Capitol Fax
Just about nothing happened in the first week of veto session in the House and the Senate. The Democratic legislative leaders are still trying to figure out what their members want to do in the wake of Republican President-Elect Donald Trump’s victory and whether that can be done. Whether that action starts in the second…
Read Full Article Back in 2018, about midway through President Donald Trump’s first term, the Illinois Senate passed a bill that was designed to prevent “the weakening of Illinois environmental and labor regulations in response to a weakening of federal regulations,” according to an Illinois Environmental Council press release. Some state rules are tied directly to federal rules,…
Read Full Article Last year, the Democratic Party of Illinois and Gov. JB Pritzker targeted local school board races to defeat candidates who wanted to ban books and/or were receiving support from right-wing political organizations. The governor ended up claiming victory in more than 70 percent of those campaigns. The push was unusual because the state’s Democratic Party,…
Read Full Article As I’ve been telling Statehouse types for a long while, lobbyists and legislators need to be paying very close attention to what’s happening in the corruption trials relating to and involving former House Speaker Michael Madigan. For example, lots of folks rely on lawyers to help guide them through the Springfield swamp. Then-AT&T Illinois President…
Read Full Article “It seems crazy, but it’s true that when I serve out the end of this second term, I will be the longest-serving Democratic governor in the history of Illinois,” Gov. JB Pritzker said last month during the Democratic National Convention. I looked it up and it’s true. Pat Quinn served about six years as governor,…
Read Full Article Several stories and columns appeared in the national news media shortly before and during the recent Democratic National Convention about Vice President Kamala Harris’ emphasis on the concept of “freedom” in her speeches and messaging. Convention delegates in Chicago hoisted signs with the word “Freedom” on them all week. Oprah Winfrey even talked about freedom…
Read Full Article Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch has said he thinks he can flip somewhere between four and six Republican-held House districts to Democratic control, upping his super-majority to between 82 and 84 seats, from his current 78. Which Republican districts are flippable? I talked with a high-level source close to Welch’s caucus who pointed to the…
Read Full Article A Facebook post last week by state Sen. Willie Preston (D-Chicago) created a stir, caused one of his fellow Democratic Senators to bow out of a planned joint fundraiser and, ultimately, the entire fundraiser was canceled. It’s all a good illustration of the ill-informed, rapid-fire insanity of our social media-fueled era. Sen. Preston posted an…
Read Full Article “I support Karina’s Law,” Gov. JB Pritzker emphatically told me. It’s the strongest statement he’s made about the bill which stalled in the Senate last spring. The proposal would mandate that police remove firearms from a person who has been served with a domestic violence order of protection. But there still appear to be some Pritzker…
Read Full Article During the last couple weeks of the spring state legislative session, Senate President Don Harmon got whacked twice by allies, including Gov. JB Pritzker, but still managed to keep his cool. On May 14th, the pro-choice powerhouse group Personal PAC issued a blistering press release blasting the Senate super-majority for an “unacceptable decision” to strip…
Read Full Article “What was supposed to be a simple storage warehouse for the Metra transit agency has now buried the nation’s fourth-busiest commuter rail system in a sinking money pit, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.” The Chicago broadcast station’s scoop last week is an almost perfect encapsulation of why northeastern Illinois’ mass transit fiefdoms need to be…
Read Full Article I’m not sure I’ve seen a stranger roll call than last week’s House vote on Senate Bill 2978. The data privacy bill is an initiative of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, and he was on the House floor during the debate. The far-right ginned up social media opposition to the bill by claiming that…
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DECATUR, Ill. — A pre-trial hearing for former Adams County Sheriff Brent Fischer has been set for Feb. 23 at the Macon County Courthouse in Decatur. A Macon County grand jury indicted Fischer, the former executive director of the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, on four felony counts on Nov. 30. He was…
Read Full Article November 20, 2024
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