Illinois Politics
Pratt sees opportunity for 'new challenge' as he files to run for state's attorney in Hancock County
QUINCY — Christopher Pratt, an attorney in the Adams County Public Defender’s Office since 2016, filed last week to run for state’s attorney in Hancock County. Pratt, who was promoted to deputy chief public defender in 2020, filed as a Republican. He will face incumbent Bobi James in a primary on March 19. No Democratic…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that automobile insurance policies must cover people against uninsured motorists and hit-and-run accidents, even if the person covered by the policy is not in a vehicle at the time of the accident. The case involved a 14-year-old Chicago boy, Cristopher Guiracocha, who was struck by a hit-and-run…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that people may obtain records about their own Firearm Owners Identification cards, but they may not use the state’s Freedom of Information Act to do so. In a 7-0 ruling, the court said the Illinois State Police acted properly when it denied FOIA requests from individuals who…
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The Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday ruled the state’s strongest-in-the-nation biometric information privacy law does have an exemption: health care workers who use fingerprints or similar scans to access things like medication, materials or patient health information. The nurses alleged their hospitals’ use of these medicine cabinets violated Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act by not…
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QUINCY — There was not baton or torch involved, but State Representative Randy Frese (R-Quincy) certainly made it clear he wants former Quincy mayor Kyle Moore to take his place in the Illinois Statehouse. “Over the course of the past eight years in, in my duties as a state representative, I’ve had the opportunity to…
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SPRINGFIELD – A group of temporary staffing agencies and their trade associations are asking a federal court to block enforcement of a new state law that governs how day laborers and temp workers are managed and paid. The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Chicago, challenges several changes enacted this year to the Illinois Day and…
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QUINCY — Two Adams County countywide elected officials filed to run for re-election in 2024 on the first day of filing along with one other prospective office holder and a number of precinct committeemen and County Board candidates. Circuit Clerk Lori Geschwandner filed for re-election as a Democrat and Coroner Scott Graham filed as a…
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Monday morning marks the official beginning of the 2024 election cycle in Illinois, opening up the week-long period when candidates for local, state, congressional and judicial races are required to turn in the signatures they’ve spent the last two months collecting to get on the ballot. The first day of petition filing has traditionally taken…
Read Full Article The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case alleging the state’s 2019 law that consolidated nearly 650 individual police and firefighter pension funds actually hurt retirees by diluting their voting power. The nearly three-dozen pensioners and 17 individual pension funds that sued over the law have already lost twice in lower court.…
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SPRINGFIELD – Officials at the Illinois State Board of Education say they’re receiving more requests for increased funding for next year than the state could possibly afford, and they’re bracing for the possibility that budgets will start to tighten in the near future. “It does appear that revenue will be a little bit tighter in…
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QUINCY — State Sen. Jil Tracy (R-Quincy) said the Pritzker Administration should not be diverting millions of taxpayer dollars to non-citizens – especially without any input from Illinois lawmakers. On Nov. 16, Gov. JB Pritzker announced he is re-allocating $160 million from the Illinois Department of Human Services to help assist Chicago with its influx…
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CHICAGO – As winter quickly approaches, Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday announced plans for the state to spend an additional $160 million to aid and house a sustained influx of migrants sent to Chicago from the nation’s southern border. The administration sold the plan as a three-phase approach: “welcome, shelter, independence” – aimed at meeting…
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The high-stakes nature of one of this year’s biggest public corruption trials became clear Wednesday when a defense attorney predicted an ominous argument from prosecutors: That federal guidelines call for life sentences for four people convicted of conspiring to bribe then-Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan. Prosecutors are not expected to begin disclosing their recommendations for the January sentencing hearings…
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This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. In late December, a teenage boy with a broken arm was left to suffer alone in his cell at a youth lockup in rural southern Illinois. Staff were aware he’d been seriously injured; he told them he was in pain and…
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SPRINGFIELD — Illinois received another credit upgrade Tuesday, the same day a legislative committee once again scrutinized Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration for its handling of unemployment claims during the COVID-19 pandemic. The upgrade came from Fitch Ratings, the last remaining holdout of the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies to advance the state’s status to…
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SPRINGFIELD – Illinois lawmakers adjourned their fall veto session Thursday afternoon without renewing a controversial program that provided indirect state support for students attending private and religious schools. The Invest in Kids program will sunset as scheduled on Dec. 31, meaning donors to six state-approved private school scholarship funds will no longer be able to…
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In a 2-1 ruling Friday, a federal appeals court ruled that Illinois’ assault weapon ban does not violate the U.S. Constitution, setting up a likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. “The Second Amendment to the Constitution recognizes an individual right to ‘keep and bear Arms.’ Of that there can be no doubt,” the majority opinion began,…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois State Police are facing pushback from gun rights advocates over proposed rules requiring owners of certain firearms to register them before the end of the year. ISP is in the process of adopting new rules to implement part of the state’s new assault weapons ban – officially named the Protect Illinois…
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SPRINGFIELD – Elementary and secondary students in Illinois showed consistent improvements in their reading and math scores while the state’s high school graduation rate reached a 13-year high for the most recently concluded school year. Those are some of the conclusions from the most recent annual statewide school report card, released Monday by the Illinois State…
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SPRINGFIELD – Vowing to make Illinois the top state in the nation for child care accessibility, Gov. JB Pritzker unveiled a plan Tuesday to consolidate all the state’s early childhood programs and funding into one new state agency. “Early Childhood program governance has to be unified in its focus on serving children and families, easing…
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Gun laws, scholarship tax credits, nuclear energy – but not new spending – on table for veto session
SPRINGFIELD – When lawmakers return to the Capitol next week for their annual fall veto session, they have a full agenda, including a handful of vetoes from Gov. JB Pritzker to consider overriding, in addition to deciding whether to revive a private school scholarship program. But additional state spending is unlikely to be on their…
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Gov. JB Pritzker is self-funding the launch of a new political advocacy group aimed at fighting for abortion rights across the U.S. – an extension of sizable donations he’s been making in Democratic politics for several years. The billionaire governor, whose rising national profile had garnered feverish speculation about a run for president in 2024,…
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Navigator CO2, a Nebraska-based company specializing in carbon capture and sequestration, announced Friday it is canceling plans to build a 1,300-mile carbon dioxide pipeline that would have run through central Illinois. The plan included several hundred miles of pipeline in Illinois which terminated at sequestration sites designed to store the greenhouse gas underground. The company,…
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FROM THE NEW YORKER: “Last fall, on a sunny day in the Chicago exurbs, J. B. Pritzker, well on his way to reëlection as the Democratic governor of Illinois, was knocking on a few doors and talking up his candidacy. A Republican had won every gubernatorial election in DuPage County since 1932, until Pritzker came…
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CHICAGO – As lawmakers prepare to return to Springfield later this month for their annual two-week fall veto session, advocates are pushing for a measure that would require law enforcement to take guns away from people hit with domestic violence orders of protection. In May, Democrats in the Illinois House passed a bill including that provision, but…
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SPRINGFIELD – The supply of education professionals continues to improve in Illinois despite strains brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, but persistent issues remain in certain regions of the state and within some teaching fields. That’s the conclusion of a new report by the education advocacy group Advance Illinois, which was instrumental in the 2017 passage…
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MACOMB, Ill. — The Macomb Area Chamber of Commerce will be the host of a legislative luncheon, presented by Comcast NBCUniversal, on Monday, Oct. 23, at the Park Place, 127 E. Carroll. Check-in/social begins at 11 a.m. with a buffet lunch served at 11:30 a.m. The noon featured speakers will include State Senators Mike Halpin…
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SPRINGFIELD – Unions representing nurses in Illinois are pushing for legislation that would impose mandatory staff-to-patient ratios in hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities. But lobby groups representing hospitals and nursing homes say they are steadfastly opposed to the legislation, arguing that a nationwide nursing shortage makes it impossible to comply with such…
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Gov. JB Pritzker on Tuesday condemned the deadly attacks on Israel over the weekend by the militant group Hamas, telling those gathered outside a synagogue in Chicago’s north suburb of Glencoe that Illinois “unequivocally stands” with the people of Israel. The governor, who himself is Jewish, was one of a handful of elected officials and…
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Marc Smith is one of 3 state agency leaders to announce end-of-year departure plans Illinois Department of Children and Family Services Director Marc Smith will resign effective Dec. 31, he told colleagues in an all-staff town hall meeting Wednesday morning. For years, critics had called on Smith to resign or be fired, amid legislative hearings,…
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CHICAGO — Gov. JB Pritzker was in Hyde Park Tuesday at the University of Chicago’s library to discuss Illinois’ fight against book bans. The university is building a collection of every book that has been banned in the U.S. and is partnering with the Digital Public Library of America to make books more accessible where…
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ROCKFORD — In 2016, before Donald Trump’s presidency paved the way for the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, Democrats in Illinois passed what would become the first in a series of laws shoring up reproductive rights in the state. That law altered Illinois’ 1970s-era Health Care Right of Conscience Act – a statute passed in…
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Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias last week filed administrative rules that would increase the age at which a driver is required to pass a driving test when they renew their license, raising it from 75 to 79. The rules – proposed by Giannoulias to the legislative Joint Committee on Administrative Rules – would keep…
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QUINCY — The historic 1993 flood of the Upper Mississippi River caused billions of dollars in damages, displacing more than 74,000 people from their homes and disrupting the region’s transportation and economy. The Upper Mississippi River watershed has experienced more frequent flooding with higher river stages with major floods happening in 2008, 2013, 2014 and…
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SPRINGFIELD – Six months before the next presidential primary elections in Illinois, county clerks and other local election authorities are asking for the public’s help in stopping misinformation campaigns before they get started. Officials from 25 counties scheduled a series of news conferences Tuesday in Tazewell, McLean and LaSalle counties. At the Tazewell event, the…
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SPRINGFIELD – In 1946, the Illinois Supreme Court heard a case that would eventually become a landmark in American legal history. The public school district in Champaign, like many other districts in Illinois at the time, allowed a group of local religious leaders to use their schools to teach elective classes in religion and openly…
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QUINCY — Former Quincy mayor and current president and CEO of the Great River Economic Development Foundation Kyle Moore is the first to throw his hat in the ring to succeed Randy Frese in the Illinois House of Representatives. Frese announced on Wednesday he would not seek re-election after serving 10 years in the statehouse.…
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PALOMA — Republican State Representative Randy Frese will not seek another term for the 99th Illinois House District seat. “It has been both an honor and a privilege to represent the fine people of West Central Illinois for the past eight and a half years,” Frese said in a press release issued Wednesday. “The job…
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SPRINGFIELD – Illinoisans who own weapons that can no longer be purchased or sold in the state under its new assault weapons ban can soon register those weapons so they can legally keep them. The law, officially known as the Protect Illinois Communities Act, bans the sale and possession of firearms defined as “assault weapons” as…
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Illinois on Monday will become the first state to fully abolish cash bail through an act of the legislature — a major criminal justice overhaul spurred by the advocacy of a progressive faction of the Democratic Party that’s grown increasingly powerful in recent years. The reform goes into effect after nearly three years of brutal…
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Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias was in Washington, D.C. this week to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee regarding a new state law aimed at deterring book bans. Giannoulias, whose position also includes the title of “state librarian,” this spring championed legislation allowing his office to withhold state money from public libraries if they ban…
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The Illinois State Fair – a multi-million dollar annual agriculture festival in Springfield – reported a nine-year attendance record this year. The state Department of Agriculture, which hosts the fair each year, reported on Tuesday that about 708,000 people attended the fair, an 11 percent increase from 2022. Department officials attributed the increase to good…
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A new battery manufacturing plant is set to open in northern Illinois next year after the state offered more than $330 million in tax incentives to make it happen. Gotion, a Chinese battery manufacturing and development company, announced on Friday that it will build a lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Manteno, about 50 miles south…
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A group of businesses filed a complaint with state regulators last week alleging that Chicago electric company Commonwealth Edison improperly raised customer bills this summer. The complaint – centered on a portion of the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act that allows utilities to recoup carbon mitigation investments – alleges the utility failed to follow the proper…
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CHICAGO — As former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan prepares for a federal jury to decide whether he ran “a criminal enterprise” as the state’s most powerful politician, he now faces a team of prosecutors emboldened by their perfect record of convictions in two trials. Madigan, 81, once so dominant that he was known as…
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The Joe Coleman Medical Release Act was expected to have freed hundreds of medically and terminally ill This article was produced by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station, and Injustice Watch, a nonprofit news organization in Chicago focused on issues of equity and justice in the court system. Phillip Merritt’s dementia is so advanced he’s lost the ability…
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This article is an update to the original story, which was produced by WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR news station, and Injustice Watch, a nonprofit news organization in Chicago focused on issues of equity and justice in the court system. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker defended the number of dying and disabled prisoners released under a landmark law that went into…
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QUINCY – The Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs (IDVA) has asked for and received the resignation of Troy Culbertson as the administrator of the Illinois Veterans’ Home of Quincy. Culbertson was hired in August 2016 under former governor Bruce Rauner, just as the facility was dealing with an outbreak of Legionnaires Disease that took the…
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CHICAGO – A coalition of elected officials and business leaders in Illinois is calling on President Joe Biden to ease work restrictions for asylum seekers and other long-term undocumented workers – a move they say is both humane and would help solve ongoing labor shortages. In the year since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other…
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$1,000 grants to FFA chapters will be available this fall Farmers and residents of rural communities often face stigma when it comes to mental health challenges, but state leaders hope to change that. Governor JB Pritzker announced Tuesday that chapters of FFA – the group once known as Future Farmers of America – will be…
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CHICAGO — Tim Mapes, a Hancock County native whose rose to the pinnacle of power in the State of Illinois as the right hand man to Michael J. Madigan when he served as speaker of the Illinois House, has been found guilty on perjury and obstruction of justice charges by a federal jury. Mapes, who…
Read Full Article CHICAGO – After a nearly three-week trial that pulled back the curtain on the inner workings of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s world, the fate of one of Madigan’s most loyal aides is now in the hands of a federal jury. Tim Mapes, who spent more than 25 years as Madigan’s chief of staff,…
Read Full Article SPRINGFIELD – Six interagency law enforcement task forces received grant funding this spring to combat car thefts through an initiative of Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’ office. Giannoulias was in Belleville Tuesday to promote the initiative and highlight a $2.5 million grant to the Metro East Auto Theft Task Force, which brings together law enforcement…
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CHICAGO – In more than two weeks of his obstruction of justice and perjury trial, one fact about the longtime chief of staff to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan came up time and again: Tim Mapes was detail-oriented. Mapes not only served as Madigan’s top aide for more than 25 years, but he also…
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SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Director John J. Kim announced Tuesday a third funding opportunity of $10 million to assist communities in meeting the requirements outlined in the Lead Service Line Replacement and Notification Act. The Lead Service Line Inventory grant program offers grants to local government units ranging from $20,000 to $50,000 to fund…
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Communities across Illinois that lack access to nearby stores that sell high quality food may soon see that change. Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday signed a bill that sets up a program to distribute $20 million for grants and technical assistance for grocery stores as well as funding research into food insecurity. The grants will go to…
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CHICAGO – In the fall of 2018, then-state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, thought he might have been in line for a big promotion in the Illinois House of Representatives. He’d unexpectedly run into a stumbling block earlier in the year when a woman publicly accused him of sexual harassment, but the allegations had been thin…
Read Full Article CHICAGO – Nearly six months after former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was forced to fire his longtime chief of staff, those in the speaker’s inner circle were once again realizing just how much they’d come to rely on Tim Mapes. It was late November 2018, and Democrats had just won big in the general…
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Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday vetoed a measure that would have granted existing utilities in downstate Illinois, notably Ameren Illinois, the “right of first refusal” for transmission line construction. This would have given Ameren, the electric utility that serves much of downstate Illinois, authority to build new transmission lines without going through a competitive bidding…
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SPRINGFIELD – A gun trade association has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new Illinois law that restricts how gun dealers and manufacturers market their products. The Connecticut-based National Shooting Sports Foundation filed the suit in the Southern District of Illinois on Monday, just two days after Gov. JB Pritzker signed it into law. “The…
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SPRINGFIELD – A new law in Illinois restricts the way gun dealers and manufacturers can market and sell their products and subjects them to civil penalties for violations. Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday signed House Bill 218 into law. Labeled the Firearm Industry Responsibility Act, it took effect immediately. “We hold opioid manufacturers accountable. Vaping companies accountable.…
Read Full Article CHICAGO – In early 2018, longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan was facing a sexual harassment scandal that his closest advisors worried could doom his political future. A 28-year-old Democratic campaign operative named Alaina Hampton had publicly accused Madigan of mishandling complaints that another top political staffer within the speaker’s close orbit had made unwanted…
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Former House Speaker Michael Madigan has long been known as “The Velvet Hammer” for the way he quietly wielded power. But in a federal courtroom Monday, the man once considered Illinois’ most powerful politician may have been given a new moniker: Don Madigan. Testifying in the perjury trial of Madigan’s longtime chief of staff, Tim…
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SPRINGFIELD – The state’s ban on high-powered weapons and high-capacity magazines passed a state constitutional test Friday as it awaits a potentially more daunting challenge on the federal stage. In a split decision, the Democratically controlled Illinois Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the law characterizing dozens of firearms as “assault weapons” and preventing their manufacture…
Read Full Article CHICAGO – Taking occasional notes – a habit hard-wired after more than 25 years as Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s chief of staff – Tim Mapes sat and listened to opening statements in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial in a federal courtroom on Wednesday. Mapes allegedly lied to a grand jury in 2021…
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CHICAGO – In the summer of 2018, Tim Mapes’ name had only recently faded from unflattering headlines after he was forced to resign from three top jobs he held under powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Mapes, who’d served as Madigan’s chief of staff for more than two decades, had been accused of sexual harassment…
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QUINCY — U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) hosted a rural health care roundtable discussion Monday with leaders of local Quincy-area medical institutions to discuss the challenges that patients and providers in rural communities face. Durbin spoke about the new “Roadmap to Grow Illinois’ Rural Health Workforce,” a partnership with hospitals, community health centers,…
Read Full Article Dozens of state employees across multiple agencies are under investigation by a state watchdog for claims they fraudulently obtained payments from a federal pandemic-era loan program, Capitol News Illinois has learned. Neil Olson, general counsel at the Illinois Office of the Executive Inspector General, confirmed that “OEIG has been investigating allegations of Paycheck Protection Program…
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DECATUR – Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, TCCI, Richland Community College, and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) on joined local leaders and partners to break ground on TCCI’s new electric vehicle (EV) Innovation Hub in Decatur. A global leader in electric compressors for commercial, heavy-duty, and automotive specialty markets, TCCI’s EV Innovation Hub is…
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As another of Illinois’ border states is set to enact a near-total abortion ban this week, Gov. JB Pritzker on Monday announced several new programs to help address the influx of out-of-state abortion seekers the state has seen in the 13 months since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Indiana joined Missouri and…
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CHICAGO – So-called crisis pregnancy centers can now face lawsuits if they engage in “deceptive acts” aimed at deterring women from seeking abortions under a new law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday. Crisis pregnancy centers are facilities often affiliated with anti-abortion, usually religious, organizations. CPCs range from volunteer-run outfits that can’t offer much…
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The Illinois Supreme Court on July 18 ruled as constitutional a new law making Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail, and giving local law enforcement a Sept. 18 start date. The Pretrial Fairness Act portion of the SAFE-T Act originally suffered from conflicting and layered standards for detaining suspects before trial, but was amended to…
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SPRINGFIELD – Illinois overpaid unemployment benefits to the tune of $5.2 billion during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, with much of it paid to fraudulent claimants, according to a comprehensive new audit. Included in that sum was $6 million paid to 481 dead people and $40.5 million in unemployment checks written to…
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Drivers who need to renew their license at a secretary of state facility will likely have to make an appointment starting this fall. Starting Sept. 1, 44 driver services facilities in medium- to large-sized cities around the state will require appointments for driver services – things like renewing a license, updating a license to meet…
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SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker and the state’s largest public employee union announced Tuesday that they have agreed on a new contract that will provide a nearly 18 percent pay raise over four years, including a 4 percent raise this year. The contract also expands parental leave to 12 weeks and calls for new joint…
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Ahead of next summer’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, top Democratic officials on Tuesday signed a “labor peace agreement,” reinforcing Democrats’ longstanding ties to organized labor and limiting potential disruptions at the highly watched event. The deal means that the Democratic National Committee will use union labor when available and that the unions won’t strike…
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SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker has spent much of his time in recent weeks promoting the state’s electric vehicle industry and touting the impact of his signature Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, or CEJA, including during a weeklong trade mission to the United Kingdom. On Friday, Pritzker was in Joliet where he joined other elected…
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QUINCY — Fourth District Appellate Court Justice Amy Lannerd has officially launched her campaign for a full term. Illinois Supreme Court Justice Lisa Holder White and her colleagues on the Supreme Court unanimously assigned Lannerd to the Illinois Appellate Court, and she was sworn in on Dec. 5, 2022. Lannerd filled the vacancy when Justice…
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QUINCY — As part of requirements of the National Voter Registration Act and Help America Vote Act, new voter registration cards are being mailed to all active Adams County voter during the month of July. If you do not receive a card and believe that you are currently an active voter of Adams County, contact…
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QUINCY — Adams County State’s Attorney Gary Farha said he wasn’t surprised with this week’s Illinois Supreme Court ruling that upheld a state law to virtually eliminate no cash bail. Farha said his office was told on Friday the action was coming. He said the Illinois General Assembly made amendments to the law during last…
Read Full Article SPRINGFIELD — Without comment, the Illinois Supreme Court moved Monday to suspend the law licenses of former Commonwealth Edison CEO Ann Pramaggiore and ex-company lobbyist Michael McClain after their felony bribery convictions. The orders from the state’s highest court came after the pair was convicted along with two others for conspiring to bribe former Illinois…
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Illinois is set to become the first state in the nation to eliminate cash bail after the state Supreme Court justices ruled Tuesday that a landmark criminal justice reform law did not violate the state’s constitution. The opinion was released more than six months after the Pretrial Fairness Act was halted by…
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QUINCY — While the agenda items were mostly nondescript at Monday night’s Quincy City Council meeting, the no-confidence vote taking against Mayor Mike Troup last week was still a point of discussion. Steve Kennedy, Republican committeeman for Quincy Precinct 27 and a former vice-chairman of the party’s Central Committee, asked both the mayor and the…
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CHICAGO — Alex Gough will begin a new role as Press Secretary. Gough previously served in Governor JB Pritzker’s office as Senior Deputy Press Secretary, a role he had held since March of 2022. Prior to that, Gough served as member of the Illinois Senate Democratic Caucus communications team and as a member of the Illinois…
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SPRINGFIELD – Veteran journalists Jennifer Fuller and Molly Parker will join Capitol News Illinois’ newsroom this month, expanding the outlet’s southern Illinois, broadcast and investigative presence. Fuller joins CNI as its broadcast director, bringing more than two decades of experience in Illinois radio, television and digital media to the newsroom as it plans to expand…
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CHICAGO — Michael Madigan’s former chief of staff reached out to a defense attorney for the then-powerful Illinois House speaker after he was approached by FBI agents in early 2019, then he called a longtime Madigan confidant and said he was “reporting in,” prosecutors say. While the feds do not argue those actions by Timothy…
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State revenues once again reached a record high in the fiscal year that ended June 30, creating what Gov. JB Pritzker called a “one-time” budget surplus of over $700 million. The $50.7 billion in base general revenues that the state collected in fiscal year 2023 – which exclude one-time pandemic-related federal funds – topped last year’s previous…
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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Transportation unveiled a plan on Friday for spending nearly $41 billion in federal, state and local funds over the next six years to repair and upgrade roads, bridges, airports, rail lines and other infrastructure throughout the state. The latest version of the plan, which IDOT updates annually, is the largest…
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SPRINGFIELD – Immigrants in Illinois with or without permission from U.S. immigration authorities will soon be able to obtain standard driver’s licenses that can be used for identification. Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday signed House Bill 3882, which will phase out the “Temporary Visitor Driver’s License,” or TVDL, which noncitizens currently use to drive legally in…
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Independence Day is a time to celebrate sacrifices by those who died to secure freedoms we enjoy today. It calls for backyard barbecues and a booming night sky. But not in Illinoisans’ backyards. It is one of three states banning some or all fireworks. The other 47 states, or nearly 94% of country, celebrate freedom with the flair of…
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There were no champagne toasts or fireworks, but when the clock struck 12 a.m. on Saturday, it marked the start of a new year in Illinois – a new fiscal year, that is. And just as a new year is a time to contemplate recent accomplishments and make resolutions for the future, Illinois Comptroller Susana…
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SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation Tuesday that will dramatically alter the health insurance market in Illinois. The measures establish a state-based exchange for policies sold under the Affordable Care Act and give the Illinois Department of Insurance the authority to modify or reject proposed rate increases. “Since day one of my administration, I’ve…
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CHICAGO – In a whirlwind visit to Chicago on Wednesday, President Joe Biden trotted out a re-election campaign message built on economic recovery – and effusively praised Gov. JB Pritzker for helping him win the White House in 2020. “There’s a guy that helped me more than – I can say this without equivocation –…
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CHICAGO — A trip from St. Louis to Chicago via Amtrak’s Lincoln Service will be about 15 minutes quicker starting this week due to track upgrades that allow for increased speeds. The Amtrak line ran its first 110 mph service on Monday, up from 90 mph previously, which would make the one-way trip less than…
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SPRINGFIELD – A new state fiscal year will begin July 1, ushering in the reinstatement of a 1 percent tax on groceries and a second increase to the state’s motor fuel tax in 2023. Amid record-high inflation last spring, the General Assembly temporarily waived Illinois’ grocery tax for the coming fiscal year and delayed the…
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QUINCY — About 25 nurses spent a couple of hours before their shifts Tuesday morning walking the picket line outside the 12th Street entrance to the Illinois Veterans Home. Margo Gislain with the Illinois Nurses Association said the nurses were “protesting unsafe working conditions for both the union nurses and the veterans that they care…
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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Justice Lisa Holder White has announce she is running for a full term on the Supreme Court of Illinois. The Supreme Court appointed Holder White on July 7, 2022, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Rita B. Garman. Holder White was sworn in as an Associate Judge for…
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SPRINGFIELD – While hundreds of bills cleared the General Assembly in the final month of the legislative session, some big-ticket measures will have to wait until at least the fall. Sponsors of several stalled bills say they will consider reviving their proposals when lawmakers return to the Capitol in October and November for their annual…
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CHICAGO — Millions of Illinoisans could see higher energy bills next year, but the size of those increases will be determined by a state agency that has recently had its oversight powers expanded. Four gas utilities and the state’s two largest electric utilities are currently requesting authority from the Illinois Commerce Commission to increase rates.…
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CHICAGO – Next time you attend a parade, there might be an eye in the sky. A new law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday expands local police departments’ authority to use drones to surveil certain events, respond to certain 911 calls, inspect buildings and participate in public relations events. House Bill 3902 passed 56-1…
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