* ICYMI: Illinois faces a $3 billion shortfall in 2026, a new report shows. WBEZ…

Subscribers know more.

- Without new revenue or spending cuts, Pritzker’s budget office estimates a $3.17 billion budget shortfall at the end of Fiscal Year 2026, which would be mid-2026 as the gubernatorial election is in full swing.
- To confront the problem, it’s not clear whether the governor and Democratic supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate would favor tax or fee increases; spending cuts; delays in paying state bills; use of the state’s $2.2 billion rainy day fund; or a combination of those choices.
- The governor’s Office of Management and Budget estimates that year-over-year sales tax revenues — one of the main revenue drivers of the state budget — will decline slightly in Fiscal Year 2026.

*** Isabel’s Top Picks ***

* Sun-Times | Powerful suburban Chicago political operation fueled by Uihlein money spends millions on far right causes: Doug Truax has nurtured small, politically conservative groups based in west suburban Downers Grove into a sprawling empire of organizations pushing far right agendas and election denialism — buoyed by contributions of more than $150 million from Illinois’ Richard Uihlein, one of the country’s biggest Republican donors.

* WAND | Illinois State Board of Elections monitoring social media for misinformation: Early voting expanded for suburban Cook County and the city of Chicago last week, but that also led to an increase in misinformation. State leaders saw a post on X, formerly Twitter, noting a suburban polling place was destroying ballots and tricking voters. “There’s no truth whatsoever to it,” said Illinois State Board of Elections spokesperson Matt Dietrich. “What had happened in this early voting site in Schaumburg was they had a problem with one of the tabulators. These things happen in every election. Those tabulators are very sensitive pieces of equipment.”

*** Statehouse News ***

* Pantagraph | Illinois Democratic elected officials hit the campaign trail for Harris: As a result, Duckworth and other Illinois elected officials, including Gov. JB Pritzker, other statewide constitutional officers and state lawmakers, have hit the road, traveling to crucial battleground states in the Midwest and across the country to campaign for Harris and Democrats down the ballot.

* Nadig | State Senator Martwick faces challenge from Republican Luers in 10th District: In the Nov. 5 general election state Senator Robert Martwick (D-10) faces a challenge from Republican Jon Luers, who in 2022 ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign. Martwick, an attorney and former prosecutor, was first elected to the Illinois House in 2012 and in 2019 he was appointed to the Senate after John Mulroe left his District 10 seat to become a judge. Martwick also has served as a Norridge trustee but now lives in Chicago and serves as the 38th Ward Democratic committeeperson.

* Pantagraph | Illinois Statehouse reporter Brenden Moore’s predictions: In the General Assembly, Democrats will maintain their supermajorities. I’d expect no change in the 40-19 Democrat-to-Republican makeup of the Senate. But Democrats appear primed to gain seats in the House, where they hold a 78-40 advantage over Republicans. If I were a betting man, I’d say Democrats net three seats.

Springfield should intervene. There clearly needs to be Chgo City Council vetting, oversight & consent of these mayoral appointments to the Chgo Public School Board. Antisemites should be automatically disqualified, full stop. As should socialists calling for the fall of the U.S. https://t.co/VqzqWWiSWZ pic.twitter.com/pYfchjpTH6

— Susana A. Mendoza ☮️ (@susanamendoza10) November 2, 2024

* Jennifer Bishop Jenkins | Marsy’s Law has been putting crime victims at the forefront for 10 years: It has now been 10 years since the good citizens of Illinois overwhelmingly voted, by one of the highest margins in state history, to approve expanded and enforceable rights for crime victims. The constitutional amendment known as Marsy’s Law was adopted on Nov. 4, 2014, and has, in the words of one Illinois state’s attorney, been “transformative for crime victims.” Prior to the passage of the new language, crime victims’ rights had been few and were symbolic, lacking any legal means of enforcement.

* WMAY | AG: Illinois joins coalition of states calling for ban on price gouging: This past week, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced the state would join a coalition of 15 attorneys general urging Congressional leaders to pass a national ban on price gouging. While price gouging is unlawful in Illinois and more than 40 other states, there is no federal law specifically banning businesses from raising prices on essential goods to increase their profits during an emergency.

*** Madigan Trial ***

* Tribune | Testimony from ex-campaign worker who sparked Madigan’s #MeToo moment could add intrigue to corruption trial: Seven years ago almost to the day, Alaina Hampton sent a private letter to then-House Speaker Michael Madigan about sexual harassment from a co-worker that became a turning point in Madigan’s record-setting reign. “I do not want to hurt any of you — I care very deeply about people involved,” she wrote in the letter, which she later made public. “I only needed to tell you because it has been very painful to experience alone.”

* Center Square | Former staffer claiming harassment expected to testify in Madigan corruption trial: Former Democratic Party of Illinois campaign worker Alaina Hampton is expected to take the witness stand after former Madigan and Democrat staffer Will Cousineau. Cousineau began testifying Tuesday afternoon, continued Wednesday and Thursday, and was expected to return to the stand for additional cross-examination on Monday morning.

*** Statewide ***

* Tribune | All politics is national. Illinois may be flyover country for presidential candidates, but their campaign themes dominate local races.: Illinois has been flyover territory for the nation’s presidential candidates, its preference for Democrats assured since 1992 when it chose Bill Clinton over George H.W. Bush, who had won the state and the election four years earlier. But some of the themes Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have emphasized heading into Tuesday’s election are being echoed in campaigns throughout Illinois’ down ballot contests.

*** Chicago ***

* Crain’s | Johnson was in the dark on CPS board pick’s comments because of a vetting ‘gap’: Mayor Brandon Johnson said today he was unaware of the inflammatory social media posts that led to the resignation of his pick to lead the Chicago Board of Education because of a “gap” in the vetting process. Rev. Mitchell Ikenna Johnson resigned the position he was sworn into less than a week earlier yesterday after a groundswell of calls, including from Gov. JB Pritzker and 40 members of the City Council, for him to step aside after past antisemitic, conspiratorial and misogynistic Facebook comments were unearthed.

* Block Club | Revolution Brewing Closing Logan Square Brewpub After Nearly 15 Years: Revolution’s brewpub at 2323 N. Milwaukee Ave. will close Dec. 14 after almost 15 years in business, the company announced Saturday. It will consolidate into its brewery and taproom location a 2240 N. Kedzie Ave. The brewpub served up food as well as Revolution’s line of beers, helping popularize brews including Anti-Hero IPA. But the brewpub operated “more as a restaurant” than the Kedzie Avenue location, which doesn’t have a kitchen, Revolution founder Josh Deth said in an interview.

* WBBM | Chicago mortgage lender accused of redlining fined $105K: The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that Chicago-based Townstone Financial will pay a $105,000 fine for allegedly discouraging loan applicants based on their race or where they wanted to live. The watchdog agency accused the company of calling predominantly Black neighborhoods “crime-ridden” and “the jungle” in marketing programming that aired on the radio and on podcasts in 2020.

* FOX Chicago | Chicagoland residents urged to conserve water ahead of heavy rainfall: The area was hit by scattered showers Sunday and heavy rainfall is expected to begin Monday with more wet weather Tuesday. After consecutive days of rain, there is less capacity for the MWRD to hold and treat the additional water.

* Tribune | In 1949, a union official invited colleagues to his Englewood home. Some were Black. Violence ensued.: Race riots were a sadly persistent theme of American history. But this one was a bit different. In 1949, on Chicago’s South Side, white people fearful of Blacks moving into their neighborhood were pitted against whites who sympathized with Blacks who had been denied their civil rights. Bindman didn’t foresee that issue when he bought the house on Peoria Street. Bindman and his wife, Louise, were nonobservant Jews and former members of the Communist Party. But they hadn’t bought a home in Englewood in order to preach the gospel of Karl Marx in a working-class neighborhood. They simply needed an affordable place to live in a post-World War II era when the price of homes was skyrocketing. The Bindmans previously lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Kenwood neighborhood and wanted to start a family.

*** Cook County and Suburbs ***

* Shaw Local | DuPage County State’s Attorney, clerk’s office to monitor polling places: The DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office will deploy teams of assistant state’s attorneys and Investigators to respond to reports of any suspected irregularities that may arise at DuPage County polling locations on Election Day. Prosecutors and investigators will be available at the state’s attorney’s office and at the polls from 6 a.m. through 7 p.m. Nov. 5 to respond to suspected violations of the Illinois Election Code.

* Sun-Times | Tuberculosis outbreak reported at Elmhurst University: DuPage County health officials are investigating cases of tuberculosis reported this week in students at Elmhurst University. Two students tested positive for the contagious infectious disease Thursday, Elmhurst University President Troy VanAken said in a statement. They have been isolated and placed under medical supervision. The school and the DuPage County Health Department said they have been working to identify and contact people who may have been in close contact with the two infected students. Those who were in close contact with them are being provided with free testing.

* Daily Herald | What suburban parents need to know about rise of ‘walking pneumonia’ in children: “We are definitely seeing a lot more pneumonia, in general, across the board, from toddler to school-aged children and teenagers,” said Dr. Molly Antoniolli, a Vernon Hills pediatrician with Endeavor Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early October reported the uptick in infections caused by the bacteria mycoplasma pneumoniae, which can cause walking pneumonia. According to recent CDC studies, the percentage of infection from this particular bacteria increased from 1% to 7.2% among children ages 2 to 4 years old and 3.6% to 7.4% in children ages 5 to 17 years old.

*** Downstate ***

* WCIA | Security hired to patrol Champaign Co. voting locations: Champaign County is ramping up security ahead of Election Day. For the first time, Clerk Aaron Ammons is bringing in an outside organization to patrol various polling locations. “I never really sort of thought we’d have to go this far,” Ammons said.

* SJ-R | County-wide, county board seats up for election. Here are some key races on the ballot: A.D. “Andy” Van Meter, who has spent 30 years on the county board and 24 years as chairman, is locked in a rematch with Maureen Duffy Bommarito. The two are neighbors in Leland Grove. In 2022, Van Meter won by a little less than 13 percentage points in the District 24 race.

* Tom Kacich | Biggest backers of tax increase for Mahomet-Seymour schools? Contractors : Some of the biggest backers of Tuesday’s proposed $112 million construction-related tax increase for Mahomet-Seymour schools are contractors who would benefit from the work. Citizens for Mahomet-Seymour Schools is the advocacy group supporting the bond referendum, which would increase property taxes by nearly $1 per $100 of assessed valuation. Estimates show the district’s tax rate would rise from $4.63 to $5.59 per $100 of assessed valuation.

* WCIA | Muncie may reverse a 100-year-old no-alcohol ordinance: For almost 100 years, alcohol has been illegal to buy in Muncie, Illinois. However, that trend may change in the very near future. An ordinance that’s been on the books for about a century is now on the ballot for the small Vermilion County village. Muncie has been a dry village since prohibition. Mayor Synthia Lane said they’re the only village in the township that can’t sell alcohol, and maybe in all of the county.

*** National ***

* WaPo | Quincy Jones, musical innovator and impresario, dies at 91: From bebop to hip-hop, Quincy Jones exemplified the producer and arranger as star. He elevated the voices of dozens of entertainers — most indelibly Michael Jackson, but also Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Aretha Franklin — with his unsurpassed artistry in combining jazz, rhythm-and-blues and classical orchestration. By the time of his death on Nov. 3 at 91 at his home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles, he had become a renaissance impresario of music, film and television, catapulting the careers of Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith and smashing barriers for other African Americans. Mr. Jones’s death, of undisclosed causes, was announced by his publicist, Arnold Robinson, and in a family statement.

* WIRED | Canvassers for Elon Musk’s America PAC Were Fired and Stranded in Michigan After Speaking Out: Muldrow and the rest of her canvassing group of roughly a dozen people had just been fired en masse, after WIRED reported that they had been tricked and threatened as part of Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort. Speaking publicly for the first time about her ordeal, Muldrow says that the canvassers in her group were fired with little explanation beyond a complaint that someone had spoken with the press. Many, including her, were still owed money. Muldrow had to find her own way home; others are still stranded in Michigan.

* US Department of Labor | Reports distressed pension assistance program has protected benefits for more than 1.2M workers, retirees, families: Today President Biden will travel to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to announce that the Biden-Harris Administration has protected more than 1.2 million pensions because of the American Rescue Plan’s (ARP) Butch Lewis Act, according to a new report from the Department of Labor. During the visit, President Biden will announce actions to prevent cuts to the earned pension benefits of 29,000 United Food and Commercial (UFCW) workers and retirees, primarily in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Thanks to the American Rescue Plan – which zero Republicans voted for – the Biden-Harris Administration has protected the pensions of over 65,000 Pennsylvanians, 80,000 Michiganders, 78,000 New Yorkers, 73,000 Illinoisans, 63,000 Ohioans, 63,000 Californians, 42,000 Floridians, 38,000 Missourians, 36,000 Texans, and many more to date.

* Democracy Docket | Sheriffs Are Ready To Challenge Election Results: In March of 2024, at the Ahern Luxury Boutique Hotel in Las Vegas, “constitutional sheriffs” like Washington State’s Sheriff Bob Songer and Michigan’s Sheriff Dar Leaf took to a makeshift stage, stood next to the stars and stripes and proclaimed that they were ready to challenge the 2024 presidential election results, using force if necessary.