, causing them to be in noncompliance with state pension statutes.

A release states they have made strides this year with opening the state’s first craft grow facility, increasing Future Farmers of America (FFA) funding, and success with state fairs.

Meanwhile, Democratic officials in Cook County have pledged to move forward with the elimination of cash bail, as written in the law, as if the decision of Kankakee County Judge Thomas Cunnington declaring such actions unconstitutional had not occurred, because they believe the ruling does not apply to them.

Raoul, a Chicago Democrat, maintains that the new bail provision will be effective in all 102 Illinois counties Sunday. But his office has acknowledged that — at least until the suit concludes — it’s up to judges in the counties that are party to the suit whether they set cash bail.

“And as a constitutionally elected sheriff, I feel that it’s important that the county board and myself show our constituents that we respect and honor their constitutional rights, and feel that they should be allowed to continue to have a second amendment right,” said Dewitt County Sheriff Mike Walker.

“School choice programs such as the Invest in Kids tax credit scholarship program could improve the academic declines facing Illinois and the achievement gaps between demographic groups. Milwaukee Public Schools serves as an example.”

“Aurora, for example, covers four different counties, two of which have filed and two of which have not,” said said Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz. “There are other places where it would be extremely chaotic to have two different systems.”

The Chicago Business Barometer, a regional manufacturing index also known as the Chicago PMI, rebounded to 44.9 in December from 37.2 in the prior month, which was the lowest reading since the 2007/2008 financial crisis.

“The FAA tests included only able-bodied adults younger than age 60, ignoring the millions of Americans like me who live and fly with a disability or other mobility issues. Ignoring older folks, who may take a little longer to get down the aisle but who fly regularly. Ignoring young children and infants, who rely on Mom or Dad to get from point A to B. And ignoring anyone who might struggle to understand flight attendants’ instructions, including those who don’t speak English fluently.”

But for how long the new method will remain in place is unclear, growing murky after a Kankakee County judge this week ruled the elimination of cash bail and other pretrial reforms passed by the Illinois General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker were unconstitutional. If the court makes no decision to pause matters by Sunday, counties that were part of the lawsuit could remain under the traditional cash-bail system, while others that weren’t part of the litigation — including Cook, DuPage and Lake — could move to the new pretrial-detention process.

The plan could include safe drug consumption sites. “We care about you no matter what, and if you’re consuming substances you can do things such as not use alone, you can take a test to make sure you’re not consuming fentanyl and what you’re consuming is what you think,” said Dr. Juleigh Nowinski-Konchak from Cook County Health.

“Exporting Pritzker to the White House would let him take his Illinois record nationwide. What could go wrong?”

A national republication of our Wirepoints column.

One nursing school grad was told that it could take up to 12 weeks to get a license number. “If other states are able to populate license numbers literally as soon as pass results are entered into a computer, surely Illinois can figure out the infrastructure and the software and reformulate this program,” she said.

One new measure allows every public middle or high school student to be provided at least one day of excused absence per school year to take part in a civic event. Another aims to alleviate the statewide substitute teaching shortage by allowing college students enrolled in an education-related field with at least 90 credit hours to start substitute teaching before they get their degree.

A statement from Attorney General Kwame Raoul reads, in part, “To definitively resolve this challenge to the pretrial release portions of the SAFE-T Act, Governor Pritzker, the legislative leaders named in the consolidated cases and I intend to appeal the circuit court’s decision directly to the Illinois Supreme Court, where we will ask the court to reverse the circuit court’s decision…Illinois residents in all counties should be aware that the circuit court’s decision has no effect on their ability to exercise their rights that are protected by the SAFE-T Act and the Illinois Constitution.”

Much of the media’s coverage of the November midterm elections was dedicated to individual races (and their surprising outcomes) that would determine control of Congress . But another critical result that slipped under the radar was Illinois voters’ landmark decision on Nov. 8 to permanently alter the fiscal future of their state.

According to the Kankakee County State’s Attorney, the ruling means the bail reforms spelled out in the law will not take effect in the 64 counties that filed lawsuits challenging the measure. State Rep. Patrick Windhorst explained, “So we are here now with potential chaos that may ensue beginning Jan. 1. We will have counties throughout the state which will have a cash bail system and counties throughout the state which will potentially not have the cash bail system or it will be eliminated.”

The state will appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, according to a statement from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, and

But the political stakes are also high for key Democrats — including Govs. Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Phil Murphy of New Jersey — who have touted their records as fiscal stewards as they angle for a bigger role on a national stage.

Specifically, Circuit Judge Thomas Cunnington’s ruling held that the SAFE-T Act violated the Separation of Powers Clause, the Victim Rights Act, and unconstitutionally amended Article I, Section 9 of the state’s constitution, which codified cash bail in the state. The law will not go into effect on Jan. 1 in the 65 counties that signed onto a lawsuit filed against the administration of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Even before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s surprise visit to Washington last week, Durbin was urging colleagues on Capitol Hill to remember the embattled country as negotiations on a budget continued. Zelenskyy’s visit drew high praise from both Durbin and Sen. Tammy Duckworth.

Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski has been critical of Pritzker’s continued proclamations. “We’ve already seen the disaster of inflation that has been created by all the federal spending, so we’re one of the states that is perpetuating that problem,” Dabrowski said in August.

“This is a country whose economy is crushed because of the war and humanitarian aid is obvious. This is a very tough, cold winter. And the Russians are further committing war crimes by targeting civilian targets and their particular infrastructure. It’s a life and death situation. It’s an important role for our country to help,” said Quigley, who is co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus and was appointed to the escort committee for Zelenskyy’s joint address to Congress.

Since 2019, when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed legislation into law providing a years-long path to increase Illinois’ minimum wage, there have been four increases in the minimum wage, with the fifth just days away. Starting Jan. 1, 2023, minimum wage in the state will rise from $12 to $13 an hour.

A federal report said more than $45 billion has been stolen in the U.S. from fraudulent unemployment claims, but the state of Illinois still isn’t revealing how much was stolen.

Combined federal, state and local tax rates for Illinois cell phones average just shy of 35% of monthly bills, according to Tax Foundation data. Illinois’ wireless tax is in lieu of a sales tax, but the sales tax would be cheaper for cell phone users. The state’s sales tax averages about 9%.

Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “About 53% of Illinois’ private-sector workforce is employed by a large business with 500 or more employees. All businesses, great and small, who stayed and fought led Illinois through two of the most trying years in its history.”

“Wirepoints cited a new national survey that shows the migration isn’t ending. In fact, it’s just starting to pick up steam. What was just a trickle of people moving is now a full-blown river of people that have the ability to move. When it was a trickle, politicians could explain it away by saying it was the weather. No one is moving for the weather.”

Jim Dey: “If indicted, fedheimer victims’ conditions decline further, often causing them to claim they are too sick to go to trial. Look for that problem to come to the fore as the Commonwealth Edison bribery/conspiracy case gets closer to trial. The multiple defendants are long past eligibility for Social Security.”

California (343,230), New York (299,557) and Illinois (141,656) lost the most residents to other states. Businesses are also growing their workforces in states with more economic freedom. This is one reason employment lags pre-pandemic levels in California (-0.5%), Illinois (-0.7%) and New York (-2.8%). The unemployment rate in the Miami metro region was 1.8% in November compared to 4.7% in Chicago, 4.9% in Los Angeles and 5.8% in New York City.

“I am closely following the ongoing challenges consumers are dealing with regarding their canceled Southwest flights,” Gov. JB Pritzker said. “I have spoken with Secretary Buttigieg to express the frustration of thousands of Illinoisans who have been stranded and missed out on quality time with their families or who have had to call off work because they couldn’t make it back home.”

Across the state, the lowest price on Sunday was listed at $2.59 per gallon. The most expensive listed price was $4.99, a difference of $2.40 per gallon. The statewide average is $3.14 per gallon, 11.7 cents cheaper than last week’s average of $3.25.

“[The plaintiffs] all allege they would use public transportation either at all or more and they refrain from doing so because they don’t feel safe if they have to be disarmed when they do it,” said the attorney representing the plaintiffs in their suit against Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and four different county state’s attorneys, including Kim Foxx.

A report from the Office of the Executive Inspector General (OEIG), found some positions in investigations and intelligence are vulnerable to favoritism and patronage. The OEIG reported that IDOC did “not follow appropriate hiring protocols and policies,” in filling investigator positions and that some of the positions can be “easily manipulated to favor those who are not the most qualified.”

Here are some of the notable public corruption and misconduct cases from 2022.

Unless a judge steps in, Illinois is poised to become the first state to completely eliminate cash bail. Other states have tried limited versions of what Illinois is about to do, with varied results. “Everyone wants to be safe,” said Insha Rahman with the Vera Institute of Justice. “It’s a kitchen table issue.”

The announcement said the suburban state senator submitted an effective letter of resignation Monday, effective on Dec. 31, 2022. By law, the vacancy must be filled within 30 days and must be a Democrat.

Among them, lawmakers approved a bill in the spring that makes it so “a person shall not be liable for violations, fees, fines, or penalties during the period in which the motor vehicle was reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency as stolen or hijacked.”

A mounting body of scientific research shows there are specific ways students should be taught to read. But many popular reading lessons in American schools, including those used in Illinois, aren’t aligned yet with that science. Data show that, even before the pandemic, only 1 in 3 Illinois third graders were reading at grade level according to the state test.

“It will be interesting to see how the leaders of the Democratic Party in Champaign and Vermilion counties — Mike Ingram and Sandra Lawlyes, respectively — finesse a power struggle over who will replace the late state Sen. Scott Bennett.”

Jim Dey: “Past surveys show people leave Illinois for a variety of reasons, including a desire for more moderate weather. But the primary reasons for leaving, the surveys show, are a desire for better job opportunities and lower taxes.”

Starting Jan. 1, Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) will shift from daily reporting of new COVID-19 cases and deaths to a weekly data report on Wednesday of each week for the previous week ending Sunday. IDPH will continue to report ICU bed availability and hospital admission data on a daily basis.

The narrow Republican majority in the U.S. House reflects a divided America, he said.

Fifteen communities will receive $20,308,790 in Community Project Funding (CPF) through the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 for projects like technology updates for Calhoun County Sheriff’s Department, drinking water improvements in Litchfield, and program expansions for Parkland and Lincoln Land Community Colleges.

Since the launch of sports betting in March 2020, Illinois sports gamblers have bet in the neighborhood of $18 billion. The state’s 12 sports books have netted about $1.5 billion, and the total tax revenue for the state has surpassed $200 million.

Illinois comes in at No. 2 for unfunded pension liabilities, and No. 6 for unfunded retiree health care costs.

“Not good numbers for the state and continued rejection of the policies that we’ve seen from here and it’s important to note that our neighboring states, with the exception of Michigan, they all grew,” Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said.

“It was a shock when the manufacturer, Stellantis, announced this month that the 57-year-old plant would shut down indefinitely at the end of February, putting 1,350 people out of work. And there is fear across the area, an hour’s drive west of Chicago, that “indefinitely” could mean forever.”

This is a first for the state.

Data shows 10.7% more Illinois residents are receiving SNAP benefits than during September 2021. Federal food assistance participation increased just 2% nationwide during that time.

Just as state government’s longtime Loop headquarters is a relic from another political era, so too is White, who first came to Springfield when Gerald Ford was president and, at 88, looks and acts as hale as he did during his first statewide run in 1998. White’s legacy extends well beyond his government and political exploits. He’s in his 63rd year heading the tumbling team that bears his name, and he came within an eyelash of being a Chicago Cub.

“In some ways, the state’s relatively new leaders continued to forge a path towards the future and turn the page on troubled times.Yet remnants of the past remained, whether it was former House Speaker Michael Madigan being indicted on federal racketeering and bribery charges or a later-than-usual primary caused by pandemic-induced delays in redistricting. “

“Even though there have been a number of stakeholders that have been working on preparing for this, the implementation of this really falls on the backs of the state’s attorneys, and the process of detaining people is still up for discussion,” said Peoria County State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos.

The charges against patients at Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center contrast sharply with the way the facility and police agencies have handled employees who are accused of mistreating and abusing patients. In some of those cases, staff who faced serious abuse allegations experienced few consequences because colleagues refused to cooperate in investigations — or actively worked to derail them.

Illinois Department of Public Health Director Sameer Vohra said at this time, no vaccine mandates are planned. Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said that it would be up to the General Assembly to implement a vaccine mandate for school children.

Before the pandemic, the yearly tax on Illinois wine manufactures was $750. In 2020, the fee went up to $1,250, an increase that is a hardship for the majority of small operations in Illinois, said Lisa Ellis, director of the Illinois Grape Growers and Vintners Alliance. “Compare that with Missouri, where the wine manufacturer’s fee is capped at $300.”

“Illinois likes to fund big, but the real question is whether this funding will be effective at downtown revitalization…Illinois’ political and economic development leaders are unfortunately deluded into believing that construction dollars is the only measure of community development.”

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill for the rest of fiscal 2023 that Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois touts as including money for numerous projects and spending priorities in the state, including some targeted to the Chicago area.

Only a small portion of the state assets will be affected by this policy change, with less than 0.005% being affected. “As the great-grandson of Ukrainian Jewish refugees, I stand firmly with the Ukrainian people and condemn Russian violence,” said Gov. JB Pritzker. “This is an important step in demonstrating support for the people of Ukraine and in condemning the unlawful invasion and occupation of Ukraine by Russian forces.”

Stacy Bennett will be sworn in to serve as State Senator for the 52nd District for the remainder of the 102nd General Assembly, until January 11, 2023.

Jim Dey: “It has the making of an intra-party showdown, although (Cunningham Township Supervisor Danielle) Chynoweth scoffed at that possibility. ‘With all due respect to everyone lining up for the Senate seat, there is no contest in this case,’ Chynoweth wrote. She touted her longtime political ally’s legislative skills and even said (State Rep. Carol) Ammons’ status as a Black woman is an advantage because it would ‘diversify a very White male Senate.'”

“No amount of sugarcoating can change what Illinoisans are seeing with their own eyes: Shootings and other violent crimes are up. Carjacking is rampant, and criminal mob actions are plaguing our cities.Illinois’ law enforcement community is demoralized and police officers are retiring in droves.”

“For far too long, our country has been all too happy to obscure or ignore the low moments in the histories of BIPOC Americans, opting to illuminate only the palatable, honorable, unobjectionable instances in our nation’s timeline.”

The rebates were the result of the Illinois Family Relief Plan, passed by the General Assembly and issued to more than 5.1 million qualified taxpayers, totaling $1.042 billion, according to Gov. JB Pritzker’s office.

Illinois schools beat the national trend which showed a 2.4% decrease in freshman enrollment at public universities. Nine out of the 12 public universities in the state reported an increase in freshman enrollment.

According to the state’s news release, the tax credit available to Illinois car manufacturers that retain employees as they switch to EV production is increased to 75% of their state income tax. That rate would increase to 100% of their income tax if the company operates in an “Underserved or Energy Transition Area.”

The latest annual population estimate from the U.S. Census is expected Thursday. The Small Area Income and Poverty estimates report released by the U.S. Census earlier this month showed in 2020, poverty edged upward from 11 percent to 12.1 percent.

Winnebago County is one of eight Illinois counties where volunteers will note the names of the judge, the name of the accused, case number, race, gender and charges, if a detention hearing was requested and granted and whether the accused was placed on electronic monitoring, as well as if all the participants were comfortable with the new proceedings, what went well and what did not go so well. Their findings will then be sent to the Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts.

With a sudden influx of temporary federal, state and philanthropic pandemic relief funding came an opportunity to move away from an already-stressed emergency housing system to what advocates say is a more dignified and effective one. Those same advocates, however, say the new system is on the edge of a fiscal cliff as federal COVID-19 response funding dries up.

Kankakee County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe, who presented on behalf of the state’s attorneys, said the state’s attorneys shared a desire with the state defendants for the “noble” goal of criminal justice reform in Illinois to address perceived systemic shortcomings. However, Rowe said the SAFE-T Act took those “most noble of goals” and instead produced “the most unconstitutional of outcomes.”

Illinois has been approved to receive $253 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to offer broadband internet. “The $253 million that’s coming to Illinois, is going to mean that a lot of kids have a better chance for a good education, and a lot of businesses can thrive,” Sen. Dick Durbin said. “And the farmers are going to be using those internets [sic] too.”

Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said there would need to be some additional resources to set up the gun registry state police would manage and more sworn officers to enforce the law, but didn’t have an exact cost. “My feeling is as the Illinois State Police, you give us enough resources, we can put a man on the moon, if that’s what the General Assembly wants us to do.”

Illinois is ranked as the second-most corrupt state in the nation, with government corruption costing Illinoisans $550 million in lost economic activity every year. By 2016, Illinoisans had the lowest trust in their government of any state’s residents, according to Gallup polls.

Several laws concerning the prescription, and control of, opioids will take effect in the new year, as will requirements for insurance companies to require a wide range of services and procedures. Enhanced focus on preventative health and care for men, as well as programs to help make healthy food more accessible for Illinoisans, will also be added to state law.

New Jersey and Illinois were the only two states with total shortfalls exceeding 5% of total expenses, the report from the Pew Foundation said, and the only ones with annual deficits in each of the 15 years. Illinois posted aggregate revenue able to cover only 93.9% of aggregate expenses.

Illinois continues to have the highest wireless taxes in the country at 34.9 percent, followed by Washington at 32.9 percent, and Arkansas at 32.2 percent.

“We are in a pause of uncertainty right now,” said Chris Davis, Illinois state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “Less than one in five businesses have fully recovered from the pandemic, and you still have inflation being a substantial burden on small business owners.”

“We are aware of the frustrations experienced by countless consumers whose flights have been cancelled or delayed and the inadequate remedies that have been offered to them,” the letter stated. “In fact, our offices have repeatedly brought to the USDOT’s attention complaints from airline passengers impacted by the airlines’ cancellation or significant delay of their flights.”

“It is extremely concerning, it is extremely disturbing what is going to come Jan. 1,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin.

The funding for Illinois projects ranges from $49.3 million to The Army Corps Engineers for improvements to the Upper Mississippi River-Illinois waterway system, to $20,000 for a National Park Service bathroom renovation in Murphysboro. “You’ve got [U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley] up in Chicago with $2 million to the park district and [U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky] with $2 million for the park district so that they can build a new swimming pool,” said Adam Andrzejewski, with OpenTheBooks.com.

Teacher at Crete-Money High School: “All you right wing conspiracy theory nut jobs who seem to think the teachers are out here just indoctrinating children into some sort of woke agenda that you can’t actually define, I’m just going to come clean,” Godbout says. “I am, in fact, indoctrinating your children.”

One in three Illinois students missed at least a month’s worth of school last year.

The most recent amendments were passed by the Illinois House and Senate Dec. 1, and signed by Governor Pritzker Dec. 6, into Public Act 102-1104. The amendments are extensive.

“If the lottery provides $10 to the school fund, state officials have two choices: they can either spend that much more money on schools, or they can lower the contribution from the general fund by $10,” said Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. “Illinois officials have taken the second approach.”

Jim Dey: “The Dec. 9 death of state Sen. Scott Bennett did more than rob his constituents of a dedicated public servant and his family of a devoted father and husband. It also left two vacancies in Sen. Bennett’s 52nd state Senate district — one for his current term and the other for the two-year term to which he was re-elected Nov. 8.”

The governor will retain all of his deputy governors, including Christian Mitchell, Sol Flores, Martin Torres and Andy Manar — and his chief of staff, Anne Caprara.

There are signs the chemicals have spread well beyond 3M’s property in Cordova. Contractors found at least two PFAS in three of eight public water systems and 68 of 72 private wells tested in Illinois and Iowa during the summer. The most alarming levels were detected on the Illinois side of the river, where concentrations

Under terms of HB 05581, a section of Milwaukee Avenue will now be designated as the Milwaukee Avenue Polish Heritage Corridor. HB 04986 designates the Theatre in the Park in New Salem the official state theatre of Illinois.

Stellantis has announced that it will idle its plant in Belvidere, Illinois and move Jeep Cherokee production to the Toluca plant in Mexico.

Pritzker announced in the meeting that he had a conference call scheduled at 10:30 a.m. last Friday to “land the plane” on a deal that would bring electric vehicles to the Belvidere plant. Instead, Stellantis said during the meeting that the plant would be going idle for at least six months starting in February with all hourly and salary workers receiving WARN notices.

Thirty-four newspaper entities received $27 million in forgiven Paycheck Prtection Program loans… some took more than one. That is what Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski, and James Piereson, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, discovered in their analysis of payments to various entities.

Lack of broadband access and slow internet speeds keep Illinois corn and soybean farmers from higher productivity. A new initiative seeks to improve that.

The self-described ‘liberal’ teacher, Heather Marie Godbout, said, ‘Indoctrination? yes please!’

On Thursday, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) gave his farewell speech on the House floor. After serving since 2011, he decided not to seek reelection in 2022, after Illinois State Democrats pretty much redistricted his seat out of existence. That’s some reward for obsessively criticizing former and potentially future President Donald Trump under the bus, isn’t it? In the time leading up to his retirement from Congress, he has continuously been throwing his own party under the bus, and his farewell speech was no different.

Agriculture has benefited from consistent support on both sides of the aisle, in Washington D.C. and at the Illinois statehouse. The Illinois Farm Bureau wants to keep it that way, Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr. told The Center Square.

Vandalism and violence prompted federal agents to open an investigation in 1998 into Local 150, according to Dugan’s FBI file, recently obtained by the Sun-Times. The investigation, dubbed Operation Paving Justice, lasted six years before it was shut down in 2004 without any criminal charges being filed, though investigators estimated there had been $70 million in “equipment and property” damage.

The Student First Principles Coalition, founded just two months ago, aims to produce candidates for Tazewell County’s school boards who stand against politically-charged issues like critical race theory and COVID-19 mask mandates.

An Illinois school for students with disabilities has routinely used the police to handle discipline, resulting in the highest arrest rate of any district in the country. In one recent year, half of Garrison School students were arrested.

“Any services they need, we want to provide them,” Rockford’s mayor said. “But now, because of the federal court’s ruling, we can no longer send police out there.”

Another group of workers in Illinois have rallied and voted to kick a union out of their workplace. Workers at Tri-State Asphalt in Morris voted to cut ties with Teamsters Local 179. The vote – conducted by the National Labor Relations Board Region 25 – was one-sided, with 80% of the employees voting to reject the union. Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, said the practice is becoming more common. “A union member today is more likely to be involved in a vote to try to get the union out of their workplace as a nonunion

Pritzker said the plant converting to a full-time EV plant is not out of the question. “EV is a much larger enterprise. Typically they are co-locating, which is something Stellantis is especially focused on,” Pritzker said. “They need a lot of land, but fortunately, Belvidere has a lot of land, and they own that land. I think we are in a good position to help them into what is the next phase of manufacturing in Belvidere.”

The Danville, Kankakee, Decatur and Rockford metropolitan statistical areas all had unemployment rates higher than 5% in October, with Rockford being the worst at 5.9%. All were higher than the statewide rate of 4.6% rate – the worst state rate in the nation.

State Rep. Deanne Mazzochi is seeking a discovery recount in the District 45 race, in which her Democratic opponent was certified the winner.

As he works with the Legislature for additional tools to lure and retain automotive jobs, including a new “deal closing” fund and tax credits, Pritzker hinted he’s trying to land an auto-assembly plant and a battery factory in Belvidere. Pritzker is seeking more flexibility with incentives to preserve or create jobs associated with the transition from conventional automobile manufacturing to electric vehicles. When Pritzker first floated the idea of a closing fund to Crain’s in October, he suggested $1 billion would put Illinois on a level

“So, keep an eye on the Senate, where the presiding officer has been a vociferous proponent of gun law reform his entire career, but whose caucus contains a sizable number of moderates who have wanted to shy away from such legislation.”

The CBS 2 Investigators conducted an exhaustive analysis of how thousands of child abuse and neglect allegations, dating back to 2016, were handled by DCFS. We obtained never before seen data revealing a deeply troubling pattern. When an allegation of child abuse or neglect is made, nine out of ten times DCFS classifies it as unfounded.

Signing a proclamation that the measure is now law, the governor said, “I am so proud to be the most pro-labor, pro-worker governor in the nation.”

“Our committee members are ready to get to work,” said Council 31 Executive Director Roberta Lynch, “but they will need the active and unified grassroots support of union members from one end of this state to the other to make sure that we continue to build on past progress and employees once again can secure the wage increases, benefit enhancements and expanded job rights they deserve.”

Prior to the beginning of the 103rd General Assembly Jan. 11, the House and Senate will head back to Springfield for a Lame Duck Session Jan. 4-10. The House still needs to pass the appropriation bill to address Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund debt. Additionally, Rep. Bob Morgan introduced HB 5855, which includes an assault weapons ban, and could be taken-up in Lame Duck Session or the ensuing 103rd General Assembly.

Rivian, with almost 6,000 employees in Normal, and Lion Electric, which is beginning to build electric school buses in Joliet, along with 14 other businesses connected to electric vehicles and clean energy, asked Pritzker to commit to a dramatic decrease in the sale of diesel vehicles by 2030 and a pledge that by 2050 all new medium- to heavy-duty vehicles sold in Illinois will be zero-emission models. More than a dozen states have signed a nonbinding agreement stating those goals, but so far, Pritzker has decided not to join them.

Robert Wolfe, the state board of education’s chief financial officer, said at Wednesday’s board meeting that there is a need to increase state funding for career and technical education as the program has not seen a significant increase for almost two decades. School advocates asked for a $40 million increase.

ComEd is moving from a pilot program to convert 100 homes to a much larger-scale project with the goal of spending $40 million over the next three years – even as Peoples Gas is spending billions of dollars to lay hundreds of miles of new pipeline underground, a program that the utility plans to continue through 2040.

In the Senate, Majority Whip Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber, will donate his contribution to an “appropriate charity,” a spokeswoman said. Bankman-Fried also sent campaign cash to a slew of incoming House Democrats, including Nikki Budzinski, who all donated their contributions to local charities.

The unemployment rate increased by 0.1% to 4.7%, while the number of people on nonfarm payrolls increased by 17,500 in November. IDES said the change in the rate reflects an increase in the number of workers looking to return to the labor force.

The governor said this is an accomplishment for many Illinoisans. “We proclaimed that there would be no right-to-work laws ever to see the light of day in Illinois, and that’s because of the great leaders in the Senate, the great leadership in the House, and electing a governor that is pro-worker.”

State Rep. Chris Bos said the law is going to force some communities to raise property taxes to cover the extra costs. “In many cases, probation departments will need additional pretrial staff to supervise the increase of those released from jail. There will also be enormous IT needs.”

Public Act 100-0200, passed in 2017, requires all Illinois homes to have a smoke alarm with a sealed 10-year battery by Jan. 1, 2023. According to the bill, homeowners without an updated alarm will get a 90-day notice to get a sealed battery model; after those 90 days they can be fined up to $100.

“Illinois is leaving millions in federal conservation funding on the table by not matching federal grant funds, not applying for funding or not supporting the efforts of conservation agencies to apply for federal funding. The Inflation Reduction Act, Land and Water Conservation Fund and upcoming Recovering America’s Wildlife are among some of the opportunities the state isn’t prepared to fully utilize…”

The dashboard will allow users to view funding allocations and real-time updates on spending pertaining to each of the three federal pandemic relief grants. According to ISBE, the state has received nearly $8 billion through three rounds of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funding; Ninety percent of relief funding flowed directly to districts.

The new laws affect education, hunting, criminal law, carjacking, among other areas. One item: people who buy vehicles that were manufactured in Illinois will be able to apply for a $25 break on their registration fees starting Jan. 1.

Jim Dey: “Prosecutors have raised a series of objections to the law — some technical, some not. They claim legislators violated their own rules to pass the legislation in January 2021 and that specific provisions in it violate the Illinois Constitution as well as the separation of powers between the legislature and judiciary.”

According to Bryce Hill of the Illinois Policy Institute, the financial impact on taxpayers would be light this time around, but it could lead to more significant bailouts down the road, which taxpayers will have to fund. “I think this is a larger indication of what state and local governments have been hoping for in Illinois, in trying to get a federal payout for what is clearly a broken pension system.”

“We are starting to see the returning trend and shift from taxable goods to non-taxable service goods,” revenue manager Ed Noggle said. “This could be a problem for sales tax revenues going forward, and again there is no federal stimulus expected for the next couple years that has helped boost spending like in the past.”

FBI National Instant Criminal System firearm background check data by state shows Illinois leading the nation with nearly 4 million firearm background checks through November. That’s more than 300,000 more than second place Kentucky at 3.6 million checks.

The Illinois Gaming Board reported $114 million in casino gaming revenue in November, as a dip in electronic gaming device and slots revenue offset a year-best total from table games. The total was 1.7% lower than the $116 million generated in October as admissions to the state’s 11 gaming venues dipped 4.3% to 770,693.

The Pritzker administration is also eying other tax credit proposals, like bulking up the state’s major tax credit program, the Economic Development for a Growing Economy, or EDGE program, and creating a closing fund the governor could use at his discretion to cinch a deal.

Rep. Sue Scherer will accept ideas for new legislation up until Jan. 3, which is the last day before the General Assembly reconvenes.

Without the levy increase, the city would be about $1.8 million short of fulfilling its public safety pension obligations.

Illinois ranked 16th best this year, slipping from 15th and 11th in two previous years. Illinois got props for passing the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, but lost points for piling on new licensing and registration fees for electric-vehicle owners.

It’s not like we’re out here eating babies in the State Capitol rotunda, a Temple member said. The holiday ceremony, for instance, did not include goat sacrifices. No one condemned the nation to hellfire. The message was religious diversity.

The Chinese government controls TikTok and can use TikTok to control users’ devices, for influence or espionage purposes.

In the zip code covering much of South Shore, investors bought up 32% of homes for sale in the third quarter of 2022 – that’s tied for the most in the city. That’s far more than the 17% of homes investors bought in 2015 before Jackson Park was announced as the home of the center and more than double the 14% of homes bought by investors in 2005 in the middle of the housing bubble.

Illinois’ exemption of the judicial branch from FOIA is not the norm nationwide. Statistical information from the courts is subject to open access laws in 27 states, and 15 more have court rules and policies that make the data available. But a quirk in the wording of Illinois’ FOIA – it does not explicitly name the judicial branch – has allowed the courts to interpret the law to mean they are exempt from FOIA.

“More than two newspapers are disappearing each week, on average, and more than a fifth of Americans live in ‘news deserts’ — communities that have lost, or are in the process of losing, their local news providers. As a result, lies and other misinformation proliferate, damaging American democracy.”

John Cusack: “(U.S. Sen. Dick) Durbin has a history of support for the First Amendment and he should be proud of that track record. The PRESS Act, which he can advance as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, offers us a rare opportunity to preserve and strengthen press freedoms for the next generation.”

The challenge right now is, in many of Illinois’ counties, they do not have any capacity to provide any kind of pretrial supervision,” said David Olson, co-director of the Loyola Center for Criminal Justice. That’s why he said the Office of Statewide Pretrial Services has been established through the Illinois Supreme Court, to offer that service in parts of the state where it’s not available.

The top five states for vehicular crime – California, Illinois, Florida, Colorado and Texas – accounted for 412,008 cars stolen. More than 1,300 carjackings have occurred in the Chicago area this year. Those who speculated that it was a “pandemic thing” may rethink that notion as the problem continues.

“President Biden sold the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a giant climate jobs program, but then how does he explain what happened Friday at the Stellantis Jeep Cherokee plant in Belvidere, Illinois? Some 1,350 workers are losing their jobs so the auto maker can finance its government-mandated and subsidized electric-vehicle expansion.”

“These laws cover a myriad of topics and will require revisions to employee handbooks and general employment policies.”

The bill covers a wide variety of topics, but its notable features include an increase of the state’s minimum age to purchase or own a weapon, as well as a full ban on assault weapons, extended magazines and other items.

Jim Dey: “November tax receipts were led by increases in revenue of state income tax (up $228 million), corporate tax (up $85 million) and sales tax (up $134 million). (Revenue manager Eric) Noggle attributed increases in sales-tax revenue to a ‘promising start’ of the Christmas shopping season. In addition to the big three, the state also enjoyed smaller increases generated by taxes on cigarettes and inheritances as well as interest on ‘state funds and investment.’”

Incoming Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is considering digital driver’s licenses, electronic titles and possibly stretching vehicle sticker renewals from one to two years. It’s part of a plan to eliminate the “time tax” state residents face when accessing government services.

Prices in Illinois are 73.5 cents per gallon lower than a month ago and stand 1.4 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

Alignable’s December Hiring report reveals that 82% of small businesses in Illinois won’t be adding staff, the highest percentage in the country. The reasons include they can’t afford to hire full-time permanent employees because of inflation, reduced revenues, high labor costs and fears of recession.

According to the Illinois Department of Public Health, more than 50 facilities regulated by the state were cited for violations in the first quarter of 2022. “A lot of these people, when they get the right care, begin to thrive,” state Rep. Charles Meier said. “For that to happen, we got to get them the help they need.”

The HouseMethod.com study found the cost of running Christmas lights in Illinois this year is $17.22, a 32 percent increase over 2021. It’s the highest amount in the Midwest and 14th highest in the country.

The settlement nationally requires significant improvements to how Walgreens and CVS pharmacies dispense opioids, according to a release. The $10.7 billion settlement will be divided among the signed-on states, local governments and tribes.

The coalition of Attorneys General announced Carmax agreed to pay a $1 million fine, split among all 36 states involved, as well as ensure changes to its business plan after state authorities accused the company of “failing to disclose open safety recalls on used vehicles to consumers before sales.”

An Illinois law that went into effect this year mandates that lead pipes be entirely removed when broken, on the basis that work on or around a lead service line could release particles that contaminate drinking water. For Di Anne Chudzik, a homeowner in River Grove, that meant a $550 repair ballooned to nearly $7,700. River Grove needed to pay to replace its portion of the lead pipe, too.

“The wealthiest sitting politician in the country, Pritzker has broken records by spending a total of $323 million on his past two gubernatorial campaigns – approximately $70 per vote in 2022. Then, he spent millions more to ensure which opponent would win the Republican primary…If any one person can buy not only their candidacy but also buy their opponent, what true voice do voters have?”

Actuary Mary Pat Campbell: “The actual public finance behavior of Illinois for decades is what I’m basing my remarks on. I have yet to see any stomach for any actual reform of the promise, promise, promise and not actually pay for their promises.”

“The Princeton Gerrymandering Project, a nonpartisan group at Princeton University that assessed redistricting in the United States in 2021, gave Illinois’ map a grade of F for partisan fairness, competitiveness and geographic features, saying it wasn’t compact and split counties more than the typical map. Champaign County, for example, is now in three districts: the Second, 13th and 15th. Ending gerrymandering, however, may be a lost cause.”

“The Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct say a lawyer who gets confidential information while working as a public officer ‘may not represent a private client whose interests are adverse to that person.’ That would seem to apply directly to Mr. Raoul’s lawyers-for-hire, and this should be a subject for the state bar.”

“For instance, of the $1.6 billion in new K-12 funding that has been distributed under the EBF, $1.1 billion — or 71 percent — has gone to schools educating student populations that’re over 50 percent low-income, while 87 percent — or $1.3 billion — has gone to schools educating 87 percent of the Black and 77 percent of the Latinx students in Illinois. In short, bipartisanship on the front-end resulted in legislation that benefited the entire state on the back-end.”

The new rules require employees be given a 20-minute break if working a 12-hour shift or longer, and at least 24 consecutive hours of rest in every consecutive 7-day period.

“I think the 5-2 majority, just like the 4-3 majority in the past, has not been very business friendly. Everything from taxation issues, to the fact that medical malpractice caps were thrown out, to redistricting and restoring some kind of part of balance to the state, I think we are concerned,” Illinois Chamber of Commerce President Todd Maisch said. “You always want to give a new Supreme Court justice the benefit of the doubt, but we’re prepared for some bad decisions out of the court.”

Jim Dey: “(Republican state Rep. Deanne) Mazzochi fought the gerrymander, and the gerrymander won.”

Among them, school board members will be required to take training on “trauma-informed practices,” including “the prevalence of trauma among students, including the prevalence of trauma among student populations,” and “the effects of implicit or explicit bias on recognizing trauma among various students in connection with race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation.”

More than 130 doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are urging Gov. J.B. Pritzker to save Illinoisans’ lives by speeding up the state’s transition to electric trucks that will reduce the amount of diesel fuel air pollution.

House Bill 5855 from state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, would redefine dozens of different types of rifles, pistols and shotguns as “assault weapons.” If approved, anyone who owns them would have 300 days to register them with state police. All future sales would be prohibited.

“Unfortunately, this legislation does not reflect the best interests of our nation at this moment in time. Our greatest security threats have no military solutions, and it is time our budget reflects that,” she said. “Instead of giving the Pentagon $45 billion it did not ask for, we should make the investments in health care, education, housing, public transit, and the environment that Americans deserve.”

The move appears to pave the way for Illinois Rep.-elect Bill Hauter to be sworn in before the spring session begins. Tazewell County Republican Party Chair Jim Rule said it’s important the party fill the seat before lawmakers consider changes to the criminal justice reform law known as the SAFE-T Act or other issues in early January.

See ours own Wirepoints commentary on this here.

Born in Gibson City, Bennett was a fifth-generation central Illinoisan who previously worked as an Assistant State’s Attorney in Champaign County. He was appointed to the senate seat previously held by Michael Frerichs after Frerichs was sworn in as Illinois State Treasurer in 2015. Bennett

“The votes to pass one have seemingly been there in both chambers, but the will of past Democratic leadership seemed to be to not overtly poke any big, cash-rich bears, like the National Rifle Association, or to alienate or electorally imperil conservative members of their Democratic caucuses.”

Lausch believes pretrial detentions have gone up given the severity of crimes they’re seeing. “You have a prosecutor, you have a defense lawyer and the judge and then a pretrial services officer who are evaluating, ‘Is this person a risk of flight or a danger to the community?’ If they are, we will seek pretrial detention. And if we meet certain standards, we need to

Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said while the impact may be only 0.01% of IMRF’s investments, the announcement is troubling. “We know that one of our pension funds is invested in this crypto-type investment so I think it begs the question, what about the rest of Illinois’ pension funds and is the risk managed and controlled. Every single pension fund should be answering that question and be transparent about it.”

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the fourth trailer-bill to the SAFE-T Act into law Dec. 6, clarifying the language on pretrial release, felonies for denying bail and creating a new grant program for public defenders. Pritzker said the 308-page amendment “addresses misinformation.”

“Once again, Illinois legislators have proven that nothing could be finer than a problem that is minor.”

But 15 months after Gov. JB Pritzker signed what was touted as the most equitable climate change-fighting law in the country, the job-training programs those initiatives were supposed to establish in the growing green economy still don’t exist; And not a single new ”equity” job has been created. That’s despite the promised job-creation efforts Pritzker’s state Department of Commerce

Illinoisans have now wagered almost $17 billion on sports since the industry launched in the state just a few days before the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020. The state’s 12 sportsbooks have netted almost $1.3 billion over that time, creating almost $190 million in tax revenue.

An unexpected surge in revenue fuels the plan, with $1.36 billion paying off a federal loan distributed to Illinois and numerous other states when the coronavirus pandemic shut down businesses and sent unemployment rates to 40-year highs. That loan’s retirement carried a $20 million interest payment due next fall.

Illinois finished poorly on the list due to the impact on the middle class from the state’s flat income tax rate, average combined state and local sales tax and its high property tax burden that ranks second highest in the country.

“There is no part of HB5855 we think is constitutional,” Illinois State Rifle Association Executive Director Richard Pearson said in a statement.

On January 1, the hike is expected to increase by 2.2 cents per gallon, followed by an approximate 3.8 cents per gallon hike on July 1, according to inflation experts’ estimates.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has served in the role in the caucus since 2005. He will also continue in his role as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The Supreme Court wants to know how our state courts can better serve the needs of survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking,” Chief Justice Mary Jane Theis said. “Changing technology, the upcoming SAFE-T Act and other legislative changes necessitate the need for a committee dedicated to these issues.”

“What I see is that there’s a number of reasons why the majority of license winners are not going to become operational, and it’s disingenuous for the state or the governor to herald success over who initially won these licenses,” said Ambrose Jackson, CEO of a company that won state social equity transportation and craft grow licenses, as well as a social equity dispensary license.

U.S Sen. Tammy Duckworth is proposing legislation requiring a new FAA seat size study looking at how real life conditions including children, seniors and the disabled as well as the presence carry-on bags impacts evacuation times. “When you’re testing with are not real world conditions, then that gets me worried,” she said.

Illinois got credit for its ambitious climate bill, passed in 2021, according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. But the state underperformed in areas such as vehicle emissions standards and building code compliance studies.

If approved, the current proposal from state Rep. Bob Morgan is certain to face legal opposition from gun rights advocates, and the political calculations surrounding its passage are complicated, particularly given that gun control measures historically have broken down on regional as well as partisan lines.

“On its face, the optics of (Jason) Barickman and (Tim) Butler’s departures, coming less than one month after winning reelection to new terms, are not great. But, in another sense, it is fitting that they announced within a few weeks of one another. Both hold conservative political positions but are moderate in temperament. They are the types of Illinois Republicans who still managed to get some things done despite toiling away in the superminority.”

Jim Dey: “In a 5-2 decision that angered the dissenters, the court sent the case of Samuel Sauls back to Champaign County for an “in camera” review of state child-protection records…If the impending judicial review of Illinois Department of Children and Family Services investigation records finds they are relevant, (Samuel) Sauls’ conviction will be reversed and he will be entitled to a new trial.”

President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States. The money for the Central States Pension Fund is the largest amount of federal aid provided for a pension plan, the Biden administration said, and comes from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed into law in 2021.

Under a bill signed into law last August by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, each local government’s annual refund tab is now added to its levy on taxpayers the following year. The problem stood out in some smaller suburbs, where one favorable tax appeal decision for a big commercial property could blow a multimillion-dollar hole in the school system’s budget, state Rep. Michael Zalewski said.

Gov. JB Pritzker says cannabis delivery, which is currently illegal in Illinois but offered in other states, is an idea worth considering. “At first blush, as long as it’s regulated—and as long as we make sure the person who is ordering it gets it, and they’re legally allowed to—it would seem to me the same as someone coming into a store.”

Representatives of key retirement funds that cover teachers in Chicago, the suburbs and downstate say the financial collapse of the FTX exchange and other setbacks do not directly impact them because they did not invest in such assets. City of Chicago officials report the same for its four retirement systems.

According to a recent study from moving services company United Van Lines, there were 123.8 outbound moves from Illinois for every 100,000 households in the state in 2021.

The most recent audit released earlier this year showed the agency “did not allow for the speedy hearing of all appeals,” among other findings.

The Illinois Economic and Fiscal Policy Report includes significant upward revisions to the FY2023 projected operating revenues and proposes for an increase of nearly $1.5 billion over the enacted budget. The increase to the projection is due to income and sales tax collections exceeding what was budgeted through the first four months of the year.

The State Small Business Credit Initiative was reauthorized as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA),with Illinois eligible to receive up to $354.6 million. Said DCEO Director Sylvia Garcia, “With a focus on equity, these programs will help hundreds of Illinois businesses in communities across the state – especially those who have historically encountered barriers to accessing capital.”

Not only are more women serving on the bench, but Democrats grew their four to three majority to a five to two majority. “As a court, we have to make decisions based on the law,” Lisa Holder White said. “It really shouldn’t have anything to do with our party affiliation.”

Asked how he’ll gauge if the end of cash bail is a success story, Gov. JB Pritzker said, “We’ll be looking to the [Illinois Supreme Court], they obviously are monitoring this well for us and talking to state’s attorneys and asking what the real challenges are that they’re facing. But a lot of that has been addressed in this amendment to the law.”

What constitutes a sin is open to interpretation. Chicago considers streaming your favorite TV show or song a sin, slapping a 9% amusement tax on entertainment services such as Netflix, Hulu and Spotify.

“What Senator Durbin conveniently forgets is when a consumer on Main Street experiences a fraud on his/her bank account from a purchase made at a big box retailer, the consumer does not call the retailer to fix the fraud and have the funds re-deposited into their account. The bank is the one who will restore the funds to the consumer, not the big box retailer.”

“It’s a reminder that price controls work, though not in the way that their proponents want them to. With the imposition of the cap, it was no longer affordable to lend to certain borrowers. As opposed to better off, the highest-risk borrowers in Illinois found they could not borrow the money they needed and that “their overall financial well-being had declined” in the aftermath of a market intervention falsely billed as compassionate.”

“The Local Government Business Anti-Poaching Act, HB0211, would prohibit local governments from offering special favors to Illinois businesses in exchange for relocating to their communities. It would end business incentives from politicians spending taxpayer dollars…Under this legislation, Illinois lawmakers and businesses would both refocus their energies on the state’s economic, education, law enforcement and infrastructure policies to put the state’s economy to work for everyone, not just the privileged few.”

“I’m pleased that the General Assembly has passed clarifications that uphold the principle we fought to protect: to bring an end to a system where wealthy violent offenders can buy their way out of jail, while less fortunate nonviolent offenders wait in jail for trial,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement announcing he signed the measure.

Fitch analyst Eric Kim said “They’ve (Illinois) made some real strides in terms of improving their resilience and the tools that they have available to them to deal with downturns like the one that again we expect to come next year. But there’s obviously a long way to go.”

With its $59 billion total economic impact, tourism in Illinois creates 388,800 jobs and raises $4.3 billion in state and local tax revenue.

Kiplinger’s annual state tax analyses found Illinois’ second-highest property taxes, eighth-highest combined sales tax and above-average income taxes are costing middle-class families more than anywhere else in the country.

More than 180 new laws passed by the General Assembly are set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Ten days later, the 103rd General Assembly, most recently elected this past cycle, will be inaugurated.

The company’s Gatorade, Quaker and Tropicana brands are headquartered in Chicago.

State Sen. Jason Barickman announced Monday he will retire from the position at the end of the term Jan. 10, and state Rep. Tim Butler is stepping down to become the president of the Illinois Railroad Association. When a lawmaker retires before the end of their term, local officials from the legislator’s political party select a replacement to fill the term, not voters.

Effective Jan. 1, the statewide Illinois minimum wage will rise to $13 per hour for non-tipped employees ages 18 and over. Two local jurisdictions, Chicago and Cook County, have a higher wage than the Illinois minimum wage.

Jim Dey: “Claims by legislators like state Sen. Ron Peters, D-Chicago, that any changes would be non-substantial was hot air designed to disguise serious legislative malpractice. To hear supporters speak in public, any criticism of the SAFE-T Act was based on ignorance, lies or racism. Behind the scenes, supporters were negotiating improvements that served their political interests as well as public safety.”

“To have voted in favor of the bill would have been to betray my consistent stance that I will not vote in favor of any trailer bill that I feel lessens the original purpose, intent and/or effect of the SAFE-T act. There is a very simple test for me. All of law enforcement originally opposed the bill…Each trailer bill was either supported by law enforcement or they were neutral. The only reason for them to ease their stance is because they were able to weaken the original bill.

Attorneys Michael Shakman and Paul Lurie have filed a motion in Chicago federal court, opposing Gov. JB Pritzker’s efforts to force them to repay fees the court awarded them from the state as Pritzker argued in court that continued federal oversight of state hiring practices was no longer warranted.

House Bill 4218 aims to address the lack of hygiene products in Illinois Department of Corrections facilities.

Despite the amendments lawmakers approved, still at play in the challenge are the single subject rule pertaining to legislation being passed touching on more than one subject and the separation of powers argument where the legislative branch is encroaching on the judicial branch.

The House voted 95-11 to pre-authorize 12-year renewals for eight TIF districts, including four in Chicago. But state Rep. Jeff Keicher said during floor debate last week, “That money would go along towards helping the issues financially that we see in CPS and school districts throughout this state…It’s my grave concern that I see some of these TIFs being extended to 47 and 35 years from the original guideline there.”

The board reported that 4,142,642 out of 8,115,751 registered voters cast ballots in the election, a turnout of roughly 51 percent. That’s down from a turnout of more than 57 percent in 2018, but up from a 49 percent turnout in 2014.

An “omnibus” tax bill also includes a five-year extension of tax deductions for contributions to ABLE accounts, a savings program for people with disabilities; an expansion of the Live Theater Production tax credit to make more productions eligible for the credit; and a provision stating that any student loan forgiveness that may be approved by the federal government will not count as taxable income for Illinois taxes.

Sen. Jason Barickman is retiring at the end of the legislative session Jan 10, 2023. He worked for the Illinois House of Representatives and Senate for 12 years, ending as the minority caucus chair for the Senate Republicans. He also works as a partner in a real estate company and an adjunct political science professor for Illinois State University.

While GOP members of the Senate also expressed support, one member urged caution regarding these types of sanctions in the future. “Setting a hard baseline is important,” Senator Craig Wilcox said. “We cannot allow ideological differences within the General Assembly to drive the issuance of state sanctions. I do have concerns over what this could turn into if we don’t develop a firm set of ground rules for when this kind of action is appropriate.”

“Now that we are on the tail end of COVID, COVID is over, and now the mandates have been lifted, its time to go back to substantive bills being properly vetted on the House floor and held for a vote,” state Rep. Adam Niemerg said.

“In 2021, 26,904 educators earned six-figure salaries, while 16,592 retirees pocketed $100,000 pensions. That’s as test scores dropped, with only 31 percent of students reading at grade level. There were 18 school superintendents who made $300,000, and another 18 retired school superintendents received $300,000 in retirement pensions.”

“Consider that Illinois paid off its $4.5 billion debt to the federal government from the many billions of dollars in coronavirus financial aid it received from the federal government…Under those circumstances, neither the feds nor the borrower deserve plaudits for financial management or sobriety.”

In total, 12 bills passed both chambers ranging from the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund to more local interests with the Springfield High-Speed Rail Corridor Improvement Project. Gov. JB Pritzker was in Washington D.C. Thursday for a state dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron.

This week, an amendment to the law was passed. However, officers did not obtain everything they needed, particularly clarification on body cameras.

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie is calling out Illinois Democrats for not repaying a state debt sooner.

The bill received no Republican support, although several members of the minority party in the Senate acknowledged what they described as considerable but insufficient improvements to the underlying law. They also chafed at being left out of the negotiations.

“…(T)he PRESS Act would uniquely benefit the Chicagoland media. Illinois has a reporter’s privilege law at the state level, but our federal appellate circuit is one of the few that do not shield reporters from invasive subpoenas. The Seventh Circuit has admitted that journalists’ investigative capabilities ‘would be enhanced’ if they were shielded from government-compelled disclosure of sources. ‘But they are not,’ it concluded.”

While not a single Republican voted for the latest amendment to the law, they took credit for provoking it with a drumbeat of criticism. “There would be no changes made without pressure from Republicans,” said state Sen. Steve McClure, a Springfield Republican and former Sangamon County prosecutor. “Those were not just minor changes in that legislation. There were some very big changes to the forcible felonies that can be detained.”

After 15 Illinois jailbirds used PPP loans to pay their bail, cynics scoffed that the program should be named the Prisoner Paycheck Program.

Despite Democrats’ changes to the SAFE-T Act, Illinois’ sprawling criminal justice reform law, a Kankakee County judge could soon take the next steps in deciding the law’s fate. Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas Cunnington is scheduled to hold a hearing and potentially issue a decision on constitutional challenges brought against the SAFE-T Act by a group of more than 60 Illinois county prosecutors.

A statement from the caucus reads, in part, “The mismanagement and incompetence have led to where it always leads – higher taxes. As a result of the vote taken today on the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund bailout, taxes on businesses will go up 12% over the next five years.”

Jim Dey:”Champaign County State’s Attorney Julia Rietz said she was ‘pleased’ with the changes Democratic legislators made while speculating that it is ‘very likely’ the law will remain controversial after the bond system is abolished Jan. 1. ‘We’re better off today (Friday) than we were yesterday (Thursday),’ she said. ‘I am satisfied — for now.'”

Illinois lost out to Michigan in its efforts to become the new Midwest representative among the first five states in the process to select a 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, based on the recommendation of a party committee and President Joe Biden.

Christian County Sheriff Bruce Kettelkamp said his concerns with the SAFE-T Act include the trespassing bill and the new training standards for officers,because training is a financial burden on the department and takes officers off of the streets. “It just bothers me that the legislators make these laws and they have no clue what goes out on the streets…They don’t get out on the streets and actually do the enforcement.”

To save the most, you may want to head to Wisconsin where the combined state and average local retail tax rate is just 5.4 percent, compared to Illinois’ 8.8 percent. And if you’re willing to cross into neighboring states for gas, you may want to stay for your holiday shopping. Illinois has the eighth-highest sales tax in the nation, and ranks as the only Midwestern state in the top 10.

Illinois is home to several EV-related companies. Rivian Motors manufactures electric pickup trucks in Bloomington-Normal, Canadian-based Lion Electric Co. received a $7.9 million tax credit to build electric buses and trucks in Joliet, and TCCI in Decatur recently retooled its plant in order to make EV compressors. The Belvidere Assembly Plant near Rockford is slated to build electric versions of the Dodge Charger, Challenger and a crossover beginning in 2024.

Illinois Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Jim Kaitschuk said law enforcement were already gearing up for the Pretrial Fairness Act before the changes lawmakers approved. Adding to the pressures in the final weeks of the year is a lawsuit dozens of state’s attorneys and sheriffs have against the law’s implementation to be heard next week in Kankakee County. “The judge will make a determination the following week,” Kaitschuk said. “I don’t now what the process will be moving forward.”

Illinois’ Office of Executive Inspector General received a record-high 3,075 complaints – over 700 more than the prior year – covering employees who ultimately report to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, including allegations about misuse of public funds and conflicts of interest.

Illinois lowest on the list of states.

“One of the problems the super-majority Democrats have in both chambers is that when they know their bill is going to pass, they usually don’t take the Republicans’ objections seriously enough to fully engage with them.”

The bill, known as the Money Laundering in Real Estate Task Force Act, “urges the pension funds and retirement systems established under the Illinois Pension Code to divest their holdings in any companies that are domiciled in Russia or Belarus and that are on the list of restricted companies developed by the Illinois Investment Policy Board.”

Said G.H. Merritt, chairwoman of the grassroots organization New Illinois, “An urban area versus a rural, small-town suburban area, has different needs, interests, cultures and economies. And so if all the legislation going through is in the interests of the densely populated urban area, and it’s imposed on the entire state, eventually the people realize they are not being represented.”

“We’re walking into a headwind,” said Akele Parnell, a 38-year-old Black entrepreneur in Chicago. His company, 11th Level Inc., last year was granted licenses to grow and sell cannabis in Illinois. A legal challenge to the state’s program kept all work on his company and other minority-owned enterprises in the state frozen until June. Now he is struggling to raise the $8 million to $10 million he said he needs to set up a grow operation and dispensary.

In the Senate, sponsoring Sen. Robert Peters, a Chicago Democrat, recalled that Atticus Finch, the color-blind defense attorney in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, said that courage is knowing “you’re licked before you begin … but you see it through.” Peters continued, “We’re seeing it through no matter what. Illinois on Jan. 1, 2023, will make history — civil rights history.”

A proposal from state Rep. Bob Morgan, who was marching in the Highland Park parade when the shooting occurred, would allow people under 21 to obtain a FOID card only if they are active duty members of the U.S. military or the Illinois National Guard. The measure also seeks to strengthen the state’s firearm restraining order law by extending the period someone can be barred from possessing a gun from six months to a year and by giving local prosecutors a greater role in the process.

His statement reads, in part, “I’m pleased that the General Assembly has upheld the principles we fought to protect, including bringing an end to a system where those charged with violent offenses can buy their way out of jail, while others who are poor and charged with nonviolent offenses wait in jail for trial.”

“The war on drugs, where we told people to just say no, failed us,” State Rep. LaShawn Ford said. “We know that people are going to use, and we have to support them.”

In 2022, 33.1 % of Illinoisans worked from home, compared to 26.7% in 2021. Nationally, the rate for remote workers has remained stable, dipping a mere 1.2% between October 2022 and October 2021.

Ted Dabrowski, president of Wirepoints, blamed Pritzker for the debt and said it should have been paid off sooner. “Governor Pritzker passed some of the strictest lockdowns in the country, so the unemployment problem is largely on him. It is the right thing to do to put the money in. The question is how much more tax or rate hikes the companies in this state will have to face.”

State Sen. Chapin Rose expects dozens of state’s attorneys and sheriffs to continue their consolidated lawsuit against the law’s implementation, which is scheduled to be heard next week in Kankakee County. “They’re pressing on with their court case, you know why? Because they know that everything is not fine,” Rose said during debate. “They know that the people of Illinois’ personal safety, the safety of their family is at risk.”

The plan now moving through the General Assembly calls for using excess revenues the state has seen this year to pay off the remaining $1.37 billion owed to the federal government, plus another $450 million in the form of a zero-interest loan to the trust fund that is to be paid back over the next 10 years.

Illinois small businesses reported the third-largest monthly increase (8%) in rent delinquency and sixth-highest rate overall (40%) among states. Illinois was slightly below the U.S. average of 41% in November, which was the highest rent delinquency rate of 2022.

“In typical Springfield fashion, we can’t just pass a clean bill and do our due diligence to pay back the money that was borrowed during the pandemic,” Wilhour said. “Instead, our leaders have decided to hold job creators hostage by loaning funds Illinois businesses will have to pay back through rate increases. It is no wonder we are losing so many businesses to other states.”

In DeKalb, the tabulation error was not attributed to fraud, but to a vendor inadvertently uploading the mail-in results twice.

The funding from the American Rescue Plan Act will be used by the Illinois Department of Public Health to create pipelines into critical public health positions, retain existing employees through efforts to reduce employee burnout and provide a variety of training opportunities to improve workforce skills.

State Sen. Jason Plummer said the process feels rushed and that’s not good for transparency or public safety. “Who knows if it will address the issues that are in question in the court case. I hope we find out soon. But, this is really consequential legislation. We’re not talking about a random $25 fee here.”

The agreed-bill process is a quirk unique to Illinois, according to its adherents. Basically, the idea is that that outside interest groups on all sides of an issue, especially ones technical in nature or requiring specific expertise, bargain until they can come to an agreement that all can live with.

In 2021, 356 kids statewide had been hospitalized beyond the time it was medically necessary. The average stay? 55 days longer than a doctor deemed appropriate, and 18% of the kids were 10 years old or younger. But the agency now reports the number of youths who are hospitalized “beyond medical necessity” is down by more than 80%.

A statement from the caucus, comprised of State Representatives Adam Niemerg, Chris Miller, Brad Halbrook, Blaine Wilhour and Dan Caulkins reads, in part, “Substantive bills deserve individual roll calls so that members are completely aware of the full implication of their votes. The people of Illinois expect legislators to do their jobs and debating and voting on legislation is part of the job.”

President Obama, a former Illinois state lawmaker, was a U.S. Senator representing Illinois when he announced his bid for presidency from the Old State Capitol Feb. 10, 2007.

Around 27,300 incarcerated individuals in the state were ineligible to vote in the 2022 midterm elections, with 55% of those being Black. If passed, Illinois would join Maine, Vermont, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico as places that allow incarcerated citizens to vote.

Legislation is pending in Springfield that would close a loophole and require Illinois pawnbrokers to charge no more than 36% APR for their loans.

House Bill 1293 urges the state’s five retirement systems to divest their holdings in companies domiciled in either of those countries as well as their sovereign debt, and prohibits them from making new investments there. Said state Rep. Lindsey LaPointe, “We in Illinois have to do everything we can … to make sure we’re doing our part to call out Russia and to end this war.”

The court found that Marc Smith did not willfully ignore a Cook County judge’s order to move children who were discharged from psychiatric hospitals into group homes or residential settings. He was just unable to do it.

Sen. Robert Peters, D-Chicago, filed a 308-page amendment to House Bill 1095. Among other things, it states that when cash bail ends on Jan. 1, the changes will apply to those charged with crimes after that date; it clarifies and defines that all people charged with “forcible felonies” and non-probationable offenses may be detained under the dangerousness standard; and it maintains that individuals accused of domestic violence may be held pretrial.

Just a year after passing major new tax incentives to lure electric vehicle makers here, the Pritzker administration is aiming to sweeten the pot. Legislation introduced in Springfield today that quickly passed a Senate committee would both widen and extend to up to 30 years payroll tax credits for those who work here under the existing Reimagining Electric Vehicles in Illinois law, known as the Rev Illinois Act.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in Champaign and Decatur, both cities saw their lowest unemployment rates so far this year as of September. That number was 3.5% in Champaign and 5.7% in Decatur.

A government union-backed group is pushing parents to ask state lawmakers to kill tax credit scholarships serving the state’s most vulnerable students. The Invest in Kids Tax Credit Scholarship program to expire in 2024, ending scholarships that have helped at least 37,000 students in Illinois.

“In short, union membership status can play no role in a grievance or disciplinary procedure. While unions have considerable discretion in handling grievances, that discretion does not include discrimination based on membership status.”

Jim Dey: “According to a recent decision by the Fourth District Appellate Court, an Illinois Supreme Court decision that found that the odor of cannabis alone establishes probable cause to search a vehicle ‘is still good law.’ But an earlier decision by the Third District Appellate Court found otherwise, setting up the Supreme Court to break the tie.”

Barnes served four terms in Springfield, representing the South Side of Chicago. He helped form the influential Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, and sponsored the first Illinois Lottery legislation.

“An analysis by the independent non-profit Wirepoints.org detailed the wretched results of the Covid school closings in Illinois: an 18 percent drop in student reading proficiency overall — and 36 percent plunge for black kids. Ask the parents of those African American children how affirmative action in colleges — building the house of education from the top down — helps their kids.”

“I’d really argue that Congress is not the place where we should be the final arbiters of these decisions,” said U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis. “It sets a horrible precedent for the future where you’re not going to have voluntary agreements.”

Under a plan from Rep. Denyse Wang Stoneback, people could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor for knowingly and recklessly making, publishing, broadcasting, or circulating false or misleading statements about candidates or elected officials. Anyone violating the change could also be sued civilly.

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth says the Respect for Marriage Act is “a great first step” in further protecting same-sex marriage, and that she would support lifting the filibuster on a case-by-case basis for major pieces of legislation such as the Voting Rights Act and an assault weapons ban.

Rob Karr, of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, said this agreement is crucial for Illinois businesses. “It will ensure greater stability in the unemployment insurance systems, and means Illinois employers will face at least $900 million less in taxes over five years than they would have otherwise.”

“In some cases these are dangerous people,” state Sen. Steve McClure said. “This act emboldens them, allows them to miss court and then the court has to just be real nice and say, ‘oh, sorry you missed court, can you please let us know why you missed court for this important case that could cause you to go to prison for a long period of time.’”

Gov. JB Pritzker was asked about the strike as Illinois is a major hub for all Class 1 railroads. “Railroads are extremely important, especially right now because we are having trouble with barges on the Mississippi [River]. We have got to do something. We can not have a situation in which the supply chain is cut off because there is a mass railroad strike.”

“Businesses with under 20 employees have been the only firms that have grown jobs since 2020,” Illinois Policy Institute’s Justin Carlson said. “Businesses with over 20 employees have lost jobs since the onset of the pandemic.”

Todd Ricketts is betting there’s still a niche in internet search for what the former Republican National Committee finance chairman calls “unbiased, uncensored” media. Ricketts, part of the family that made its fortune in the online brokerage business and owns the Chicago Cubs, recently launched Freespoke, which is described as “a search engine for the heart of America.”

“Republican voters are still reeling from massive losses during the November election in Illinois that saw the GOP losing every statewide race; losing winnable congressional races; and handing Democrats once again a supermajority in both the Illinois House and Senate chambers – leaving Republicans voiceless and irrelevant in local and state matters. And despite publishing a weekly Chairman’s Memo, and serving as the leader of the IL Republican party, Tracy has yet to take any responsibility for the losses.”

According to Illinois Justice Project Director Ahmadou Dramé, this new policy will also significantly reduce the high recidivism rates among those who are sent to prison.

Though Illinois Democrats control state government, the strikes against the state, sources said, are the expensive Chicago media market, which would make it harder for less well-funded contenders to compete and the fact that, as one of the bluest states in the nation, it is not a battleground state.

RNC Committeeman Richard Porter: “We are not who they say we are. From school board meetings to the House of Representatives, Republicans strive to rebut and roll back ideas motivated by hate, anger, and envy. We support leaders who resolutely defend, preserve, and promote the equalizing power of mutual respect, and our divine rights to liberty, self-government, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“[Cook County’s] got all sorts of materials and policies and procedures developed and have worked out all of these arrangements with all the stakeholders,” said Loyola University Professor Dave Olson, also a member of the Illinois Supreme Court Pretrial Implementation Task Force. “In smaller jurisdictions, they just don’t have the capacity.” Olson said that might make it more challenging for those jurisdictions, some of which don’t have a full-time public defender, to hold detention hearings right away.

“Our government is based on a two-party system with checks and balances, and it applauds healthy, even spirited debate. But, Illinois Republican Party, you are in big trouble. I just can’t look at you right now.”

Illinois was the first state to enact specific AMBER Alert legislation. Since the first alert in 2002, the Illinois AMBER Alert System has been used to broadcast 118 alerts of abducted children. The alerts contributed directly in the recovery of 67 children and indirectly for 22 more.

The position works in the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to direct state agencies on regulating and taxing Illinois’ cannabis industry, as well as make sure the state is reaching its social equity goals.

““Google and iHeartMedia misled customers with fabricated advertisements,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said. “I am committed to seeking enforcement against businesses and others who violate the law to take advantage of Illinois consumers.”

Illinois’ unemployment rate ticked up one-tenth of a percent to 4.6% in October, nearly a percentage point higher than the national rate of 3.7%. Illinois added just 3,600 jobs in October, significantly fewer than in September and the fewest jobs added during 2022.

A survey by the small businesses network Alignable shows 40% of those asked in Illinois could not pay their rent in November in full and on time, up 8% from October. Nationwide, 41% said they could not pay their rent, a new high for 2022.

“In FY2022, the OEIG received a total of 3,075 complaints, 63% of which were filed through the OEIG’s website,” the agency reported. “In addition, the OEIG completed 88 investigations, including 20 that resulted in findings of wrongdoing and 21 that resulted in systematic or process recommendations to the governing authority.” About $8.2 million is budgeted for the OEIG in fiscal 2023, a 24% increase from the year before.

“Northwestern’s nonexistent response to recent Qatari censorship demonstrates why branch campuses in authoritarian nations are a bad idea. Northwestern has lent its credibility to the propaganda of an authoritarian and anti-Western regime, whitewashing its censorship and inevitably participating in self-censorship to maintain ties…. As long as the Medill School of Journalism continues to work with Qatar, its commitment to ‘fight for the freedom of the press’ will remain hollow.”

More than a year before the Nov. 8 election, Black leaders filed a lawsuit because they believed legislative redistricting would pave the way for a white candidate to win in a district that includes the predominantly Black communities of East St. Louis and Cahokia Heights. Their concerns became a reality with Republican Kevin Schmidt of Millstadt unofficially taking the House District 114 race over incumbent Democrat LaToya Greenwood of East St. Louis.

A surge of anti-trans legislation has been brought to statehouses across the region, with numerous bills that would limit or eliminate access to gender-confirming health care, especially for transgender youth. “And we’ve not seen any of that in the state of Illinois,” said Dave Bentlin, president of the Prairie Pride Coalition. “So I think from a legislative and political standpoint, I think this is a better environment than most states, especially in the Midwest.”

“Illinois’ GOP has alienated many of its traditional, moderate voters with the embrace by many in the party, particularly in southern parts of the state, of far-right ideologies. As the first downstate representative to lead House Republicans since George Ryan 40 years ago, McCombie stressed the need for the GOP to attract new supporters.”

Illinois lawmakers return to Springfield Tuesday as state’s attorneys and law enforcement officials await changes to the SAFE-T Act. Before the election, Democrats promised to take up the legislation during fall veto session, but have vowed not to make major changes to the bill.

Matt Paprocki, of the Illinois Policy Institute: “Illinois’ small business owners not only have to deal with the same inflation concerns as other business owners around the country, they also have to deal with the third-most regulatory restrictions in the U.S. All those restrictions don’t help Illinois fix an unemployment rate that remains the worst in the nation.”

Comment: This column is about Politico’s national Playbook but applies fully to the local Illinois edition.

While school districts are likely to request the maximum increase, Hank Thiele, superintendent of Community High School District 99 in Downers Grove, said it is necessary because the tax cap doesn’t really allow schools to keep up with inflation. “Although people’s tax rates are increasing, it’s not increasing at the same rate as inflation,” Thiel said. “So it already is a reduced value in comparison to inflation.

The state legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability revised the state’s revenue estimates, reducing cannabis tax fund expectations by $8 million this fiscal year. It was just one of three general fund revenue sources where officials now anticipate fewer dollars than initially budgeted.

“The report projected the state’s long-term budgetary deficits will be nearly eliminated.This is like a person touting they are not going to spend more money than they take in, but they are only going to pay $1,100 a month to their credit card companies, while the minimum payments are $1,500.”

“This is indicative of what happens with any major reform legislation …. You always have to come back and make those tweaks and make those changes,” state Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth said. “But we’re also going to have to do some information gathering as well and begin to work with folks because these systems do not work like a light switch.”

“(House Speaker Chris) Welch will soon have more members of his party than any Speaker since the state constitution was revised to reduce the chamber’s membership by a third. He said there were a number of explanations for his caucus’ expansion, but the United State Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was ‘monumental.'”

“A strong signal of support for its provisions in the FY2024 budget request is vital to solidify the United States’ renewed commitment to global leadership in science and innovation,” wrote the 18 Senators, including both Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

Prices of both newly constructed and existing homes increased, with the average price of a new home in Bloomington-Normal costing over $381,000, up from about $320,000 the year before. The average cost of a home in the Twin Cities is now $250,000.

Illinoisans have until Thursday, Dec. 1 to renew their license or ID card, marking the end of the final deadline extension issued by Jesse White. White first extended the renewal period due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and subsequently announced several more extensions.

The bill being considered at the Illinois statehouse also includes tax exemptions for some people with disabilities, tax credits for touring Broadway productions, and an additional month for Cook county taxpayers to pay property taxes without accruing interest.

The Illinois Housing Development Authority announced that of more than 64,000 applications, about 27,000 were approved for the second round of the federally funded program. The average level of assistance was nearly $7,500.

A bill in Springfield proposes delaying the Jan. 1 state gas tax hike. If it fails, drivers will see two gas tax hikes in 2023, expected to take the tax to over 45 cents a gallon.

Businesses with fewer than 20 employees are the only firms to see jobs grow since 2020.

Although Amtrak has provided a bus service in replacement for the Carl Sandburg and Illinois Zephyr trains, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said this will not be able to meet the transportation needs of West Central Illinois residents. Durbin is asking Amtrak to restore the train service quickly as it provides approximately 5,000 passengers rides on average per month.

Illinois’ new union amendment allows government unions to negotiate over virtually anything and override state law through their union contracts. That includes laws aimed at reforming police procedures.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul and an executive committee of 13 attorneys general led the settlement negotiations with Teva Pharmaceuticals and the Ireland-based Allergan.

This week, DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek appealed the ruling of DuPage County Judge James Orel to the Illinois Third District Appellate Court, amid her continuing dispute with State Rep. Deanne Mazzochi, who has accused the clerk of violating state election law in how her office is counting mail-in votes. Kaczmarek’s appeal came immediately after the Illinois Supreme Court rejected her request for a special supervisory order that would have tossed out Judge Orel’s ruling.

Industries that saw job growth in most areas included: Manufacturing and Leisure and Hospitality, Mining and Construction and Other Services, Education and Health Services, Wholesale Trade, Transportation, Warehousing and Utilities, and Professional and Business Services and Government.

Said Gov. JB Pritzker, “”In reflecting on 2022, I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to serve the people of Illinois for another four years…We’ve all come a long way together since 2018, and it is my hope that all Illinoisans are healthy and able to spend time with loved ones near and far this holiday season.”

“Should Joe Biden step aside (or be nudged into retirement), there are Democratic governors who could surge into the race, including Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, California’s Gavin Newsom and possibly North Carolina’s Roy Cooper and Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker.”

A national republication of our Wirepoints column.

The first reform allows for a broader use of Clear and Present Danger Rule reports, which allows ISP to revoke or deny a Firearm Owners Identification Card to those who are deemed a risk to themselves or to others. The second change puts a model policy in place to provide an overall framework law enforcement can follow to secure and execute a Firearms Restraining Order.

As White prepares to depart the political stage, he will continue to work with the Jesse White Tumblers. “I’ve had this program for 64 years, more than 18,000 young people have come through it, and only 15 have gotten in trouble with the law,” he said. “I remind those kids that I always want them to look up, and the only time I want them to look down is when they tie their shoes.”

Employer associations from Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio sent Congressional leaders a letter last week urging them to implement the Presidential Emergency Board’s recommendations.

Illinois’ October unemployment numbers show a slight improvement, but the state is still at the bottom compared to the other state’s job markets, marking the second month in a row that Illinois has held the nation’s worst jobless rate.

“It doesn’t look like an unusually large turnout for an Illinois midterm election,” said Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois Board of Elections. “I’d estimate the statewide turnout at 50-51%.” That’s far off the turnout for Illinois’ 2018 midterm which was 57.23%, the highest for a midterm election in 36 years.

“Illinois casinos, it seems, have become like NFL franchises, supremely skilled at lobbying and dangling the promise of revenue to cash-strapped cities but on their own ever-changing terms.”

Jim Dey: “As an alternative to traditional incarceration in a jail or prison setting, the courts can sentence defendants to home incarceration. That means exactly what it says — individuals are required to be home unless they get permission from their overseers to leave for a limited amount of time for a specific reason… But the SAFE-T Act changed the rules to the point they are no longer required to remain at home.”

Triple A says the average gas price statewide is at four dollars a gallon for regular unleaded, down 16 cents over the past week. Springfield has the lowest prices of any major metro area in the state, at $3.69 a gallon, down 40 cents in the past month.

Illinoisans spent $3.3 billion more than projected on the state’s worst-in-the-nation pension crisis between 2017 and 2022. That’s enough money to give every taxpayer a $284 rebate, repave more than 150,000 miles of road or give every student at Southern Illinois University, both Edwardsville and Carbondale, a full-ride scholarship for four years.

The Illinois Supreme Court, in an unsigned order Monday, rejected a request by the DuPage County clerk to lift a local judge’s ruling directing the clerk on how she should verify the authenticity of late-arriving mailed-in ballots. Last week DuPage County Circuit Judge James Orel sided with state Rep. Deanne Mazzochi and ordered DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek to certify the validity of mail-in ballots using the voter registration signature on file – not the signatures of vote-by-mail applications – to verify mailed-in ballot signatures.

A $2.5 million project at the Old State Capitol is paid for by the Rebuild Illinois capital plan that doubled the state’s gas tax and increased various other taxes and fees. Exterior renovations have been underway for two years at the site where Abraham Lincoln gave his “House Divided” speech.

The Republican candidate for Illinois attorney general says Illinois Republicans didn’t fail at messaging in this month’s election, they failed at the ground game.

“Expanding our caucus was definitely a priority of mine,” House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch said. “But from a policy standpoint, we want to continue to build on the budget work that we’ve done. Expanding our caucus would not have been possible if people didn’t believe Democrats were doing the right things.”

Experts with Truth in Accounting examined state financial reports to determine Illinois failed to pay $210.5 billion worth of its bills in fiscal year 2021, leaving each taxpayer responsible for $49,500 in debt. Illinois ranked third-worst in the nation, rating an “F” for fiscal management.

“There’s a real fear that allowing judges to consider whether somebody poses a danger essentially allows for implicit bias to be part of the legal process,” said Insha Rahman, of the Vera Institute of Justice, an independent nonprofit that focuses on criminal justice reforms. “Really, what Illinois is a test of is, ‘Is this the new direction? Is this the final frontier of no more money bail? Have we actually hit it, and can we keep moving forward?'”

“The courts will be wrestling with the meaning of the amendment’s lengthy, vague language forever…Even the amendment’s staunchest backers don’t know or didn’t care what they were saying about the amendment’s meaning.”

Located 30 miles from Chicago, the base is home to 15,726 active-duty service members. Including military family members and other dependents, there are a total of 21,875 people at the base.

Kankakee and Freeport were two of seven Illinois municipalities forced to place home rule referendums on the Nov. 8 ballot because of reported population drops. Others were Carbondale, Harvey, Melrose Park, Collinsville and East St. Louis. All survived, with margins of victory ranging from 53% to 47% in Harvey, to an 80% to 20% split in Melrose Park.

Jim Dey: “For now, Illinois is OK in the short-term. But in the long-term, it’s still the same old story — look out below. Pension and retiree health care debts exceed $200 billion. The state’s chronic under-funding of its public pensions remains an albatross hanging over the state’s. Even as the state prepares to direct 20% of its annual budgets for the rest of the decades to pension, its pension and retiree health care debts will continue to increase.”

The state of Illinois is reporting record tax revenue on legal marijuana, with nearly half a billion dollars in the last year. Illinois consumers pay the second highest taxes in the nation when they buy legal recreational marijuana. However, experts claim lowering taxes could mean more money for the organizations that benefit from those funds.

“It’s time for an entirely new Illinois GOP — from top to bottom, including the political consulting class. Until that happens, national Republicans can count Illinois out.”

A WBEZ analysis shows that as the district’s population is shifting, so too are its political leanings. Northwest Indiana’s blue strongholds continue to lose population while many of the areas that have gained residents are Republican-leaning or have become more red in the last several years.

A new analysis shows the federal tax dollars sent to Illinois and other states since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds were used to support public health, education and to temporarily aid Illinois’ financial condition.

Legislators took action Wednesday on a bill that would effectively cut all financial ties between Illinois and Russia. The Illinois Senate gave House Bill 1293, also known as the Russian Divestment Act, its third reading and passed it unanimously 50-0 with nine not voting.

Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said there was more division and confusion under Ayala’s leadership, and it wasn’t just from COVID-19 mandates taking away local control. “When you tie that with the forced sex ed, when you tie that with the culturally responsive teaching and learning standards, which is more critical race theory in the classroom, it’s been a move away from teaching our kids to do math and learn how to read.”

A former assistant Cook County state’s attorney and DuPage County Board vice chairman, he was the lead Senate GOP voice on ethics reforms passed in 2021. Senate Minority Leader-elect John Curran at the time appeared with Democrats and spoke to reporters individually about how he worked with the majority party to strengthen the bill. He has also opposed the SAFE-T Act, arguing that while he’s not opposed to ending cash bail, he believes the system that will replace it has several shortcomings.

“Cash bail and pretrial detention together impose an often unfair burden on poor defendants while allowing wealthy offenders to go free. Establishing a risk assessment system that mitigates that unfairness is a noble goal. But any such system must be clear and must balance the interests of the defendant with the risk to public safety.”

Empower Illinois, the state’s largest scholarship-granting organization, has awarded 37,000 scholarships since 2018 worth more than $280 million.

Rich Miller: If legislators and others want to spend more on long-term programs or to buttress existing programs, they have to either increase revenues or reduce other spending or both.

U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D, Ill) is asking FTX to turn over documents and information as part of its investigation into the collapse of the once-prominent crypto platform.

According to court documents, DHS was ordered by the courts to take custody of a county jail inmate found unfit to stand back on September 8. On Thursday, a judge ruled that DHS did not give any sufficient reasons for the delay, as the inmate remains at the Sangamon County Jail.

Vermilion County Circuit Clerk Melissa Quick said the Circuit Clerk’s office collects 10% of the bond portion the inmate paid. The small percentage then goes into a money pool making up about 70% of the funds to pay the attorneys, judges, and the agency who made the arrest needed in court.

Illinois’ sports betting handle increased 47% from August to September, according to figures released by the Illinois Gaming Board. In September alone, Illinois was third with a betting handle of nearly $832 million, behind New Jersey and New York. It should be noted that New Jersey is home to two NFL teams, both of which are having successful seasons unlike the Chicago Bears.

“I think it is really sad and indefensible that Gov. Pritzker and other educational leaders in this state refuse to acknowledge just how bad things are in education and how we need dramatic reforms in school choice,” Wirepoints President Ted Dabrowski said. “If they’re not willing to acknowledge the problems then they’ll never have any plans to fix them.”

“There’s nothing illegal about Madigan shaking the bushes for campaign contributions while he is under indictment…But it’s unusual to see such a large haul associated with someone in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors who no longer can dole out political favors and jobs, as Madigan did for decades while one of Illinois’ most powerful government officials as House speaker.”

Specifically, the scheduled Jan. 1 increase in fuel tax rates would be postponed until July 1, 2023. The already scheduled July 1 increase would be nixed to prevent a double increase.

In an e-mailed statement, Truth in Accounting, which earlier gave state finances an F, challenged the notion that Illinois is in its best financial shape in years. The group particularly picked at pensions, long the state’s top fiscal issue. Despite recent progress, the group claims, Illinois is still annually contributing around $4 billion less than is actuarially required to keep the pension funds from running up debt.

Explains Jayne DeLuce, President & CEO of Visit Champaign County, “While we did see a tremendous recovery in 2021, we are still short of pre-pandemic levels where we were leading in growth across the state.” Overall visitor spending is still down 16.5% compared to pre-pandemic levels.

In a comment letter to the FTC, the AGs urged the FTC to acknowledge how much sensitive data is collected from consumers and what happens to that data. “Americans are utilizing online applications at an increased rate, sharing sensitive information on a variety of issues that if leaked could cause substantial harm to consumers,” Raoul said. “It is vital the FTC lead to ensure consumers have trust that their interactions online are protected and private.”

Data shows that 95% of gun violence victims of school age were not enrolled in school at the time of their victimization. “The goal is to get these young people back into schools,” said Jadine Chou, chief of safety and security for Chicago Public Schools. “Whether that is with CPS, or if they’re older, we can get them into some education completion opportunity.”

Illinois shoppers taking part in the 37th annual American Farm Bureau Federation’s Thanksgiving cost survey reported a statewide average price of $65.53 for a classic Thanksgiving meal for 10, compared to $58.15 last year, a 12.7% increase. The average price in 2017 was $49.12.

This week, Kwame Raoul announced several actions, including his office’s role in lawsuits against Walmart and Google bringing the state millions of dollars in settlements. Among them, Kaquanice Larry of Mt. Prospect has been charged with filing unemployment benefits with the state using stolen identities, receiving about $75,000 and about $40,000 of Paycheck Protection Program loans in the name of fictitious companies.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program reports show 15.9% of Illinoisans received food benefits in August 2022. That’s 1 in 6 Illinoisans. It is also 5.2% more residents than in August 2021. Nationwide SNAP participation increased just 0.9% during that time.

Together with Democratic candidate J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic Governors Association poured around $35 million into swaying the Illinois Republican primary. Though Trump-backed Republican Darren Bailey won that June contest, the far-right nominee was defeated on Tuesday by Pritzker.

Other priorities for her second term, Sen. Tammy Duckworth said, are crop insurance and lead in the water supply.

“The Clerk’s brief proclaims that our suit to have the Clerk follow the election laws was without precedent,” state Rep. Deanne Mazzochi said. “That isn’t true, and our responsive brief gives multiple examples of how Illinois courts have intervened to ensure election law compliance. What is unprecedented is a Clerk who ignores what the Legislature wrote into law, and what our Circuit Court said the law is, to insist that she alone knows best.”

True debate is expected after Thanksgiving, during the veto session’s final scheduled three days of the veto session – the last time the General Assembly is set to meet before the new year. But questions remain, including if there will be enough votes to support changes, and how far will those changes go.

Issues included the lack of American Indian studies within Illinois schools and making Indigenous Peoples Day in Illinois a statewide holiday.

“Behold a case study in how Democrats change the rules to limit political competition and entrench one-party, public-union rule…. Abortion politics and Donald Trump helped Democrats in Illinois as in other states. But Democrats in the Prairie State have also used every lever available to entrench their power. That includes a constitutional amendment they placed on the ballot enshrining the right to collective-bargaining that will augment government

“When it comes to laws on crime and public safety, we need to rely on the judgment of local prosecutors, men and women whose education and experience qualify them as the most trustworthy voices in our community on what is needed to make our criminal justice system work.”

She will lead a House Republican caucus that is its smallest since the Cutback Amendment slashed the size of the chamber from 177 members to 118 in 1981. She said, “We need some numbers. We need to collaborate on our messages, we need to bring our caucus all together to have opinions. We have, hopefully, 40 talented people that are going to be able to help us to go to the next level.”

In a statement after the court action, state Rep. Deanne Mazzochi said, “The Court rightly recognized that using a Vote by Mail application to qualify signatures on the Vote by Mail ballot itself would be an obvious way to commit ballot fraud,” and that restraining the Clerk from following this process immediately will protect the integrity of the election process to the benefit of both candidates.”

Cynthia Riseman Lund, who represented the state’s public schools teachers’ unions, expressed her opposition to the program during a House Revenue and Finance Committee meeting. “[The teachers’ unions] support elimination of the Invest In Kids program. It is set to sunset … and we will call for the elimination of the program even sooner,” Lund said.

State Rep. Lindsey LaPointe’s bill, first introduced in the Spring, would require divestment from Russian stocks, along with those from Russian ally Belarus. It names the Teachers’ Retirement System and urges public systems not controlled by the state to do the same. Gov. J.B. Pritzker called on state employee pension systems to review their portfolios for divestment possibilities.

“I will say, when it came to the idea of gutting it, that was a bipartisan thing that was real, and I will acknowledge that,” Sen. Robert Peters said at a news conference Tuesday. “But what I will say is that, after Tuesday (Election Day), the main thing is to make sure it’s technical and we can implement it the right way.”