* Subscribers were given much more detail about this story on Monday. Politico…

There’s some infighting among Democrats about state Rep. Anne Stava’s legislation on neural data privacy that she says was blocked in retaliation for her supporting a bill to repeal Illinois’ anti-BDS law. But lawmakers who voted against her measure say the bill simply wasn’t ready, pointing to legal and enforcement concerns raised during committee testimony. “No one knew what it was about,” one lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, told us.

Stava has reposted former Democratic congressional candidate Dylan Blaha’s Instagram post claiming that Stava was “punished” for calling for the repeal of Illinois’ “anti-BDS” (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) law, passed in 2015, prohibits state public pension funds from investing in companies that participate in the politically motivated economic boycott of Israel. It was the first such legislation passed in the United States.

Blaha actually interviewed Stava and posted it on Substack…

Rep. Stava’s support of HB 2723 did not come without retribution, however. Unfortunately, many Illinois Democrats in the State House and State Senate still pledge their love for Israel every chance they get. They support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and illegal wars on Iran and Lebanon.

“I know you were one of the 22 State Representatives who signed onto HB 2723,” I said to Rep. Stava during our interview. “That [anti-BDS] bill passed unanimously under a Republican Governor. Just to see how far we’ve come is crazy.” She nodded in agreement and said, “absolutely.”

Later in the interview, she dropped a bombshell on me. She told me one of her bills will hopefully pass in the future, but it failed in committee this year. “It was because I was on the anti-BDS bill. That was my punishment.”

“So, the Chair was [Rep. Jennifer] Gong-Gershowitz. She let me hear the bill. Staff was whispering in my ear. ‘You don’t have the votes.’ And I was like, well I want to know which of my colleagues are going to vote on it or not, and I called it and it failed. [Rep.] Lillian Jimenez is a good soul. That’s all I can say for them, my colleagues.”

Video of the hearing does not appear to show any staff members whispering in Rep. Stava’s ear. And several legislators said during the hearing that her language to criminalize violations needed to be changed to civil penalties, similar to the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act.

Stava also justified calling the vote that day by telling the committee, “if people want to vote against their constituents’ privacy” then that was on them.

For the most part, Democratic legislators have tried not to go public about internal disagreements on the anti-BDS bill, but there are definitely fissures. Kinda curious to see what happens next.