* Let’s start with a little ol’ oppo dump. Click here for more background. From a June 15, 2017 Law Bulletin article…

A state appeals panel today rejected a lawsuit brought by 61 human services providers who have received scant funding during the state’s nearly two-year budget impasse. The 1st District Appellate Court rejected all of the claims brought by the providers, who collectively billed themselves as the Pay Now Illinois coalition. […]

The panel rejected the coalition’s assertions that Rauner has acted beyond his gubernatorial authority by entering into contracts which weren’t funded, and then vetoing the appropriations bills that would have funded them.

“The governor was not obligated to approve any or all portions of appropriations bills by the General Assembly,” Justice Eileen O’Neill Burke wrote in the 35-page opinion on behalf of the three-judge panel. “Indeed, both the governor and the General Assembly are constitutionally constrained to propose or pass budgets and appropriations that do not exceed estimated available funds.”

Click here for the opinion. Do you recognize the justice’s name? Former Justice Eileen Burke is now running for Cook County state’s attorney.

* Press release…

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) today issued the fiscal year 2024 Evidence-Based Funding (EBF) allocations, announcing an unprecedented number of fully funded districts. There are also zero districts under the 60% funding adequacy benchmark for the first time in Illinois history.

FY 2024 marks a historic number of fully funded districts. Only 146 districts were at or above 100% funding adequacy in the first year of EBF in FY 2018; that number has increased by 59% with 232 districts now fully funded in FY 2024. An additional 94 districts have met the 90% funding threshold.

* DeVore kicks it back into gear…

Friday’s ruling upholding Illinois’ gun and magazine ban by the Illinois Supreme Court may not be the last word in state-level challenges. […]

Attorney Thomas DeVore said he plans to pursue the three readings rule challenge with his state-level cases consolidated in Effingham County. While temporary restraining orders for thousands of his clients could be dissolved soon, he plans to mount evidence to prove the equal protections argument.

“So what they said is ‘Dan Caulkins, you didn’t bring us any facts to show that you are similar to these exempt categories so for that reason you lose,’” DeVore told The Center Square. “Well, we’re going to build that case in our case if that proceeds.”

Some of the evidence DeVore plans to work at discovering includes the levels of firearms training for those in the exempt class like prison wardens, security guards and those in law enforcement.

“I wanna see the record of every law enforcement officer in the state of Illinois,” DeVore said. “What are they trained on? What guns do they handle, et cetera, et cetera, so we can build that similarity argument that we desperately need in order to win this case in front of the Illinois Supreme Court, to even have a chance to win it.”

Every record? Hilarious. Expect a trial sometime in 2045. At least the pension funds will be fully funded by then. /s

…Adding… As noted in comments, state law now requires DeVore to file his constitutional challenge in either Sangamon or Cook counties. He’ll have to get thru that issue if he stays in Effingham.

* Interesting…

We are back in the Tim Mapes trial, where Judge Kness has just announced he WILL allow the defense to call prosecutor Amarjeet Bhachu, who ran the grand jury interview of Mapes in March 2021.

— Jason Meisner (@jmetr22b) August 14, 2023

From Mapes’ unsuccessful 2022 motion to dismiss…

These questions have the same hallmarks of fundamental ambiguity as the episodes above. They are ambiguous in their use of the terms “tasks,” “work,” and “assignments.” They are compound.

And, as demonstrated by the sequence of questions and answers both before and after those questions (none of which the grand jury found perjurious), Mr. Mapes’ answers are literally true. For instance, before the allegedly perjurious answer to the question in episode 3, Mr. Mapes testified that he did not “recall anything at the moment” but “something could come up as subject matter if you bring it and it pops my memory.” In his testimony, Mr. Mapes also gave high-level examples of Mr. McClain passing “along pieces of information” in the 2017 and 2018 time frame and before, and Mr. McClain providing his “perspective” to Mr. Madigan on various matters.

The prosecutor did not follow up on any of these matters—nor did the prosecutor attempt to refresh Mr. Mapes’ recollection on any specific subject matters that could “pop[]” Mr. Mapes’ memory.

Kinda wondering if that’ll come up tomorrow.

* Nick Sauer resigned in disgrace from the House way back in 2018…

* Several people have pointed me to HB4120 today…

Creates the Whipped Cream Charger Sales Restriction Act. Provides that no person, corporation, partnership, limited liability company, firm, or any other business entity doing business in the State shall sell or offer for sale a whipped cream charger to any person under the age of 21.

Penalty is a civil penalty of not more than $250 for an initial offense and not more than $500 for the second and each subsequent offense.

Whippets were a thing back in the early 90s. Didn’t know they still were.

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Tribune | Don Madigan? Ex-FBI agent likens former House speaker to mafia boss in perjury trial of former Madigan aide: “Mr. Madigan ran his organization, as close as I can compare it to, almost the head of a mafia family,” former Special Agent Brendan O’Leary testified, noting that Madigan rarely used the phone, texts or emails to communicate orders. “The ability for us to hear about what happened generally came down to the people on the inside being honest, and that is what we relied on.”

* Sun-Times | Prosecutors accuse defense of playing games with witness list in trial of ex-top aide to Madigan: Over the weekend, lawyers in the case revisited a dispute that surfaced before the trial began. Mapes’ lawyers have named Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu as a witness they might call when it is their turn to present evidence. Bhachu is the chief of the public corruption section of Chicago’s U.S. Attorney’s office and a supervisor of the case against Mapes. He has also played a central role in the Madigan investigation. He gave the final argument last April in the trial of four former political power players who conspired to bribe Madigan, calling them “grand masters of corruption.”

* Sun-Times | Migrant families say Rogers Park motel kicked them out after missing curfew by 7 minutes: Leon, 30, said the two families were asked to leave the motel around 2 p.m. Saturday because they had missed an 11 p.m. curfew the night before by seven minutes after they took their children out for pizza. Leon said they had gone out because the food they had been given was “old” and had made the children sick.

* Tribune | Ex-Northwestern baseball staffers file suit, accuse university of allowing coach to create ‘dangerous environment’: “We reported Coach Foster’s conduct to Northwestern believing that they would do the right thing. Northwestern did not do the right thing,” Chris Beacom, former team operations director, said in a statement read during a news conference Monday announcing the lawsuit.

* Block Club | Emails Reveal How Lightfoot Closed A Backroom Deal To Hand Public Housing Land Over To A Billionaire’s Sports Team: Under the deal, the Fire will lease 23 acres on the Near West Side for at least 40 years so the team can build a new training facility on the site. The Fire are owned by Joe Mansueto, a billionaire business leader and Lightfoot campaign donor. The federal government has long reserved that land for housing, so by law federal officials have to ensure any sale or lease of it is in the “best interest” of low-income residents.

* Daily Herald | ‘We can’t go on this way’: Lisle Township board calls on supervisor to resign: “[Township Supervisor Diane Hewitt] just creates a wave of chaos, and we’re spending so many hours undoing and unraveling the messes,” said Trustee Autumn Geist, a Democrat who ran with Hewitt in 2021. “I really believe her heart is in the right place, but her challenges overshadow her strength.”

* Block Club | Introducing Block Club Chicago’s New Investigative Team, The Watch: The new investigative team will work closely with our neighborhood reporters and be positioned to act on tips and pursue high-impact stories to improve government transparency and accountability. The Watch reporters, Mina Bloom, Rachel Hinton and Manny Ramos, have an impressive track record of serving the South and West sides through their investigative work and have a deep understanding of Block Club’s mission.

* Tribune | Black Chicagoans are tired of waiting for solutions to maternal mortality — so they’re creating their own: In Chicago, where recent hospital closings have rendered entire swathes of the city “birth deserts,” the issue is laid plain: Black maternal health-care conditions remain dismal despite years of criticism, Black health-care officials say. Tired of waiting on others to find answers, Black Chicagoans like Valrie-Logan are stepping up to create their own solutions to the lack of care. Nearly a decade after her miscarriage, Valrie-Logan, a midwife and mother of three, is on track to help open a South Shore birthing center dedicated to Black birthing people and their families by 2025.

* WBEZ | Lots of questions, few answers for Black and brown high schoolers applying to college: Colleges are still planning on collecting racial demographic information, but it’s not clear what admissions officers are going to do with it. And the Supreme Court Justices left the door open for students to write about their race in their personal statements. That raises another question: Are essays a loophole for application readers to give racially underrepresented students a leg up? […] In the end, Izzy decided against it. Instead, she’s writing about her favorite musicians and what their concerts have meant to her. She wants to go into music management.

* Sun-Times | A list of every known Illinois resident charged in the U.S. Capitol breach: More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the attack in almost all 50 states. That includes Illinois, where at least 39 residents face charges. They come from all around the state and include a onetime CEO, a Chicago police officer and a member of the Proud Boys.

* AP | Judge sides with young activists in first-of-its-kind climate change trial in Montana: District Court Judge Kathy Seeley found the policy the state uses in evaluating requests for fossil fuel permits — which does not allow agencies to evaluate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions — is unconstitutional.

* Block Club | Famed Cher Impersonator To Headline Lips Chicago Fundraiser For Domestic Violence Victims: ips Chicago, the iconic drag dining spot, is teaming up with Connections for Abused Women and Their Children to raise money for the domestic violence organization. This year’s annual Night of Stars event is 7 p.m. Thursday at Lips, 2229 S. Michigan Ave. Individual tickets are $80 and six-ticket bundles are $425.

* Sun-Times | ‘A feast for the eyes’ comes in a mixed year for summer/fall mushrooms: “Even though the past month overall has been rather wet, the drought of early summer knocked back my beloved chanterelles a good bit this summer,” Jay Damm emailed in an update last Monday. “It just confirms my experience that if a species experiences dry conditions during the pre-season, the true season can be weak to non-existent.

* WCIA | Child injured on ride at Illinois State Fair: A child attending the Illinois State Fair was hurt on Thursday after officials said an object flew off one of the amusement rides and hit them in the leg. […] The child was evaluated by medical personnel at the scene and needed only an ice pack. […] The IDOL’s chief inspector evaluated the ride after it was repaired and permitted the ride to resume operation. The fair’s Amusement Ride and Attraction Safety Division manager revisited the Ring of Fire again Friday morning to make sure things were still operating smoothly.

* Pantagraph | A guide to food at the 2023 Illinois State Fair: Brown, of Gulfport, Miss., specialized in electrical automation and robotics in school. But there came a point where he said “Lord, I need something else.” And his first thought, believe it or not, was flavored watermelon. “A week later, I thought ‘that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of in my life,’” Brown said. “And 12 years later, here I am.”