* Chicago Reader…
All Ed Cetwinski could think was, “God, I’m out of prison. I can live my life a little bit.” He had just been released from Taylorville Correctional Center after five years behind bars. But even though he’s free from his prison cell, he’s still not free.
Most criminal convictions in Illinois include a period of mandatory supervised release (MSR). It’s like parole, but it’s served as part of a prison sentence rather than in lieu of it. People on MSR must adhere to a litany of conditions, like curfews enforced by electronic monitors. For most people, it lasts from one to three years, but for Cetwinski, it’s not clear how long his MSR term will last.
People convicted of certain sex offenses, like Cetwinski, are required to be on MSR for anywhere from three years to the rest of their lives. But there’s an issue: a permanent address is a requirement for supervised release, and Illinois’s housing banishment laws make it nearly impossible to find housing. […]
The Chicago 400, a grassroots organization of people subject to public conviction registries in Illinois and their allies, is pushing legislation to shrink the size of the housing banishment zone and prevent people from being forced to move if a day care opens nearby. The proposal has yet to be heard in committee, the first step in the legislative session that ends in late May; multiple people involved in negotiations, who are not authorized to speak publicly, say conversations are ongoing.
* Capitol News Illinois…
Protesters flooded the rotunda of the Illinois Statehouse earlier this month, urging legislators to increase wages for caregivers of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The ‘They Deserve More’ coalition — representing advocacy organizations, families and over 90 agencies providing community care — is asking that these direct support personnel, or DSPs, receive at least 150% of Illinois’ minimum wage.
The coalition is also seeking to avoid a cut to state-funded DSP service hours that would result from a provision in Gov. JB Pritzker’s proposed budget for the Illinois Department of Human Services. […]
Demonstrators called for support for two bills moving through the Illinois General Assembly, House Bill 2788 and Senate Bill 1690, which propose raising the base wage for DSPs. Both bills failed to clear the legislature ahead of recent deadlines, but matters pertaining to state funding are generally included in the end-of-session budget package.
Edwina Hernandez, a DSP Recruiter at Cornerstone Services in Joliet, says her agency has trouble providing services to disabled residents due to employee retention challenges. DSPs are the individuals who provide daily personal care such as assisting individuals with eating, grooming and dressing.
“We do have a lot of workers out there who have a heart to serve and a heart to help the community. It’s just the pay,” Hernandez said at the demonstration.
* House Republicans…
On Wednesday, three Illinois House Republicans, who also work as family farmers, held a Capitol news conference to highlight legislation they are sponsoring to support Illinois’ agriculture industry. Specifically, State Representatives Dan Swanson (R-Alpha), Jason R. Bunting (R-Emington), and Wayne Rosenthal (R-Morrisonville) have sponsored legislation they say will help save family farms in Illinois.
State Rep. Dan Swanson is a 6th-generation family farmer near Alpha, Illinois. His family raises various crops and livestock. Swanson says Illinois must do more to preserve agriculture for the future. Swanson has sponsored HB 1501, legislation that creates an income tax credit for the owner of an agricultural asset who sells or rents that asset to a beginning farmer.
“There are young people in Illinois right now who want to get started in farming, but don’t always have the opportunity,” Swanson said. “We need to get that next generation up and running in agriculture. Unfortunately, my bill wasn’t called before the required deadline. We need to get serious about preserving the future of agriculture in Illinois.”
State Rep. Jason R. Bunting operates a family farm in Emington in rural Livingston County. Rep. Bunting noted the very real and dangerous conditions that farmers encounter in several aspects of their work. Rep. Bunting is sponsoring House Resolution 29, which would designate the week of September 15-21, 2025, as Farm Safety Week. Bunting also noted two other bills that would emulate Scott’s Law, which requires drivers to move over and slow down for stopped emergency vehicles. Bunting’s HB 3204 and HB 3205 would make Scott’s Law provisions applicable to farm implements.
“My bill would require drivers to make room for farm equipment on the roads so they can safely pass the equipment,” Bunting said. “This legislation would make the road safer for farmers, and for every other Illinoisan who drives the rural roads of this state, so that we can all make it home safely to our families.”
State Rep. Wayne Rosenthal is the former Director of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and a 4th-generation family farmer. Rosenthal argued for the Illinois estate tax exemption to be raised to help save family farms from double taxation.
“I know first-hand what this unfair estate tax means to my family and to every other family farm in Illinois,” Rosenthal said. “This isn’t just a tax, it’s a threat to our way of life. Too often, I have heard from families, friends, and neighbors who have been hit hard by this unfair tax. Illinois estate taxes are levied on farm owners when they pass on. Unlike monetary assets that can be moved, land cannot, so our family farms are penalized. Illinois has not adjusted the estate tax on farmland in more than a decade. Inflation has risen, and we haven’t made the necessary changes to our estate tax. We still have time to fix this problem this Session, we need to get to work so we can save Illinois family farms.”
* WAND…
The Illinois House Education Policy Committee approved a bill Wednesday to stop police from giving tickets and citations to students for breaking school rules. […]
Lawmakers and advocates filed this plan after ProPublica found 11,800 tickets were handed to students from 2019 to 2022.
“The goal of the bill is to basically say that if it is minor enough to be a municipal violation like vaping or minor fights, keep it in the school,” said Aimee Galvin from Stand for Children Illinois. “School is a unique environment for offering discipline, unlike a business. If something happens at Walgreens, they don’t have an after school detention or say ‘you can’t come to the dance.’” [….]
The legislation passed out of committee on a 9-3 vote and now moves to the House floor for further consideration. Senate Bill 1519 passed out of the Senate on a 37-17 vote earlier this month.
* Center Square…
The Illinois House Ethics & Elections Committee met Tuesday evening to discuss the Safeguard Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act. […]
The ethics & elections committee also discussed several election-related bills currently under consideration in the Statehouse.
State Rep. Nabeela Syed, D-Palatine, said she proposed HB 1445 to make polling places accessible for young voters.
“It makes me excited that we have a potential opportunity to make it easier for young voters to have a say in their political process and feel like they are deciding their future and they are deciding the people that elect them,” Syed said. […]
State Rep. Adbelnasser Rashid, D-Bridgeview, proposed House Bill 2998, which provides that all local election authorities shall post requirements and qualifications for running for local offices and petition filing deadlines on the website of the local election authority.
* Fox 2 Now…
An Illinois bill that would ban that would ban schools from using Native American names, mascots and logos has passed the Illinois House and is now under review in the Senate. […]
For decades, Collinsville High School has used a “Kahok” mascot name. The name represents a fictional Native American tribe, and many school leaders view it as a symbol of local identity and heritage.
Dr. Mark Skertich, superintendent for the Collinsville School District, issued a public statement on April 10 outlining the district’s stance. The statement reads, in part:
“Our Collinsville High School Kahok mascot is a treasured part of our local community. Our district is home to the Cahokia Mounds World Heritage and State Historic Site, which is located where a large, influential Native American city once stood. Artifacts indicate it was the center of Mississippian culture in its day.
In 2020, our district received a formal written endorsement from the Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri to continue using our Kahok mascot. Their support is based on their belief that the people of the Western Cherokee could be descended from the Cahokia mound builders.”
- John Candy and Nuts - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 10:46 am:
Good to see legislation trying to protect those who really need protection:
sex offenders and rich landowners (sarcasm).
- JS Mill - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 10:54 am:
=Wednesday to stop police from giving tickets and citations to students for breaking school rules.=
Sigh…they are not giving citations for breaking school rules. They are for law and ordinance violations. Not an endorsement of the practice, just a fact.
- TheInvisibleMan - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 11:05 am:
“and Illinois’s housing banishment laws make it nearly impossible to find housing.”
When I look at the registry, that is obviously not true.
When I then overlay available rentals with the residential restrictions, it is also clearly not true.
None of these stories repeating these claims ever use any of this evidence to support this supposed impossibility of finding housing.
There’s a top-5 population city near me, which is already allowing a registered offender to live directly across the street from a school. However wide the street is, is how many feet from the school he is living. It is far less than 100ft. Even changing the current law to 250ft from 500ft, this would still be a violation. The school was there before he moved in, yet the existing law isn’t being enforced. His offense as an adult? raping a child in a school, while his friend acted as the lookout. Yet somehow, local authorities are ignoring and refusing to enforce the 500ft restrictions. When residents attempt to ask the police why this isn’t enforced, no response is given by the police. There’s another instance of a registered offender living near a commercial building daycare. No enforcement. There’s another offender living near a residential daycare. No enforcement. Another offender was recorded on video engaging in an activity which is a clear additional violation against a minor. The video was provided to the Sheriff. No enforcement.
Keep this in mind when the stats are trotted out that ‘only xyz percent of offenders violate their terms of release, so we should change the law’. Because despite these clear violations listed above, as long as it isn’t being enforced it doesn’t count as a violation in those statistics.
I simply do not have any concern for the complaints of child abusers. You don’t get to live across the street from a school, and there are plenty of other housing options even if they are below your ’standards’ - whatever those are worth.
- John Candy and Nuts - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 11:07 am:
It’s good to see lawmakers who are thinking of those the
- JS Mill - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 11:48 am:
With regard to some of the proposed Ag legislation…if I understand two of the bills correctly, the legislators are farmers and proposing bills that would provide them and or their families with direct financial benefits? That seems odd given the ILGOP’s repeated demand for ethics legislation and accusations of corruption against the democrats. Weird.
- Mason County - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 11:57 am:
=An Illinois bill that would ban that would ban schools from using Native American names, mascots and logos has passed the Illinois House and is now under review in the Senate.=
There is a small rural school near me that has used the name ‘Indians’ for going on a hundred
years. Ever since Dickson Mounds was established.
There is no disrespect- indeed just the opposite.
Would this be banned for this school? If so, the GA should have better things to do.
- politico - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 12:34 pm:
=People convicted of certain sex offenses, like Cetwinski, are required to be on MSR for anywhere from three years to the rest of their lives=
He had sex with one his 15 year old students. You can’t live near a school as he shouldn’t. Why are we protecting these people? This is a dumb bill imo
- Remember the Alamo II - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 2:13 pm:
Re: House Bill 2998
Doesn’t the Illinois State Board of Elections already provide this information to potential candidates? Would it be compliant with this proposed statute to simply post a copy of ISBE’s Candidate Guide on the local election authority’s website?
- H-W - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 2:38 pm:
@ Mason City
=== There is no disrespect- indeed just the opposite. ===
You mean to say, “There is no [intentional] disrespect- indeed just the opposite,” right?
Whether or not current residents of Fulton County intend to respect people misappropriated named “Indians,” the real question is whether or not the living descendants of the Fox, Sauk, Potawatomi, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Miami, etc. perceive disrespect from those who expelled them from their lands in 1830, under the orders of Andrew Jackson. I once heard that Abraham Lincoln himself played a role in the expulsion of Native peoples from what became known as Illinois.
I am not suggesting you are wrong. I am however suggesting, that there are living descendants of the Native Peoples who once lived in Central Illinois, and that these descendants of Native Peoples should be consulted to see if they are offended by the mascot choice. I say that in the context that we White Anglos and others would not consider adopting any other ethnic identity as a school mascot, with the exception of Native Americans. Even Pekin came to realize their school mascot choice (Asian American) was offensive, and modified it to be less offensive (Dragons).
We should at least hear the voices of the minority who are powerless to prevent us from pretending to be them.
- Candy Dogood - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 4:13 pm:
===Western Cherokee Nation of Arkansas and Missouri ===
Fascinating!
But wait:
===There are only three federally recognized Cherokee tribes in the U.S. - the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, both in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina.===
So, ya know, maybe lets not get to excited by permission from an organization that does not have any federal recognition.
- Rich Miller - Thursday, Apr 24, 25 @ 4:49 pm:
Nice catch, Candy.