Adlai Ewing Stevenson III, age 90, diagnosed several years ago with Lewy Body Disease. Small, private funeral planned for this weekend. Larger celebration of his life will await post-pandemic era.
The World Health Organization this week spotlighted a new and worrying COVID-19 variant it says might be resistant to vaccines. The mu strain accounts for a tiny fraction of all coronavirus cases in the U.S. — Illinois has detected only 18, according to the outbreak.info database — but like the delta variant that has become omnipresent, mu has properties that could make it more transmissible. […]
Elena Navas-Nacher, an epidemiologist from Colombia who founded the Chicago-based Global Health Beat Foundation, said the variant has taken a harsh toll on the country. When she visited this summer, she said, intensive care units were 90% full. […]
The caseload has since plunged, which Navas-Nacher attributes to a vigorous vaccination program in the South American country.
As an expert treating women with infertility, Dr. Eve Feinberg of Northwestern is asked often about the perceived risk of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“I have vaccine conversations every single day,” says Feinberg, who assures her patients that there is no evidence that the shots inhibit future pregnancy.
An infertility rumor started in Europe late last year has been refuted by multiple scientific studies, says Dr. Randy Morris, medical director of IVF1 fertility clinics in the suburbs. Morris conducted his own research to debunk the myth in a peer-reviewed study published in the spring.
“There is an abundance of evidence that it does not cause problems,” Morris says.
The virus is still sending more Illinoisans to hospitals, but at a slowing pace. A total of 2,286 beds were occupied Thursday night, the most since April 19 and a net increase of 2% compared to last week. Previous week-to-week hospitalization spikes were 12%, 21% and 38%, respectively, dating back to early August.
The Illinois State Board of Education began putting schools on probation nearly a month ago. The order applies to public and private schools. Only 12 public schools and seven private schools remain on probation for defying the mandate.
A Christian school in northeastern Illinois that declined to enforce a mask mandate has lost state recognition but will seek accreditation in other ways, a newspaper reported.
Kankakee Trinity Academy, a pre-K-12 school in Kankakee, can’t participate in events affiliated with the Illinois Elementary School Association or Illinois High School Association. It also will lose access to state aid for certain programs, though officials said it didn’t add up to much.
From March of 2020 and throughout 2021, Illinois businesses and organizations have had to weather the COVID pandemic through closures, reopening phases and mandates for employees and customers. The following survey results, offered to Illinois Chamber of Commerce members and partners from August 10, 2021 to August 31, 2021, samples feedback from 335 businesses responding to survey questions pertinent to the evolution of the Delta COVID-19 crisis. […]
With 45% of survey participants located in Cook County and the Collar Counties in the Northeast corner of Illinois, downstate survey responses are slightly overrepresented in comparison to state demographics.
* This Could Be Israel’s Level-Up in the Fight Against COVID: Now, a new drug developed at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center is providing hope of a better, cheaper, treatment. While still in its early stages, and pending a crucial third trial, Dr. Nadir Arber believes that he’s developed a drug that will turn even the most severe cases of SARS-COV-2 infection into manageable medical events—without affecting the body’s natural ability to protect itself.
* City Club bringing back in-person luncheons: (A)ll attendees will have to provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination. No luncheon will be served; the food will be in to-go boxes. Attendance will be limited to 150 to 200, about half of usual capacity, and everyone will have to wear a mask.
State Rep. Andrew Chesney, R-Freeport, has filed legislation to counter Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s recent order that requires masks in private and public schools, regardless of vaccination status.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think somebody over there may have been trying to have a little fun at Rep. Chesney’s expense. Check out his exposed nose in the accompanying pic…
Whether intentional on their part or not, we can have our own fun. Do try to keep it clean, however. Thanks.
Watch for Republican tech entrepreneur Jesse Sullivan to throw his hat in the ring to run for governor this week. He’s notified friends that he’ll be announcing Thursday. Sullivan lives in Petersburg but is also founder of the Alter Global venture capital firm in San Francisco. He’s been reaching out to potential donors, telling them he has $5 million in commitments, according to a fundraising booklet obtained by Playbook. Sullivan also has pulled together a campaign team, including campaign manager Noah Sheinbaum, a management consultant who worked for Bain & Co., and Eric Wilson, a digital strategist who also worked on Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign. Sullivan would face state Sen. Darren Bailey, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf, and business owner Gary Rabine, in a June 2022 primary.
Petersburg native Jesse Sullivan is living in a tent during one of Washington, D.C.’s worst winters on record to help raise money to provide emergency shelter for the people of Haiti.
When Jesse Sullivan arrived in Tor Ghai, a community in the Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, it was riddled with violence.
Gun battles were routine, and improvised explosive devices were a constant threat.
Sullivan, 27, was there as part of a U.S. Army human terrain team. Made up of civilian and military personnel, the teams are embedded with brigades to help military commanders gain a deeper understanding of the social and cultural environments in which they operate.
• Over-perform and drive up turnout among rural and religious base voters
• Bring back the Suburbs! Message to college educated female and suburban voters with an appealing message
• Activate the youth vote with a future-focused campaign centered on economic growth and opportunity
Not sure how he does the first two at the same time. He also thinks he’ll be the early frontrunner, which he claims will avoid candidates being forced to take extreme positions, even though there’s likely no way of convincing people like Darren Bailey to get out.
Also, his campaign manager has never had any high-level campaign experience, but I’m sure this is the second coming of the “Best Team in America” ™.
Ken Griffin, the GOP megadonor and billionaire founder of the hedge fund Citadel, donated $5 million to DeSantis’ campaign in April — the largest donation he has received this year. DeSantis also raked in $500,000 in May from WeatherTech founder David MacNeil, $250,000 in March from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus and $250,000 in February from former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who moved to Florida after he lost re-election.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Press release…
The results are in and Gary Rabine, candidate for Governor, was the clear winner of the Illinois State Fair Straw Poll.
The Illinois Republican Party tent conducted a straw poll during the State Fair. Fair goers had the option of putting corn in the jar of their favorite candidate and Gary Rabine was the undisputed straw poll winner.
“The results, of course, are not scientific but a win is a win,” Rabine said. “We are building momentum every day and we will continue our march to a victory not only in the primary but also against JB Pritzker. We can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I am the outsider our state needs right now.”
*** UPDATE 2 *** Text from an ILGOP official…
We did not conduct a straw poll. The “Corn Poll” was not monitored, no one counted the corn at the end of each day and it started over new the next day as a fun thing for folks to do when inside the tent.
*** UPDATE 3 *** FRAUD AT POLLS!…
Not sure who counted the “corn poll” but the photos we had sent to us from supporters on different days sure had us way ahead…we also had the most supporters at Republican Day. Anyone else trying to claim victory is FAKE NEWS at its finest. #twillpic.twitter.com/GjVoUtI6qp
Let’s face it. It’s hard to find anyone who loves their driver’s license photo.
But what if you could do a retake?
Earlier today, our campaign announced a plan that would allow Illinoisans to choose the photo placed on their driver’s license.
Under our proposal, the Secretary of State’s office would allow Illinoisans to take up to three additional photos when they renew their license or state identification card at one of the Secretary of State’s facilities.
The Secretary of State’s office would charge $10 for each additional photo taken. The additional cost would only apply to those who want to have their photo retaken.
Revenue generated from the extra photos would go towards a new driver safety fund to support education, safety and training programs.
Will you help us keep our policy driven campaign going by contributing $25, $50 or $100?
There are many important policy issues involving the Secretary of State’s office that we have discussed and initiatives we’ve proposed. This isn’t one of them.
But we want to give Illinoisans a choice and have the opportunity for a more flattering photo while generating new revenue to make our roads safer.
Sincerely,
Alexi
The change wouldn’t take effect until the current long lines finally dwindle.
* Looks like he’s putting pressure on everyone to come to a final deal…
The Illinois House plans to return on Thursday, September 9th for the purpose of considering legislative measures related to a comprehensive energy proposal.
“I am pleased to see negotiations moving forward on a comprehensive energy proposal that prioritizes a greener future for Illinois, as well as meaningful ethics reform and maintaining our current workforce,” said House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. “I cannot thank Leaders Evans, Gabel, and Hoffman enough for their dedication and ensuring all stakeholders are heard throughout this process. I am confident that we will have a plan that Illinois can be proud of and will be viewed as a model for many other states.”
Information on the current energy proposals can be found at ilga.gov.
The latest House amendment is carried by Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, a longtime renewable energy advocate who was the sponsor of the Clean Energy Jobs Act that provides much of the framework for the negotiated bill. It has the backing of leading environmental groups making up the Clean Jobs Coalition.
“I think the decarbonization piece, for many of us, many members of the General Assembly, is an important part of any clean energy package,” Williams said in a phone call Tuesday. “For me, it’s not good enough to do yet another utility bill without addressing the elephant in the room, which is our looming and ever-increasing climate crisis.”
* Too much ill-informed click-bait is a big reason for this…
“The messaging over the last month in the U.S. has basically served to terrify the vaccinated and make unvaccinated eligible adults doubt the effectiveness of the vaccines.” Neither of those views is warranted.” https://t.co/PNKiP29XV6
In an unvaccinated person, a viral load is akin to an enemy army facing little resistance. In a vaccinated person, the human immune system launches a powerful response and tends to prevail quickly — often before the host body gets sick or infects others. That the viral loads were initially similar in size can end up being irrelevant. […]
But at least one part of the American anxiety does seem to have become disconnected from the facts in recent weeks: the effectiveness of the vaccines. In a new ABC News/Washington Post poll, nearly half of adults judged their “risk of getting sick from the coronavirus” as either moderate or high — even though 75 percent of adults have received at least one shot.
In reality, the risks of getting any version of the virus remain small for the vaccinated, and the risks of getting badly sick remain minuscule.
In Seattle on an average recent day, about one out of every one million vaccinated residents have been admitted to a hospital with Covid symptoms. That risk is so close to zero that the human mind can’t easily process it. My best attempt is to say that the Covid risks for most vaccinated people are of the same order of magnitude as risks that people unthinkingly accept every day, like riding in a vehicle.
…Adding… From comments…
As a vaccinated person you’re now far more likely to die of any number of things that have nothing to do with Covid. And if we reported on those risks the way we do breakthrough infections you’d probably never leave your house. If a 1 in 5,000 chance of getting Covid is too high of a risk for you to take on, you might want to revisit any number of activities you’re engaged in on a daily basis.
Thank you for your feedback regarding vaccination mandates. We’re sorry to reply with this form letter, but we have had far too many letters from members (both for and against mandates) to respond to each individually.
We wanted to be sure you know that AFSCME supports the same kind of mandate that President Biden has put in place for federal government employees and that Governor Pritzker has put in place for all teachers and other school and university personnel, as well as for hospital and nursing home employees. This form of mandate requires that employees either be vaccinated or provide proof of weekly (or even twice weekly) testing.
We believe that state employees—or city or county employees—should be treated no differently than teachers and staff in our schools or nurses and doctors in our hospitals, and our bargaining is pressing for the same treatment for all.
Council 31’s position was developed in consultation with local union leaders from across the state. It is not anti-mandate, as some in the media have implied, but against a rigid, punitive mandate that would result in the discharge of every employee who does not get vaccinated by early October.
Our position is the same that most other unions are taking, and we are coordinating with some of those unions in the bargaining now underway with various employers.
AFSCME has been and will continue to be a leading voice in promoting COVID vaccinations. We have distributed informational materials and handouts, developed videos, held webinars and posted information on the Council 31 website and Facebook page, all with the goal of encouraging members to get vaccinated—and many thousands have done so!
In addition, our union has relentlessly advocated for appropriate protective measures in the worksites where tens of thousands of union members have been working every day since the outbreak of this pandemic—measures that employers have often been all too slow to put in place.
AFSCME’s overriding priority is to protect the health of our members and the public they serve. We will continue to act with that imperative front and center.
We appreciate you taking your time to write and express your opinion.
As I told subscribers last week, AFSCME is basically asking for the status quo ante. But that hasn’t stopped outbreaks in the state’s congregate facilities and it has rewarded employees who refuse to be vaxed with unlimited paid time off.
Get your shots.
…Adding… From comments…
The difference is that a student or a parent of a student can choose to avoid unvaccinated teachers through remote learning or homeschooling. Others that rely on state services, such as those in prisons or those in veteran homes, do not have that choice. By ignoring those that are dependent on state services, AFSCME’s argument of status quo is invalid.
While a huge cloud of coal ash exploded around Springfield’s coal-fired electric power plant on Tuesday afternoon, Illinois’ top three Democrats huddled in a conference room at the Statehouse trying to find a way to slash power plant carbon emissions in the state to zero by 2045.
The irony was both unmistakable and irresistible.
The giant ash plume, caused by an equipment failure, dissipated hours later. But by then it also was clear that any attempt to pass a climate/energy bill by the end of the day was doomed — and that was a human failure.
The Senate’s Democrats have controlled the negotiations on the climate/energy bill for more than two years, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office obviously has wanted to take control of the process from the start. They just think they know better, on this and many other topics.
That conflict has led to untold sniping, which is not surprising given that Pritzker and Senate President Don Harmon have battled since even before the governor backed a candidate against Harmon in the Senate president’s race in early 2020.
Pritzker walked away from the energy talks at the end of this past spring session when Harmon wouldn’t agree to close the state’s two municipally owned coal-fired electric power plants in Springfield and the Metro East by 2035. Pritzker again walked away in mid-June when Harmon tried to piggyback onto the week’s session agenda of correcting the House appropriations bill’s many fatal mistakes with a bill to fix the climate/energy bill. But Harmon ultimately couldn’t unite unions and environmentalists on the new legislation, though Pritzker by then had agreed to extend the coal plant closure dates to 2045.
Then history repeated itself last week when the General Assembly’s focus was supposed to be on the legislative remap do-over. Harmon couldn’t close the climate/energy deal talks amidst numerous large and small objections from the governor and the greens. Blame Harmon, blame Pritzker, blame whomever. The talks failed.
Three strikes, you’re out, etc., so now the ball is in Pritzker’s court. Harmon finally surrendered control and punted a climate/energy bill to the House, where Speaker Chris Welch has warned both Pritzker and Harmon that he isn’t moving a bill unless all three agree to it.
Harmon’s game plan obviously has been to appease trade unions in order to fund his party’s redistricting-year campaigns in 2022. Speaker Welch has never expected to receive the same level of support from the white-dominated trade unions that flooded the kitty of his predecessor Michael Madigan, so he appears to be aligning himself with our billionaire governor to help fund the 2022 campaign season.
But, in reality, maybe it was time to hand all this over to fresh eyes, because what the Senate was doing just didn’t move the ball forward enough.
The proceedings last week often devolved into petty one-upmanship.
The week’s initial Senate Democratic proposal imposed such strict limitations on carbon emissions by municipally-owned electric power plants like Springfield’s CWLP and the Metro East’s gigantic Prairie State Energy Campus that there was no likely way either plant could survive until 2045, though no closure date was inserted into the legislation. But the governor had demanded a “date certain” closure for both plants, so the Senate Dems drastically revised their bill to allow the plants to pump out 100% of the carbon they are currently spewing all the way through to 2045, and only then would they have to stop.
No way would that be acceptable. It was an almost juvenile response.
The governor’s office countered with a combination of proposals: Scale down the coal plants’ carbon emissions over the years and then shut everything down in 2045. The proposal was rejected out of hand.
Senate President Harmon told reporters that he believed it was too uneconomical for the companies to both reduce their carbon footprint and stop production before they’d finished paying for their pollution-reduction efforts. The governor’s office believes the plants qualify for federal tax credits to subsidize the step-down, and they want time to convince Prairie State to take the money and the deal. Word is that an offer has been made directly to the electricity provider.
Unless attitudes change, the whole thing might just turn out to be too big for a state legislature to tackle. Harmon called the energy bill the most complicated piece of legislation he’s dealt with in 21 years. He’s probably right.
* This was issued last night by the governor’s office…
Negotiations on a comprehensive energy package that puts consumers and climate first continued this weekend with the shared goal of advancing legislation that will save jobs, gradually put Illinois on a path to clean energy in the years ahead, and foster job growth in clean energy industries. The administration looks forward to continuing discussions with our partners in the General Assembly.
Looks like optimism.
* “We are nearly there,” says the labor-backed Climate Jobs Illinois. But…
“Illinois’ labor community has a long, rich history of taking on and winning tough fights in the interests of working men and women, from advocating for safer working conditions to pressing for better wages and benefits that uplift families and provide greater opportunities for future generations.
As we celebrate this Labor Day, our coalition and our counterparts are taking on the greatest fight of our generation, with the threat of climate change growing every day.
We are convinced that we can win this fight but only if we work together by enacting a comprehensive clean energy bill that puts working people first, that expands opportunities for historically disinvested communities and that creates a just transition for workers in the fossil fuel industry.
We are nearly there.
A deal hinges on a singular albeit complicated issue. Labor has made significant compromises during this process, as have the other parties. We commit to continuing to work through the one remaining difference to reach an agreed bill.
We owe it to our members, to their families and to all future generations to continue this fight until we get it right. Put more simply, we cannot afford to fail. We urge the members of the House of Representatives to take up this bill and get it across the finish line.”
And it looks like the House will be back Thursday if they can get their act together by then. Some of you may have read a hugely optimistic take elsewhere this morning. But the take omitted the fact that organized labor is still not agreed on that “singular albeit complicated issue”: municipally owned coal-fired electric plants. I do think they’re making progress. I don’t think anybody is opening up the champagne, but I should know more later this morning.
The Governor strongly supports the compromise presented in House Amendment 1 to SB1751 that will be filed this weekend. The amendment builds on the progress made in Senate Bill 18 by requiring a 100 percent reduction in carbon emissions for municipal coal by 2045 with the additional goal of reducing emissions by 45 percent by 2035. We know our planet cannot afford to wait more than two decades before significant progress at reducing carbon emissions is made, and this bill is a reasonable path forward. The administration looks forward to continuing discussions with our partners in the House.
The Senate sent a bill to the House this week which did not reduce carbon emissions on the two municipally owned plants until the 2045 closure date.
* ICJC…
Today, Illinois took another step toward an equitable clean energy future for all with the introduction of SB1751, House Amendment 1 which will take action on climate, protect communities from pollution, and launch a generation of new, good-paying jobs that lift up those who need it most.
In response, the Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition (ICJC) released the following statement:
“The Illinois Clean Jobs Coalition strongly supports SB1751, House Amendment 1. This language — which mirrors energy legislation passed by the Illinois Senate (SB18) on September 1 and includes an important new element — is the reasonable path forward to a true climate and equitable jobs bill.
“In addition to a specific timeline for the closure of coal plants, this bill as amended also includes interim carbon pollution reductions for the Prairie State coal plant and CWLP’s Dallman coal plant in Springfield. These critical reductions are in line with climate science and will protect the public health of Illinoisans during the decades it will take to decarbonize. It is our understanding that this is the bill Governor Pritzker will sign.
“We are proud to advocate alongside the Governor and legislative Green Caucus in support of this legislation that meaningfully addresses our climate crisis, takes bold action on creating equitable jobs across the state particularly in Black and Brown communities, and enacts tough utility accountability measures.
“An urgent and nation-leading opportunity is within our reach. We encourage lawmakers to take this comprehensive climate and equitable jobs bill across the finish line next week.”
The amendment is not yet posted online.
Awaiting response from Speaker Welch and Senate President Harmon.
*** UPDATE 1 *** Here’s the language. It doesn’t mandate closure, but permanent 100 percent carbon reduction would be the same thing…
*** UPDATE 2 *** Speaker Welch…
I am confident Leaders Evans, Gabel, and Hoffman will continue to facilitate collaboration between all stakeholders and caucus members now that we have two proposals in bill language, and the House stands ready to act when consensus is reached.
Translation: When concensus is reached, a bill will move.
State officials on Friday announced that a fourth lottery for cannabis dispensary licenses will now be held to give six applicant groups a chance to win additional permits after they were wrongfully excluded from drawings in an earlier lottery.
The latest development in the convoluted and acrimonious pot shop licensing process came just before the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation announced the final list of winners of the next 185 permits, which still can’t formally be issued due to a Cook County judge’s order.
Toi Hutchinson, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s senior adviser on cannabis control, explained in a call with reporters that a “clerical oversight” led to some groups having less chances than they deserved and others having more shots in the July 29 lottery. The errors affected the drawings for five of the 17 regions where the licenses are designated.
The new lottery aims to give the affected firms the same odds of winning they would have had in the initial drawings, although it wasn’t immediately made clear how those odds will be determined. Additional licenses will be issued to the winners, but officials didn’t say how many could be dished out.
At each step on the way, as regulators discovered errors, they acted to correct them, Hutchinson said, describing the process as a marathon, not a sprint.
“It’s been painful to watch how long this has taken,” she said. “As we move forward. this could get better every single year.”
* From a state press release…
Only six applicants did not receive the correct number of entries. The additional lottery will not impact applicants who were selected for the opportunity to be issued a conditional license in the previously held lotteries.
Cannabis sales for the month of August dipped $5.8 million from the month before, bucking a consistent trend, but the governor’s lead advisor for the industry said things will continue to evolve.
In July, nearly $128 million of adult-use cannabis was sold. The following month, $122 million was sold. The only other declines month to month were in February 2021 and 2020, and a slight decline from October to November 2020.
It’s unclear if demand has peaked. Before Augusts’ sales numbers were revealed, Toi Hutchinson, the senior advisor for cannabis control to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, said that is something the law she helped craft as a state Senator requires review.
“The biggest thing is we designed this to study at every step of the way so that we could try to make the best policy decisions we could make with no breadcrumbs from any other state,” she said.
She couldn’t say what the ceiling was for sales.
“I could not even begin to tell you,” Hutchison said. “I will tell you that in February we surpassed liquor tax money.”
After more than 17 months of expanded benefits, federal pandemic unemployment programs are set to end on Labor Day, cutting off weekly payments to 7.5 million people — including 452,000 in Illinois.
The sudden expiration of emergency federal assistance, which some economists have likened to a fiscal cliff, could precipitate everything from a flood of job seekers to a plunge in consumer spending in Illinois, which is expected to be among the hardest-hit states. […]
The 452,000 people losing expanded federal unemployment benefits represent more than 70% of the 635,000 Illinoisans currently receiving unemployment payments, Cisco said.
Last year, the state paid out nearly $19.7 billion in regular and supplemental pandemic unemployment benefits to about 1.5 million recipients, both annual records for Illinois. In 2021, unemployment payments are at $14.5 billion through August, Cisco said. […]
IDES is recommending those needing additional pandemic financial assistance explore programs at other state agencies including the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Illinois Housing Development Authority and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
Sixty-eight percent of Americans approve of labor unions. Though statistically similar to last year’s 65%, the current reading is the highest Gallup has measured since 71% in 1965.
Gallup has measured the public’s rating of labor unions periodically beginning in 1936 and then annually since 2001, and more Americans have expressed approval than disapproval in every reading.
Between 1936 and 1967, approval averaged 68% and included record-high 75% approval ratings in 1953 and 1957. Then, from 1972 through 2016, support eased, with few readings over 60%. This included the 48% all-time low recorded in 2009, the only time approval was below the majority level. Since 2016, approval has steadily increased and is now 20 percentage points above the historical low.
As hospitals and schools work to implement additional COVID-19 testing programs and accountability measures, Governor JB Pritzker and Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike today announced a two-week extension of vaccination requirements for individuals in high-risk settings.
All healthcare workers, including nursing home employees, all P-12 teachers and staff, as well as higher education personnel and students will now be required to receive an initial dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by September 19, 2021. The extended deadline came at the request of the Illinois Health and Hospital Association (IHA), as well as education leaders including the Illinois Education Association (IEA), Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), Illinois Association of School Administrators (IASA), and Illinois Principals Association (IPA), who best understand the localized needs of hospitals and schools implementing their own testing, vaccine and accountability protocols.
Entities continue to be permitted and encouraged to put in place more stringent vaccination requirements. The Executive Order does not prohibit any entity from implementing a requirement that personnel, contractors, students or other visitors be fully vaccinated without providing the alternative to test on a weekly basis consistent with applicable law.
“Vaccines remain our strongest tool to protect ourselves from COVID-19, the Delta variant, and most crucially, to maintain our healthcare system’s ability to care for anyone who walks through their doors in need of help,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “While hospitals and schools move forward in good faith, this extension ensures they are prepared to meet this requirement to better protect our most vulnerable residents and children who are not yet eligible to get vaccinated.”
“Even as our hospitals and schools are taking the necessary steps to ensure compliance with the testing and accountability measures mandated in Executive Order 2021-22, we recognize that some institutions will need additional time in which to establish procedures that will guarantee they are compliant,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “Our primary goal is to make sure that healthcare workers, education employees and students are protected, along with their families and communities, and this extension will help us achieve that goal.”
To combat the more contagious Delta variant, on August 26, 2021, the Governor announced that all healthcare workers, P-12 teachers and staff, higher education personnel and students would be required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or submit to regular testing requirements. With Executive Order 2021-22, workers and students in applicable settings must receive the first dose of a two-dose vaccination series or a single-dose vaccination by September 19, 2021. The two-week extension will allow for more schools and hospitals to implement the new accountability measures. The second doses of either two-dose vaccine must be received by 30 days after the first dose, as directed by vaccine providers.
“I deeply appreciate how hard schools are working to protect students and educators while offering the highest quality in-person learning experience,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carmen I. Ayala. “Our school leaders said they needed more time to plan and communicate, and I thank Gov. Pritzker and Dr. Ezike for providing this extension. While testing is an option for all school personnel, vaccination is the safest and most effective defense against COVID-19. I encourage everyone who works with our students to use this extra time to get vaccinated.”
The extension will also allow for more time to put additional testing protocols in place, given that individuals who are unable or unwilling to receive the vaccine are required to get tested for COVID-19 at least once per week to prevent further spread. IDPH and the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) may require increased testing in the event of positive cases. Healthcare professionals, school workers, and higher education personnel and students who do not provide proof of vaccination will be required to follow the testing protocol in order to enter healthcare and educational facilities.
There’s more, but you get the idea. The EO is here.
…Adding… Illinois Education Association President Kathi Griffin…
“Today’s announcement of the two-week deadline extension on the governor’s Executive Order on vaccines is welcome news. We have said all along that the best place for students to be is in the classroom, as long as it’s safe. We believe the governor’s executive order – which encourages all education employees from preschool through college to be vaccinated and if they can’t, or won’t, then to be tested weekly – will help keep schools open and all those who work and learn inside them safe.
“Ultimately, keeping everyone safe and healthy while they are working and learning is the main goal. Extending the deadline will give school districts and higher education institutions more time to bargain the details and the impact of the order with employees, an important step that must take place to ensure that our members’ concerns are addressed. It will also give school leaders time to develop plans, secure testing and even offer vaccination clinics.
“We support public health strategies that work. Vaccines are the most effective way to ensure safety. And, vaccines combined with other known effective mitigation strategies, such as wearing masks, washing hands, keeping socially distanced, appropriate building ventilation and a vibrant testing program for students and staff will help all of us meet the goal of keeping doors open and everyone safe and healthy.”
A Christian County Republican thinks Illinois House Democrats may have experienced a change of heart and be willing to abandon an ethics-reform bill passed in May in favor of working to hammer out “true ethics reform” legislation.
Senate Bill 539 passed the House and Senate by overwhelming, bipartisan margins on May 31. At the time, lawmakers from both parties touted their ability to agree on a bill, even one criticized as weak, after years of scandals that resulted in several former lawmakers being charged with crimes or facing federal investigations.
But shortly before 10 p.m. Tuesday in the House, Democrats who hold 73 seats in the 118-seat chamber failed to muster the 71 votes — the three-fifths majority required — to accept Gov. JB Pritzker’s amendatory veto and immediately enact the bill into law.
“I take that as a sign of optimism,” said state Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Morrisonville.
The bill’s House sponsor, Rep. Kelly Burke, D-Evergreen Park, said she wasn’t expecting Republicans to pull support for the bill.
“It was a longer than anticipated day, and I think people on both sides of the aisle had some commitments that they needed to get home for,” Burke said of the Tuesday session. “The motion had passed handily in the in the Senate. And, you know, it was a bill that had passed 113-5 in the spring. So, you know, it was surprising that the Republicans decided to not vote for it.” […]
Burke said she’s ready to pass SB 539 and continue to work on further changes to ethics laws.
“This is a standing committee, the ethics committee,” she said. “So you know, we’re going to have more bills and ideas that people put forward. We’ve been clear about that since the beginning. … I think this bill is an excellent bill. And it’s a good start. But it’s not the end of the conversation. So let’s get this done and then continue working.”
* I front-paged this comment late in the day on Wednesday, so you might have missed it…
== - King Louis XVI - Wednesday, Sep 1, 21 @ 12:15 pm:
Madigan would not have made such a mistake. He could count. ==
How was it a mistake? Several targeted GOP members voted against prohibiting elected officials from lobbying. I’d say the new Speaker knew exactly what he was doing when they took a roll call vote knowing full well more than a dozen of their members had already left.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today reported 30,319 new confirmed and probable cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Illinois, including 178 additional deaths since reporting last Friday, August 27, 2021. More than 78% of Illinois adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and more than 61% of Illinois adults are fully vaccinated, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Currently, IDPH is reporting a total of 1,538,324 cases, including 24,067 deaths, in 102 counties in Illinois. The age of cases ranges from younger than one to older than 100 years. Since reporting on Friday, August 27, 2021, laboratories have reported 609,585 specimens for a total of 29,177,890. As of last night, 2,286 individuals in Illinois were reported to be in the hospital with COVID-19. Of those, 551 patients were in the ICU and 302 patients with COVID-19 were on ventilators.
The preliminary seven-day statewide positivity for cases as a percent of total test from August 27-September 2, 2021 is 5.0%. The preliminary seven-day statewide test positivity from August 27-September 2, 2021 is 5.4%.
A total of 14,005,857 vaccines have been administered in Illinois as of last midnight. The seven-day rolling average of vaccines administered daily is 26,431 doses. Since reporting on Friday, August 27, 2021, 185,014 doses were reported administered in Illinois.
*All data are provisional and will change. Additional information and COVID-19 data can be found at http://www.dph.illinois.gov/covid19.
Vaccination is the key to ending this pandemic. To find a COVID-19 vaccination location near you, go to www.vaccines.gov.
Testing is way up. We need more testing centers, like, yesterday. Hospitalizations and ICU admittance are gradually increasing. We’ve passed this spring’s peak and we haven’t had this many in the hospital since early February. Positivity rates are still good overall, but that’s mainly because of Chicago and the suburbs. But Sangamon County is at 5.9 percent, which ain’t horrible.
* Refusing to institute mitigations like vaxing and indoor masking (or even prohibiting them) is not only horrible for public health, it’s also bad for business…
America’s employers added just 235,000 jobs in August, a surprisingly weak gain after two months of robust hiring at a time when the delta variant’s spread has discouraged some people from flying, shopping and eating out. […]
The August job gains the government reported Friday fell far short of the roughly 940,000 that employers had added in each of the previous two months, when widespread vaccinations allowed the economy to fully reopen from pandemic restrictions. Still, the number of job openings remains at record levels, and hiring is expected to stay solid in the coming months.
With COVID cases having spiked in July and August, Americans have been buying fewer plane tickets and reducing hotel stays. Restaurant dining, after having fully recovered in late June, has declined to about 10% below pre-pandemic levels.
Some live shows, including the remaining concerts on country star Garth Brooks’ tour, have been canceled. Businesses are delaying their returns to offices, threatening the survival of some downtown restaurants, coffee shops and dry cleaners.
The Sangamon County Department of Public Health is seeking a court order authorizing the quarantine of four siblings who are students in the Pleasant Plains School District after they came in close contact with a middle school student who recently tested positive for COVID-19.
According to a court document filed Thursday in the Seventh Circuit Judicial Court, Marcie Skinner of Pleasant Plains initially agreed to the written order for home quarantine for her children, but later contacted the health department and withdrew her consent, demanding the department obtain a court order.
All four children are minors and not referred by names in the petition.
The quarantine order went into effect at 11 a.m. Wednesday, but the health department was seeking an emergency order declaring it enforceable after it learned that Skinner had planned to bring her quarantined children to school on Friday.
Members of the Beecher City Unit 20 School District Board of Education voted 7-0 Wednesday night to hire Silver Lake Group, LTD as special legal counsel to represent the school district in all legal proceedings to fight the mask mandate.
The district is on probation for not providing the Illinois State Board of Education with a return-to-school plan that requires the use of masks.
By approving the motion, the school district would be responsible for all legal expenses to determine if the ISBE has the lawful authority to take away the district’s recognition status for failing to require masks as mandated by the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Office of the Governor.
* Looks like most schools are getting themselves together, but not all…
Besides Carlyle, the only other school outbreak denoted as having more than 16 cases in the last 30 days is Staunton CUSD 6 in Macoupin County. Staunton went remote for an “adaptive pause” in August after nearly 100 students had to quarantine, and returned to school in-person on Monday.
According to the Illinois State Board of Education’s summary, Red Bud and Carlyle were sent their probation notice letters Aug. 12. Since then, the state board has continued to send out notice letters to others, with the most recent being sent to Brownstown CUSD 201 in Fayette County on Aug. 27.
Of the 59 school districts listed, 19 have not yet had their recognition status fully restored.
* Spring Break Caused COVID-19 Outbreak at Chicago University, CDC Officials Announce: None of the students who contracted COVID-19 were hospitalized or died, according to the report. Three of the students who got sick, two of whom experienced symptoms, were fully vaccinated. Vaccines did not become available to all Chicagoans until April 19.
* The House Executive Committee has just posted a hearing for next Thursday morning, September 9. The bill is SB18, the climate/energy measure which passed the Senate this week. Speaker Welch is the chief sponsor.
It’s a virtual hearing, so we don’t know yet whether the posting signals a return to Springfield that day or not.
I’ve reached out with questions, so you’ll know more when I know more.
…Adding… A House Democratic spokesperson said she was told the posting was done primarily to be meet posting requirements “in case we do come back.” So, we wait.
The Democratic Party of Illinois (DPI) today announced state Rep. Maurice West will serve as the state party’s newest Democratic State Central Committee member for the 17th Congressional District, which includes parts of Rockford, the Quad Cities and Peoria. The selection of West follows the death of State Central Committee member Don Johnston last month.
West was selected through a weighted vote of the Democratic county chairs that make up the 14 counties of the 17th Congressional District last evening. A Rockford native, West is serving his second term as representative of the 67th Illinois House District. He’s been active in local, state and national politics for nearly a decade.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Rep. Maurice West and the Rockford community to the Democratic State Central Committee,” Robin Kelly, Chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, said. “I’m confident Maurice’s extensive experiences in the local churches and schools, along with his enthusiasm for serving his community, will bring important ideas and energy as we enter the 2022 election cycle.”
West has championed many initiatives to move Illinois forward as state representative, including bringing over $2 million for job training and youth employment programs to Rockford to close a persistent skills gap in the area. West is also a strong advocate of mental health and restorative justice programs.
“Rep. Maurice West has always been dedicated to our community and is highly respected for his many efforts to improve the Rockford area,” Kate Jennings, 17th District State Central Committeeperson, said. “I look forward to partnering with Maurice to support the 17th Congressional District and the Democratic Party of Illinois as we build a strong, engaged and diverse party across our state.”
West is deeply involved in his community. He is an ordained minister and active member of his church. He regularly works with the homeless and is the founder of Share the Warmth – Rockford, which provides clothing for the homeless each year. West previously served on the Education Committee of the Rockford Public School Board as well as the Rockford Park District Foundation. He has also served on the boards for the Community Action Agency, Rockford Area Arts Council and Rockford Association for Minority Management.
“I’m excited and honored to represent the 17th Congressional district on the Democratic State Central Committee,” West said. “My life’s mission is to lift up the people and communities around me. I will be fully active and engaged in all 14 counties that represent this unique district and I’m ready to get to work as we head into a critical election year.”
West’s term begins immediately. A full list of the Democratic State Central Committee members can be found here.
Rep. West has been quite impressive since his 2018 election. You’ll recall he was the only Black House member to demand that Speaker Madigan resign. But he’s so well-regarded that it had zero negative impact and he was unanimously elected Secretary of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus last December.
* I have yet to receive a single press release from an Illinois Republican politician praising the US Supreme Court’s ruling or the Texas law the high court allowed to stand. The Illinois House and Senate Republican leaders are both anti-abortion advocates, but they’ve been quiet. The Illinois Republican Party has been similarly mute. Heck, even US Rep. Mary Miller and Sen. Darren Bailey haven’t tweeted about it.
…Adding… US Rep. Miller and the rest of the state’s Republican delegation signed on to an amicus brief in late July asking the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Either the dog has finally caught the car and doesn’t know what to do with it, or they realize how unpopular the law is in Illinois with all-important suburban women, or both. The Democrats are not nearly so shy…
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Thursday that he’s “very concerned” about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to block a new Texas law banning most abortions in the state, and vowed Illinois would continue to welcome women from elsewhere who need reproductive health care.
“Shame on those Texas lawmakers for taking away, not just women’s rights, but women’s health,” Pritzker, a first-term Democrat, said at an unrelated news conference in Chicago. “Banning abortion does not keep women safe.”
A deeply divided high court allowed the Texas law to remain in force in the nation’s biggest abortion curb since the court legalized abortions nationwide almost half a century ago. The court voted 5-4 to deny an emergency appeal from abortion providers and others but also suggested that their order likely wasn’t the last word and that other challenges can be brought.
Illinois has “very strong pro-reproductive rights laws,” said Carolyn Shapiro, professor of law and co-director of Chicago-Kent College of Law’s Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States.
So women’s rights in the state likely won’t be threatened by the Texas law “in the short term,” she said. […]
Shapiro noted that if Roe v. Wade is overturned and Congress debates the possibility of a nationwide abortion restriction, then the impacts could be felt in Illinois.
“If there are national efforts to change the law in Congress to impose different types of abortion bans - as Congress did with what they call the partial birth abortion ban, which the Supreme Court upheld - they could then… that would obviously have enormous effects here in Illinois and would be quite frightening.”
Activists from both sides of the abortion debate believe Illinois will see an uptick in travel here for the procedure.
“I think we’re definitely going to be seeing higher abortion rates in Illinois,” Scheidler said. “That trend will continue as other states enact other pro-life measures, whether we’re talking about measures that have already been upheld by the Supreme Court or measures that are completely new like this Texas law.”
Thousands of women already travel to Illinois from other states each year to access abortions. In 2019, roughly 7,500 crossed state lines for the procedure, about 16% of all terminated pregnancies in Illinois that year. The number of out-of-state abortions has increased every year since 2014, according to Illinois Department of Public Health data.
While it’s impossible to know the reasons for each individual decision to travel for the procedure, many experts have attributed the overall rise to increasing restrictions in other states.
The Texas law actually bars state officials from enforcing the law. You won’t see Texas Rangers closing down abortion clinics that continue to perform abortions after six weeks. Instead, the law grants private individuals the authority to sue anybody — except the actual patient herself — who “aids and abets” such an abortion, including doctors, counselors and drivers.
The bounty is $10,000. That’s how much the State of Texas will pay if you sue and win. Plus, the state will pick up your legal bills. You don’t even have to have some connection to the abortion. You can live in Peoria and sue a stranger in Houston.
But what if you are the person who is sued and you win? Texas will not pay your legal fees. And the state sure as heck won’t fork over $10,000.
A Missouri law that took effect last week allows citizens to sue local law enforcement agencies whose officers knowingly enforce any federal gun laws. Police and sheriff’s departments can face fines of up to $50,000 per occurrence. The law was backed by Republicans who fear Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration could enact restrictive gun policies.
In Kansas, a new law prompted by frustration over coronavirus restrictions allows residents to file lawsuits challenging mask mandates and limits on public gatherings imposed by counties. Last month, the Kansas Supreme Court allowed enforcement of the law to proceed while it considers an appeal of a lower court ruling that declared the law unconstitutional.
Utah also took a similar strategy on pornography last year, passing a law that allows citizens to sue websites that fail to display a warning about the effects of “obscene materials” on minors. Though adult-entertainment groups warned it was a violation of free speech, many sites have complied with the law to avoid the expense of a possible onslaught of legal challenges.
* Related…
* Texas abortion providers say they’ve been forced to turn away patients under new law: Rebecca Tong, who operates an abortion clinic in neighboring Oklahoma, said she’s become inundated with out-of-state calls. “The phones have just been ridiculous,” said Tong, co-executive director of Trust Women. “About two-thirds of our call volume right now is Texas people.”
* Texas’s new abortion law threatens women’s health and well-being: In 1947, for example, Chicago police captured eight women outside the building of a midwife-abortionist, put them in police cars and drove them to a medical office for internal pelvic examinations by a doctor searching for evidence of an abortion in progress. The state claimed that the police “escorted” the women, who “consented” to the exams and volunteered to testify. But there was nothing voluntary about the women’s role in this investigation; it was entirely coercive. Police had cursed at them, threatened to call a paddy wagon if they resisted and manhandled them into police cars.
A voting advocacy group said Thursday state legislative district maps approved by Democrats earlier this week fail to maximize Black representation and would reduce the number of Black-majority districts in the state.
Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting sent a letter to a panel of three federal judges overseeing legal challenges to the map asking them to use their “leverage” to approve a redistricting plan that “provides optimal opportunity for Black voters to exercise their right to elect candidates of their own choosing.”
Republicans and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund have filed separate federal lawsuits over the maps. MALDEF, in a status hearing Wednesday, told the court panel it plans to challenge the latest map on federal Voting Rights Act grounds, contending it underrepresents a Latino population that grew by 15% over the last decade and reduced the number of legislative districts with a Latino voting-age majority.
* Press release…
Members of Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting (IAAFR) have reviewed the Legislature’s final redistricting plan and they are not happy. “From what we can see, Black voters in the state of Illinois are worse off under the revised plan than we were under the plan enacted in June”, said Valerie F. Leonard, the group’s convener. “In fact, every redistricting plan the Legislature has come up with after 2011 has done progressively more harm to Black voters”.
In 2011, the redistricting plan was drawn with 16 majority Black Representative districts, and 8 majority Black Senate districts. This past spring UCCRO developed a redistricting proposal with 18 representative districts with 50% or more Black population. They also drew 9 Black Senate districts.
A recent review of the data that supports the maps enacted in June revealed that the Legislature drew 12 Black Representative districts and 6 Black Senate districts. The amended plan reduced the number of Black Representative districts from 12 to 8, and the number of Black Senate districts from 6 to 4. Black people made up 14% of Illinois population in 2011 and 14% of the state’s population in 2021. The latest redistricting plan drew fewer than 7% of the new districts as majority Black.
We know the Legislature can figure out a way to balance their political agenda with optimizing Black voting rights”, Leonard said. Speaker Madigan did this in 2011, and the data show that it is possible to do it again. For some reason, they decided not to go that route this time around.”
IAAFR shared their concerns in a letter to the Court overseeing the lawsuit brought by MALDEF and the Republican leaders.
I asked the group’s convener Valerie Leonard if the group plans to sue. “We are exploring our options,” she replied.
Lots of districts are near to a Black majority, however. And voting history has shown that white folks in the state are willing to vote for Black candidates, which is one of the arguments the Democrats will likely make.
* Meanwhile…
As the Illinois House and Senate passed new redistricting maps on August 31, community members organized by the non-partisan United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) urge Governor JB Pritzker to veto the maps and meet with UCCRO about its Unity Map proposal that protects the ability of communities of color to elect candidates of our choice. The passed maps weaken the voting power of Black and Latino community members and largely ignore Asian American and Arab American communities. The rushed and exclusionary mapping process has imposed significant challenges to Black and Brown communities who are trying to work together toward win-win outcomes.
WHO:
Rod Wilson, UCCRO
Reverend Robin Hood, UCCRO
Latino Policy Forum
IL Muslim Civic Coalition
Enlace Chicago
Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community (CBCAC)
Erica Knox, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights
WHERE: Outside the James R. Thompson Center (100 W. Randolph Street, Chicago IL)
WHEN: 10:00 a.m. CT, Friday, September 3, 2021
*** UPDATE *** Henry Olsen at the Washington Post on the Illinois remap…
The new map is so brazen that progressive elections analyst Drew Savicki found it would create up to 85 districts expected to be Democratic in the 118-seat state House, even though only 69 Democrats would be elected in a map that fairly reflected the proportional strength of each party. So while Democrats would naturally win a majority because they dominate the state, the Democratic plan would net them nearly 80 percent of the seats from less than 60 percent of the votes.
That’s a ridiculous assumption based on the numbers I’ve seen.
Calabrese estimated that House Democrats, who hold a 73-45 majority, will pick up at least five seats in the 2022 election. […]
On the Senate side, he suggested Democrats may lose a seat or two, putting a slight dent in their current 41-18 margin. Calabrese said Democrats decided to redraw Senate districts in a way that ensures virtually all of them will be overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic, impervious to a general election challenge.
Calabrese’s numbers that I’ve seen and published show at most (not at least) a five-seat gain for House Democrats, but those are just numbers on paper and I do not totally agree. Some Republicans, like Reps. Mark Batinick and Bradley Stephens, have proved to be quite adept at overcoming Democratic trends.
And I’m not yet convinced that the Senate Democrats will definitely lose two seats. Both districts he’s labeled as possible losses have been won by Democrats in the past even though the districts had more Republicans then than they have now.
Governor JB Pritzker signed into law Senate Bill 134, which creates the Local Journalism Task Force. The Task Force will conduct a comprehensive study of the status of journalism and make recommendations for improvement to the Governor and General Assembly.
“Many communities across our country have become news deserts – through this legislation, Illinois is taking a step toward addressing that challenge,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Robust local journalism is vitally important and I look forward to reviewing the recommendations from the Task Force as we seek to maintain and grow a strong press corps in Illinois.” […]
Senate Bill 134 creates the Local Journalism Task Force, which will:
• conduct a comprehensive study relative to communities underserved by local journalism in Illinois,
• review all aspects of local journalism including, but not limited to, the adequacy of press coverage of communities, print and digital business models for media outlets, the impact of social media on local news, strategies to improve local news access, and public policy solutions to improve the sustainability of local press business models and private and nonprofit solutions, and
• submit findings and recommendations to the Governor and General Assembly by January 1, 2023.
The Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity will be required to provide administrative and other support to the Task Force. The Task Force is also required to meet a minimum of five times.
* Today…
She’s really wanted to be on that 15-member panel ever since the bill was passed.
* I asked Abudayyeh for comment…
As a former journalist, I care deeply about media literacy and ensuring the news industry remains viable amid our ever evolving media landscape. I look forward to working with the taskforce to identify ways to increase media coverage in underserved communities, so they do not have to rely on social media and political groups for their information. Our government functions best when communities are served by professional impartial news outlets that inform and educate their communities.
* Letter from Rep. Mark Batinick, a Republican lawmaker who strongly encouraged Gov. JB Pritzker to impose a mask mandate last year. Emphasis was added by me…
Dear Governor Pritzker,
The pleasant exchange of letters between you and Leader Durkin ended with you requesting any ideas on how to help us move forward through this deadly pandemic. I have two ideas.
As you likely remember, I was the first state elected official to push for the use of face masks. Especially in adults, study after study has confirmed their effectiveness in combating the spread of COVID-19. And while some recent data showcases the limitations of masks in younger children, I do agree that there is a time and place for their use in schools.
However, let’s keep in mind that the science is not clear on how to handle this. The World Health Organization does not recommend masks for those under six years old ever, and only in areas of significant spread for those under twelve years old. There are downsides for younger children wearing masks. For example, social emotional learning is directly tied to facial expressions.
During mid-summer when the pandemic seemed to be waning, school boards were voting on mask mandates. My advice then and still is that any mandate should be tied to reasonable metrics that people from all sides can agree upon.
My first idea is to place metrics on the mask requirements. This means having the mandate go into effect when the positivity rate is above a certain point, and then having them automatically removed once they drop below a certain point. It will give communities hope and a goal, making it easier for citizens to understand what they are doing and why they are doing it.
My second idea is to localize the community spread metrics more. For instance, I live in Plainfield. Plainfield is partially in Will County and partially in Kendall County. The current Will County region (Region 7) touches the Indiana border, while the Kendall County region (Region 2) touches the Iowa border. Will County influences the spread of COVID-19 in the Kendall County portion of Region 2 more than a county that touches Iowa does.
I recommend making each county its own region, but calculating that county’s positivity rate from the county itself and any county that borders it. Regions will essentially overlap, creating a more accurate picture of community spread. By using this strategy, initial breakouts will be easier to quickly identify and mitigate. It will also allow for us to consider the use of counties in border states, which seem to have led to increased outbreaks in the past. I will also note it may be better for a large county like Cook County to be broken into two regions. This targeted approach will be more effective at detecting breakout areas early while also limiting mitigation requirements, which will increase compliance.
I look forward to your consideration of these ideas and your response.
Warmest Regards,
Mark Batinick
State Representative, District 97
I asked what he’d do about school districts which are in more than one county and he said the schools should be placed into the county with the most students.
* The Question: What do you think of Rep. Batinick’s two ideas? Make sure to explain your answer. Thanks.
More than a third of vaccinated workers reported anger at the transmission risk posed by their unvaccinated peers, according to a survey of more than 400 employees in late August by workplace consultancy Seyfarth at Work. About a quarter of non-inoculated employees said they’re upset at the growing restrictions against them.
Some workers are now hardening their stance, and “verbalizing gripes to one another and management,” the survey showed. To make their point, a group of unvaccinated employees at an engineering company has organized under the nickname of the “Vexcluded” to protest that they are being turned into outcasts, Philippe Weiss, president of Seyfarth at Work, said in the report. […]
The schism also shows up in disagreements about why the delta variant continues to spread. Four out of five of the vaccinated blame the unvaccinated for the number of rising cases, according to the results Tuesday from the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index. Among the unvaccinated, only 10% thought they were at fault.
You made your choice. You’re endangering others who can’t be vaccinated and who are in danger of experiencing a breakthrough case. Deal with the consequences.
1. Concern with the pandemic continues to climb, with the Delta variant a pronounced cause of worry.
• Three in five Americans (60%) believe returning to their pre-coronavirus life right now would be a large or moderate risk, the highest level since early March.
• Three quarters (78%) of Americans are at least somewhat concerned about the COVID-19 outbreak at this time. Just as many (80%) are concerned about the Delta variant spreading in the U.S.
2. Opposition to getting the coronavirus vaccine has dropped to the lowest levels ever.
• Only one in five (20%) Americans say they are not likely to get the coronavirus vaccine, the lowest level since we started tracking. Hard opposition, those not at all likely, has dropped to 14% of adults.
• The number of parents who say they are likely to get their kids vaccinated has surged over the last week, now two-thirds (68%) report they are likely to vaccinate their kids or they already have. Opposition to vaccinating their kids has dropped to less than a third (31%) of parents.
[…]
4. American support of more vigorous anti-COVID policies continues to be strong, even as more Americans are experiencing them.
• Majorities of Americans continue to support policies requiring the use of masks in schools (70%) or public places (66%).
• Working Americans also continue to support vaccine requirements by their employer (57%).
• About one in five (19%) working Americans report that their employer currently requires vaccination but over half (54%) report masks being required in the workplace.
[…]
6. Vaccinated and unvaccinated America look in very different directions for the cause of the current surge in COVID cases.
• Four out of five (79%) of the vaccinated point to the unvaccinated as who they blame for rising cases. Beyond the unvaccinated, a third points to Donald Trump (36%), conservative media (33%), and people from other countries traveling to the United States (30%).
• Among the unvaccinated, there is not a single group pointed to as the main cause, especially not the unvaccinated (10%). Among the leading culprits are people traveling to the US (37%), Americans traveling abroad (23%), mainstream media (27%), and Joe Biden (21%).
“It’s amazing to me to see people I know that are really smart college-educated people that still believe some of the lies like it’s (vaccine) magnetized or whatever,” Kinzinger said. “The good news is the hesitancy is declining
Fans planning to attend Chicago Bulls or Blackhawks games, concerts or other events at the United Center will be required to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative test to get in, the arena announced today.
The new protocol for the Near West Side venue goes into effect immediately “and will remain in place until further notice,” the venue said in a statement, calling the decision “representative of the continued commitment to providing the best environment for a safe return for all fans and employees.” […]
The new rules amount to a highly effective way to safely host big indoor events, said infectious disease specialist Dr. Vishnu Chundi, chairman of the Chicago Medical Society’s COVID-19 task force.
“If you’re going to have an indoor event, this is the safest place to have (it)” with the new protocols in place, he said. He also noted the air turnover rate in the building—the pace at which air is changed out of a room—is faster than it is in many hospital operating rooms.”
* CDC releases report on The Crossing COVID-19 outbreak: Of concern were a 5-day overnight church camp for teenagers in Schuyler County and a 2-day men’s conference at The Crossing campus in Quincy. According to the CDC, neither COVID-19 vaccinations nor testing were required by The Crossing at either event. The report sets the total number of confirmed outbreak-associated cases at 180 as of August 13. Although the report suggests that number is likely much higher than investigators can confirm.
Definitions for COVID-19 outbreaks are relative to the local context. A working definition of “outbreak” is recommended for planning investigations. A recommended definition is a situation that is consistent with either of two sets of criteria:
• During (and because of) a case investigation and contact tracing, two or more contacts are identified as having active COVID-19, regardless of their assigned priority.
OR
• Two or more patients with COVID-19 are discovered to be linked, and the linkage is established outside of a case investigation and contact tracing (e.g., two patients who received a diagnosis of COVID-19 are found to work in the same office, and only one or neither of the them was listed as a contact to the other).
* After getting whacked by the courts during the 1981 remap process, the Democrats have always tried to appease Latino groups in the redistricting process to avoid another lawsuit. As we discussed yesterday, the new do-over maps passed this week have so far not dissuaded the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund from moving ahead with its legal challenge. And now comes the Latino Policy Forum…
The Latino Policy Forum urges Governor Pritzker to veto the Illinois legislative maps passed by legislators this week, which do not equitably reflect the state’s Latino community.
Despite recent 2020 census data indicating that Illinois added 309,832 Latinos (the largest population increase among racial/ethnic groups statewide), no Latino-majority districts were added in the maps passed by the general assembly. In fact, preliminary analysis and reports show that some Latino-majority districts are diluted even more, further hindering the community’s ability to elect the representatives of their choice.
Furthermore, as with the maps from the spring, the Illinois legislature did not provide advocates with a reasonable timeline that would enable community input.
The Forum supports and stands alongside efforts led by the United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations (UCCRO), the IL Muslim Civic Coalition, the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and other allies that denounce the passed maps.
…Adding… Leader Durkin…
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) released the following statement on Governor Pritzker’s comments today about the new legislative maps:
“The Governor needs to live up to his campaign pledges for a fair map and veto another attempt by the legislative Democrats to silence communities across Illinois. The Governor does not just work for the Democratic insiders who got him elected. He needs to listen to the voices of groups like Latino Policy Forum and the IL Muslim Civic Coalition so that all Illinoisans feel that equity and inclusion are part of the mapmaking process.”
States that ended enhanced federal unemployment benefits early have so far seen about the same job growth as states that continued offering the pandemic-related extra aid, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis and economists.
Several rounds of federal pandemic aid boosted the amount of unemployment payments, most recently by $300 a week, and extended them for as long as 18 months. The extra benefits are set to expire nationwide next week. But 25 states ended the financial enhancement over the summer, and most of them also moved to end other pandemic-specific unemployment programs such as benefits for gig and self-employed workers.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 1.33% in July from April in the 25 states that ended the benefits and 1.37% in the other 25 states and the District of Columbia, the Journal analysis of Labor Department data showed. The payroll figures are taken from a government survey of employers. The analysis compared July totals with April, before governors in May started announcing plans to end or reduce the benefits during the summer.
Economists who have conducted their own analyses of the government data say the rates of job growth in states that ended and states that maintained the benefits are, from a statistical perspective, about the same.
“If the question is, ‘Is UI the key thing that’s holding back the labor market recovery?’ The answer is no, definitely not, based on the available data,” said Peter Ganong, a University of Chicago economist, referring to unemployment insurance.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates 15,404 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of August 23 in Illinois, according to the DOL’s weekly claims report released Thursday. […]
Illinois’ estimated claims are among 340,000 total claims filed across the country last week. […]
There were 21,499 new unemployment claims filed during the week of August 2 in Illinois.
There were 20,019 new unemployment claims were filed during the week of July 26 in Illinois.
The governor recently rejected a measure (HB684) that would allow private ambulance companies to bill non-emergency transports through the state rather than through managed care organizations contracted by Illinois to coordinate care for patients on Medicaid, the state’s health insurance program for the poor.
Pritzker contended the billing switch could harm vulnerable Medicaid patients, by making it harder for them to get ambulance rides to doctors’ appointments and other services.
First the House, then the Senate, easily and overwhelmingly overrode Pritzker’s veto.
The ambulance industry said managed care organizations are so far behind in reimbursing them for rides and they’re so financially stretched that they’re unable to pay emergency medical technicians enough money, contributing to a shortage of ambulance drivers and technicians.
The measure would transfer the review of claims from managed care organizations, or MCOs, which are private insurance companies that oversee most Medicaid services in the state. The Department of Healthcare and Family Services, which opposed the bill, would be the entity handling those claims under the bill. They already do so for emergency ambulance services, a change made in April.
The Illinois State Ambulance Association said the measure, House Bill 684, is needed to counter arbitrary denials of claims by private insurers. The governor’s office and HFS, however, expressed “serious concerns for patient safety and cost.”
In his veto message, Pritzker said the bill “has the potential to disrupt care and reduce the quality of provided medical transportation services to some of the most vulnerable Illinoisans.”
But ambulance services said payment delays from MCOs threatened staffing, and the change would simply provide a way to “get paid for the services provided.”
McHenry and Kankakee counties filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday challenging the legality of a state ban on jails housing federal immigrant detainees.
The lawsuit is a response to a law that Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed in August that calls for canceling contracts for jails to house immigrants awaiting court hearings and held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Kankakee, McHenry, and Pulaski counties have such agreements and keep about 260 detainees on average, ICE said.
“While perhaps proceeding from good intentions, this symbolic law does nothing other than serve as a demonstration of discontent by those in Springfield with current federal immigration policies and will only harm the very immigrants it purports to help,” McHenry County State’s Attorney Patrick Kenneally said in a news release.
* The lawsuit has three counts: Impairment of contract; Violation of intergovernmental immunity; Federal preemption of inconsistent state law.
People living in the suburbs make up 44% of the state’s population, but in August they accounted for just 26% of COVID-19 deaths in Illinois.
That’s the suburbs’ smallest portion of COVID-19 deaths for any month since the pandemic began, according to a Daily Herald analysis of Illinois Department of Public Health records. […]
People living in 96 counties outside the Chicago metropolitan area make up 34.5% of the population and have experienced 36% of deaths.
But that share is increasing.
More than half the state’s COVID-19 deaths in both July and August were from the 96 downstate counties, where less than 40% of the population is vaccinated against COVID-19. That compares to 53% that are vaccinated in the state as a whole.
* And southern Illinois is getting hit hard by people who won’t get themselves and their families vaccinated…
A Tribune analysis of state data shows that southern Illinois’ rate of hospitalizations is nearly as high as it was at its peak last fall: a rate of nearly 41 per 100,000 residents, compared with a rate of 43 just after Thanksgiving.
Its hospitalization rate is by far the highest in Illinois, and more than triple the rate in the city of Chicago.
About 37% of southern Illinois residents are fully vaccinated, compared with nearly 54% in Chicago. […]
Across the region’s 22 hospitals, many are delaying elective surgeries and keeping patients in beds in their emergency departments while they wait for other beds to become available, said Arien Herrmann, regional hospital coordinating center manager for region five, which encompasses the southernmost part of Illinois.
Memorial Hospital of Carbondale has 22 COVID-19 patients in critical care and all of them are on ventilators. The youngest is 28 years old, SIH said.
Three of the patients have been fully vaccinated and are over age 65. Harre said most of those 22 patients in critical care are in their 20s, 30s or 40s.
“The Delta Variant is really hitting the younger population,” [SIH Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Harre] said. “Once they go on a ventilator, it is really hard to get off the vent.”
With the original COVID-19 virus, most of the patients in ICU at the hospitals were from congregate living situations or over age 65.
Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said the mask mandate that has been in effect for a little over a week is already resulting in positive COVID data for the city.
“We’re doing quite well in Chicago. We’re averaging 473 cases per day,” essentially the same as the daily rate a week ago. Chicago’s daily case rate per 100,000 people stands at 17.5—half the national rate of 39 people per 100,000 per day.
“What I’m pleased about is we’re seeing some real flattening here, I think that is largely a result, actually, of putting the masks back on indoors,” Arwady said. […]
The positivity rate is similarly flat at 4.4%. “We’ve actually not yet gone over 5%, that’s a very good sign, it shows us we’re testing well,” Arwady continued. The average daily hospitalization rate is 22—down 29% from the prior week.
Get your shots and wear your mask.
…Adding… Dr. Tracey Smith at the Illinois Public Health Association…
Hi Rich,
We saw your post this morning about the ongoing situation in southern Illinois. Below is a statement that should be attributed to Dr. Tracey Smith, director of Community Health and Programs at the Illinois Public Health Association:
As you alluded to this morning, there are people throughout Illinois grappling with some very dire situations. Community Health Workers have been on-the-ground for months doing all they can to slow the spread of COVID-19. This includes helping people in isolation and quarantine who might otherwise be disconnected from critical services.
The state’s Pandemic Health Navigator Program, which is managed by the Illinois Public Health Association and funded by IDPH, is still available to anyone who needs help finding basic human needs, such as:
• Getting meals and medications
• Mobility and mental health support
• Safer living conditions
• Work and income resources
Your readers could help their constituents by sending them to helpguidethrive.org. There they will find a directory of Community Based Organizations and Federally Qualified Health Centers throughout Illinois that provide these services and more.
* Related…
* A new study found half of hospitalized Covid patients had lingering symptoms one year later: “The need to understand and respond to long Covid is increasingly pressing,” said an editorial The Lancet published about the study. “Symptoms such as persistent fatigue, breathlessness, brain fog, and depression could debilitate many millions of people globally.” It added: “Long Covid is a modern medical challenge of the first order.”
After the Illinois Senate voted in the wee hours Wednesday to approve an energy policy overhaul that includes a nearly $700 million bailout for Exelon, parent of scandal-plagued Commonwealth Edison, the company gave lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker an ultimatum: finalize a deal in the next 12 days or face the permanent closure of one of the state’s six nuclear power plants. […]
“While we currently have no choice but to continue preparing for their premature retirement, we have established offramps that will allow us to reverse that decision if lawmakers pass legislation with enough time for us to safely refuel the plants,” Exelon spokesman Paul Adam said in a statement Wednesday. “To be clear, Byron will run out of fuel and will permanently shut down on Sept. 13 unless legislation is enacted.”
It’s not like filing up your tank with gas. Refueling a nuclear power plant is a complicated and involved process. They’ll need a bill passed well before the 13th, but I haven’t yet gotten a solid answer on what the actual drop-dead date is. Still checking.
…Adding… The full statement still doesn’t really give us an idea of an absolute deadline date…
*Less than 2 WKS* til @Exelon closes its Byron nuclear plant if lawmakers don't pass an energy bill including already-negotiated ~$700M ratepayer subsidy to keep 3 unprofitable nukes alive. In the spirit of hopefulness, Exelon has taken steps to remain nimble for a last-min deal. pic.twitter.com/HL2w1RMcU6
Just hours after redrawn state legislative maps were passed by lawmakers, attorneys for a group challenging the new boundaries told a federal judge Wednesday that the plan shortchanges Latinos. […]
“Latinos were not rewarded or given their fair share of districts after that population growth,” [Ernest Herrera, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund] told U.S. District Judge Robert Dow. “Latinos were, in fact, penalized.”
Herrera said the number of state Senate districts with a majority Latino voting age population would drop from three to two under the Democratic-drawn maps, and from five to four in the House.
“We believe there are serious constitutional but likely Section 2 claims here,” Herrera said, citing the section of the federal Voting Rights Act which prohibits practices or procedures that discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity.
According to numbers compiled by my consultant Frank Calabrese, the May House remap plan had 11 majority voting age population Latino districts, but the newly passed August remap has just 10. The House map passed back in 2011 had nine majority Latino VAP districts.
The 2020 Census found that the number of Illinois Latinos of all ages grew by more than 15 percent since the 2010 Census.
A new report from the Illinois Policy Institute shows lawmakers and Gov. J.B. Pritzker have adopted tax hikes and fee increases that total $5.24 billion since 2019.
The 24 tax hikes and fee increases include the doubling of the motor fuel tax, raising vehicle registration fees and a cigarette tax hike, among others. […]
Adam Schuster of the Illinois Policy Institute said that instead of raising taxes, the state should look at reallocating funds to programs that increase spending.
“A way to increase spending on these valuable programs is not by raising taxes,” Schuster said. “But by redistributing the money away from unproductive uses like throwing it after pension debt and using the money to fund programs that provide value to Illinois.”
Dollar values represent long-run annual revenue raised unless noted as temporary. Certain revenue sources, such as legal sports betting, will raise less in the first year of implementation and because of COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on live events. * Trade-in car tax repealed in 2021.
Wow, they admit that the virus has an impact on business without mentioning mitigations.
The Illinois Department of Health director allegedly recently said that “masks are as effective as vaccines” amid a push to crack down on mask wearing in schools.
“If we actually want our kids to be in school for in-person learning, masking is a great protection and our best bet,” Dr. Ngozi Ezike said last Thursday, according to Chalkbeat. “The bottom line is that masks are as effective as vaccines are.”
“If we actually want our kids to be in school for in-person learning, masking is a great protection and our best bet,” Ezike said Thursday. “The bottom line is that masks are effective. Vaccines are effective.”
* Instead of, you know, spending a few seconds actually reading the Chalkbeat story, Fox News just took this person’s word for it…
The Illinois Department of Public Health later told Fox News Wednesday that Ezike was inaccurately quoted in the Chalkbeat article, and had actually said during a press conference last Thursday: “If we actually want our kids to be in school for in-person learning, masking is a great protection and our best bet. The bottom line is masks are effective. Vaccines are effective.”
The original quote, however, ignited criticisms on social media this week, with one Twitter user saying, “If the goal is to increase vax uptake — and we know both Illinois & Chicago, uptake is lowest among Black & Latinx residents — Dr Ezike’s statement is at-odds with equity goals.”
What is goofy Rich is to believe that once the leverage to negotiate keeping Prairie State open is gone, that the green environmentalists won’t demand Prairie State be closed sooner.
Then how do you keep the plant open if the potential for future unfavorable laws is the issue? Adjourn the General Assembly forever? Require legislators to obtain approval from past bill sponsors if they want to amend their laws?
A Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy took effect Wednesday, as a midnight deadline for the Supreme Court to stop it came and went without action.
The court could still grant a request from abortion providers to halt the law, one of the nation’s most restrictive. But for now, abortion providers in Texas, including Planned Parenthood and Whole Woman’s Health, said they will no longer terminate pregnancies more than six weeks from a woman’s last period.
Providers said the law — which relies on private citizens to sue people who help women get forbidden abortions — effectively eliminates the guarantee in Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions that women have a right to end their pregnancies before viability, and that states may not impose undue burdens on that decision.
If the Supreme Court declines to stop the law, the most likely challenge would come after it is utilized by a private citizen. Then the person sued could contest the constitutionality of the law, with the backing of abortion providers and abortion-rights groups.
In a phone call with reporters early Wednesday, Marc Hearron, a lawyer for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said that “as of now, most abortion is banned in Texas.” Hearron said the abortion providers his group represents were still hoping to hear from the Supreme Court.
They have said the law would rule out 85% of abortions in Texas and force many clinics to close. Planned Parenthood is among the abortion providers that have stopped scheduling abortions beyond six weeks from conception. […]
At least 12 other states have enacted bans on abortion early in pregnancy, but all have been blocked from going into effect.
What makes the Texas law different is its unusual enforcement scheme. Rather than have officials responsible for enforcing the law, private citizens are authorized to sue abortion providers and anyone involved in facilitating abortions. Among other situations, that would include anyone who drives a woman to a clinic to get an abortion. Under the law, anyone who successfully sues another person would be entitled to at least $10,000.
* I’ve received several reactions to the development and am posting everything in my inbox. Here’s Governor Pritzker’s campaign…
Today Governor JB Pritzker released a statement condemning the passage and implementation of Texas Senate Bill 8. The legislation that goes into effect today effectively eliminates access to abortion after six weeks, and allows virtually any private citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone who they view as aiding in violating the new ban.
“An attack on reproductive freedom in Texas is an attack on reproductive freedom in Illinois and every state across the country. I’m proud that we passed the most comprehensive law in the nation to protect women’s rights to make their own health care decisions no matter what happens at the Supreme Court. But make no mistake—abortion rights are on the ballot in 2022 and Republicans will do everything in their power to strip them away. That’s why it’s so critical to elect Democrats up and down the ballot across Illinois.”
Governor JB Pritzker has fought for women’s reproductive rights his entire life and in 2019 he signed The Reproductive Health Act, the most comprehensive abortion rights bill in the country, into law.
* ACLU of Illinois…
Overnight, the Supreme Court of the United States failed to act on a request to block a new, sweeping and unconstitutional abortion ban in Texas from going into effect. The following statement can be attributed to Ameri Klafeta, Director of the Women’s and Reproductive Rights Project at the ACLU of Illinois:
This is a sad day in our country. As a result of inaction overnight by the Supreme Court, a sweeping, clearly unconstitutional abortion ban is now in effect in the State of Texas. After a half-century of constant attacks fueled by misinformation and lies, the right to access reproductive health care is now denied to millions of people today.
The Texas law cruelly bans abortion care as early as six weeks – before many people even know they are pregnant. The measure also allows individuals – literally anyone even if they have no connection to a patient – to sue doctors, health care workers and even friends who support someone in accessing abortion care after six weeks. Such provisions stand in direct opposition to the principles enshrined in Roe v. Wade, making the Court’s inaction all the more disturbing.
Residents of Illinois can take slight solace in this moment. Legislators in recent years have extended critical protections for all seeking reproductive health care in Illinois – measures signed by Governor Rauner and Governor Pritzker. We must continue to defend and expand those protections. We recommit ourselves to this effort today as we think of the millions of people across the United States who now are at risk of losing their access to abortion due to the Court’s failure to act.
* Personal PAC…
Thirty years ago, Illinois was one of the most anti-choice states in the nation with a “trigger law,” spousal consent for an abortion, and bans on IVF while Texas was one of the most pro-choice states in the country. Remember pro-choice Texas Governor Ann Richards?
As of today, Texas is now the state with the most cruel anti-abortion laws in the nation—a ban on abortion after six weeks, before most women even know they are pregnant, and with no exceptions for rape and incest. The other provision allows for a $10,000 bounty for turning in anyone who assisted with any aspect of an abortion. It’s called the totalitarian state right in front of our eyes in these United States.
Today, Illinois is almost a state that protects women who seek reproductive health care.
Texas and Illinois are one story: Elections Have VERY SERIOUS Consequences.
Right in front of our eyes, candidates who want for Illinois women what Texas women now live under are running for Governor, Attorney General and the Illinois General Assembly, where 22 Texas-like anti-abortion bills are patiently waiting for a vote—and the next election to seize the opportunity.
We simply can’t let these misogynists win in 2022 like they did in Texas.
* Planned Parenthood Illinois Action…
Access to abortion is hanging by an increasingly thinning thread. With the six-week abortion ban taking effect today in Texas, we can expect many other states to follow their lead. The 2021 legislative season is already the most hostile year for reproductive health and rights in history, with many of our neighboring states enacting medically-unnecessary and extreme laws with the sole purpose of banning abortion. We know that abortion bans don’t stop people from having abortions. Bans only make it more difficult to access essential health care.
Illinois passed the Reproductive Health Act in 2019, which ensures abortion will remain legal in our state even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, and positions Illinois as a safe haven for the region. Already, we are seeing patients from other states who have been forced to travel long distances to access abortion care, which has been legal in the United States for nearly 50 years.
People who have abortions are our family, friends, and neighbors. Everyone deserves the freedom to make their own medical decisions, in consultation with their families and their doctors and free from political interference. Access to essential care should never depend on where you live or how much money you make.
We will never stop fighting to help everyone access the health care they need and deserve.
So far, anyway, I’ve received nothing from any anti-abortion groups, politicians or political parties.
…Adding… Robin Kelly, Chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois…
“What we are seeing in Texas is an unconstitutional assault on women everywhere. This radical law to essentially ban abortion will hurt women of color and low-come women in particular. Like so many issues, Illinois Democrats lead the nation in protecting and expanding a woman’s right to her own healthcare decisions and our fight is far from over.”
A House Republican who sought “data, studies, scientific or medical articles, and correspondence” from people advocating in support of school mask mandates got her answer in dramatic fashion on Tuesday.
Governor Pritzker’s office responded to an August 10th Freedom of Information Act Request filed by Rep. Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) by sending a staffer to her legislative office in Springfield to hand-deliver 870 pages of studies and letters from parents that supported the mask mandate.
Government agencies typically respond to FOIA requests in emails and attachments, but in delivering the papers in such a public manner, the Pritzker administration sought to draw attention to the number of parents who have thanked him for enacting and enforcing mask mandates at the start of the new school year.
“I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing this,” an Elmhurst mother emailed to Pritzker’s office on August 4th. “When the Elmhurst 205 School District voted to make masks optional last week, I was devastated and shocked.
McCombie was not in her office when the Governor’s staffer delivered the studies and emails. She responded to Pritzker’s public response to her requests when she came out of a Republican caucus meeting.
“I think it’s absolutely, positively ridiculous that it has become political,” she said. “I think it’s ridiculous that he’s going to showboat and have his staff showboat around empty offices when we’re all in caucus. I mean, have the guts to do it when we’re sitting at our desk.”
An Oak Lawn woman was arrested in Hawaii last week after, court records show, she entered the state with a fake COVID-19 vaccination card that misspelled drug company “Moderna” as “Maderna.”
* We had protests at school back in the day which got zero media coverage, probably because sports ball players weren’t involved…
Dozens of North Mac School District students and parents gathered outside the Macoupin County Courthouse in Carlinville on Tuesday, Aug. 31, to protest the district’s quarantine and remote learning policies.
Tuesday’s court hearing stemmed from whether the district had followed proper COVID-19 exposure and quarantine procedures at North Mac High School, and whether the superintendent’s move to full remote learning at the high school is legal. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four athletes that had been exposed to the virus at school and were forced to quarantine despite testing negative for COVID-19 in Sangamon County. […]
Students also staged a walkout at North Mac High in protest of the testing and quarantine policy on Monday, Aug. 30, where dozens of other students and some staff joined them outside the school.
Later that evening, District Superintendent Dr. Jay Goble announced that North Mac High would go fully remote, citing 30% of the school’s student body in quarantine.
Appellate judge candidate Tom DeVore is the attorney of record. Another Pyrrhic victory.
More than two dozen Illinois schools are reporting COVID-19 outbreaks, weeks after students returned to the classroom for in-person learning at fully reopened schools.
The Illinois Department of Public Health on Tuesday listed 26 Illinois schools with COVID-19 outbreaks, including several in the suburban Chicago areas of Cook, Lake, Kane and Will counties. […]
Outbreaks reported by IDPH include those that have been identified by the school’s local health department to have two or more COVID-19 cases among people who may have a shared exposure on school grounds and are from different households.
The criteria for an outbreak was previously five or more cases but recently changed, said IDPH spokeswoman Melaney Arnold.
* If just three former GOP Reps. like Dwight Kay, Allen Skillicorn, Jerry Long, Grant Wehrli and David Olsen (among others) hadn’t thoroughly botched or tanked their own reelection campaigns in 2018 or 2020, yesterday’s remap vote would not have been remotely possible because the House Democrats wouldn’t currently have a super-majority…
Democrats in the Illinois General Assembly used their supermajority Tuesday to push through revised boundaries for the state’s 177 legislative districts aimed at ensuring their control of the General Assembly through the end of the decade.
The maps, redrawn following the release of hard census data earlier in August, continue to face lawsuits contesting their fairness in representing minority populations and communities with like interests.
While most Illinoisans were sleeping, state senators advanced a sweeping overhaul of the state’s energy sector, kicking the legislation — and further negotiations — to the House.
Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, called the bill the “most complicated” piece of legislation he’s negotiated during his time in the Legislature. He believes Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Gov. J.B. Pritzker agree that lawmakers could get the energy proposal to the governor’s desk “in a matter of days.”
But that will require negotiations to continue and amendments to be filed in the House, which hasn’t yet set a return date to deal with the matter. […]
Exelon has initiated plans to decommission its Byron and Dresden nuclear power plants because of the lack of clean energy legislation. A spokesman for the energy company said they’re still assessing the legislation and did not immediately provide a comment.
Labor Day is Monday and Rosh Hashanah begins Monday evening and ends Wednesday evening, but Tuesday is the key date, I was told by some Jewish legislators last night (I’m not even close to being an expert here, I’m just telling you what was said). So, it appears they can’t really come back next week until Wednesday at the earliest.
Exelon hasn’t formalized the order to refuel the Byron nuclear power plant and hasn’t contracted with the approximately 1,000 workers who will be needed for that task. The company has announced a September 14 closing date, which is two weeks from yesterday.
* I asked Senate President Don Harmon last night what he thought the deadline was for passing a bill to save the nuke plants…
We had assumed it was August 31. And that’s part of the reason we came back to Springfield when we did. The governor’s office has shared with us that they believe it’s more like the 12th or 13th of the month. I hope they’re right, but I don’t want to be testing the boundaries of that deadline.
* The governor gave Harmon a list of legal issues it had with the Senate’s proposal yesterday and none were addressed in the bill. So, I asked Harmon why that didn’t happen…
Without getting too deep into the weeds, there were a host of issues raised. Some of them were fundamental to the underlying agreement among the stakeholders. Some of them seemed fairly remote and things that could be dealt with in the inevitable trailer bill. So we’re not dismissing the concerns, but I don’t know if the governor’s team understood how fundamental some of those provisions were to getting the agreement among all stakeholders. I’m not minimizing, but some of them really were things we could just wait for the inevitable collection of ticky-tack issues that we’d have to deal with.
* I asked Senate President Pro Tempore Bill Cunningham if he thought the goal posts were moved and by whom. Here’s his diplomatic answer…
I would say this, Rich, you wrote this morning that there were three primary, really steadfast goals that the governor laid out. One was a hard 2045 closure date for Prairie State. That’s in the bill. The other was closing of gas plants in 2045 without paper cover with zero emission credits. That box was checked. There was a request that there not be any late complicated add-ons or giveaways in the bill. That didn’t happen. So, those three things were achieved.
And I think because of that, we have a very good bill here. Now, we have some people who believe the bill is not good enough and would like it to be better. And they will have an opportunity to pursue that now in the House. And maybe they can make it better. I for one would like to see a faster decarbonisation schedule for Prairie State, but that’s a long way from where I live, there are no union workers from my district that are working at that plant, there are no municipalities in my district that are part of the consortium. That is not true of every legislator. Many legislators have those concerns. That is the challenge with passing this bill, that is the challenge that we’re going to face in the next couple of weeks to make a good bill better. So I’ll just leave it at that.
* The Senate’s bill earlier this week forced the municipally owned Prairie State coal-fired power plant to follow numerous carbon step-downs over the next several years and didn’t have a hard closure date in the bill. The legislation that popped in the Senate yesterday gave the governor his hard closure date, but allowed the plant to continue polluting full bore until 2045. The governor insisted yesterday on a combination of both step-downs and a 2045 (or even 2047) closure date…
An earlier draft of the energy legislation crafted by Senate Democrats would have established carbon-emission caps on the plant and an eventual closure of Prairie State if it didn’t meet those thresholds. Earlier versions of the bill left open the possibility that the facility could operate indefinitely if it cleaned up its air pollutants, a non-starter for Pritzker.
The Senate bill that passed established a 2045 closure date for Prairie State, but the governor wanted the facility to ratchet down its carbon air pollutants ahead of that date. That language wasn’t contained in the bill that passed.
I think the question is really one of economics, and I had some good conversation with the governor and his team today. They seem to think there’s a pathway. I just objectively as an outsider, the argument why would anybody invest $4 billion in an asset that by law has to close shortly after that investment matures. It just doesn’t make any intuitive sense to me. So we had offered the first model where they would be forced to make the investment and as a result become a zero carbon entity. And then we countered with an alternative that said you just have to close on this date certain in response to the governor’s demand for for that ingredient. We are very open to being proved that some hybrid can work. It’s my intuition is just that’s going to be a real challenge.
* Natural Resources Defense Council…
Illinois now has a path to transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy. It’s glaring that the bill still lacks near-term standards for the biggest polluter in Illinois, the Prairie State coal plant. Science tells us we cannot wait decades to reduce emissions from coal if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change. We look to House leadership to add this simple but crucial missing piece and to pass a bill that our state can be proud of in the next few days.
* The House has not yet formally received the bill from the Senate, but I’m told the bill is dead no matter what, even though organized labor is now fully on board…
Pat Devaney, secretary-treasurer of the Illinois AFL-CIO, called the latest proposal a “very, very reasonable, comprehensive energy package.”
“It’s going to preserve the existing jobs in nuclear generation, it’s going to create many new jobs in the renewable energy industry, and with the changes and the compromises that have taken place, it is going to combat climate change and tackle that issue head on,” Devaney told the Senate committee.
Pritzker’s office said the current version of the Senate bill would still allow the municipally-owned Prairie State Generating Company and City, Water, Light, and Power coal-fired plants to “continue polluting for 24 years with no restrictions.”
However, Harmon said the bill would make Illinois the “epicenter of the green economy,” and that the Senate had “heard loud and clear the requirements [Pritzker] would have to sign the bill,” including “a hard close of carbon emitting plants, and that there are no special deals.” […]
However, the environmental lobby argued that Hastings and other Senate Democrats had been catering to fossil fuel interests earlier in the week when they attempted to prolong the closure of municipally owned coal-fired power plants if they could invest in costly technologies to scrub, offset, or safely bury their carbon gas deep underground. […]
Senator Chapin Rose (R-Mahomet) raised concerns about giving wind and solar companies too much leverage over private land rights under eminent domain, which he called “completely unconstitutional nonsense.”
“Private merchant lines get eminent domain authority over my constituents,” Rose protested. “The United States Constitution is clear on eminent domain: public use and you must pay for it. You must pay fair market value for it. Yet we’re giving private, for-profit companies the right to put up — public utilities, I guess is what we’re calling them now, even though they’re private, for-profit companies — up over my constituents homes.”
Jaclyn Driscoll, a spokesperson for House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat, said: “The Speaker has been very clear that before an energy proposal is called in the House there must be a consensus among the Democratic caucus and stakeholders, as well as include strong, meaningful ethics provisions.”
Driscoll did not respond to a question on whether the bill could be worked out in days. The House left town after the Senate passed the bill, but is expected to return in less than two weeks to approve changes to an ethics bill.
Gina McCarthy, President Joe Biden’s climate adviser, has said some existing nuclear plants are “absolutely essential” to hit U.S. goals to decarbonize the electric grid by 2035.
Incentives are included in the infrastructure bills being considered by the U.S. Congress. But Exelon has said these alone would come too late to save Byron and Dresden. The plants have more than 1,500 workers, many in high-paying union jobs.
There was also opposition from the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, which said the measure will lead to the largest electric rate hike in Illinois history and will hit the manufacturing sector “extremely hard.”
“Manufacturers use one-third of all energy in the United States,” IMA President and CEO Mark Denzler said. “Manufacturers are committed to sustainability and reducing energy usage. In the last decade, manufacturers have reduced emissions by 21% while increasing output by 18%.”
The Illinois Chamber of Commerce also opposes the bill.
The Illinois House failed to muster the votes Tuesday to accept Gov. JB Pritzker’s amendatory veto to an ethics bill that passed nearly unanimously earlier this year.
Pritzker issued the amendatory veto of Senate Bill 539 Friday, saying he supports the legislation but would like to see a minor change in language dealing with the office of executive inspector general.
The Senate approved that technical change unanimously, but the trouble for the governor came in the House as Republicans removed their support for the bill and not enough Democrats remained in the chamber just before 10 p.m. Tuesday to reach the three-fifths vote needed for it to pass. […]
The bill passed the General Assembly on the final day of the spring session, June 1, by overwhelming majorities – 56-0 in the Senate; 113-5 in the House – even though many Republicans complained that they didn’t think the bill went far enough.
Soon after it passed, Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope announced that she would resign, effective Dec. 15, calling the job a “paper tiger” and saying it showed that “true ethics reform is not a priority” for the General Assembly. She specifically alleged the provision limiting her ability to investigate non-governmental ethics violations, and the fact that a complaint would be required for an investigation, tied her hands.
The House Democrats just assumed the Republicans would be for the AV motion and were completely taken by surprise when it failed to garner enough votes to pass.
But this is a renewable motion, so all they have to do is accept it when they come back to town.
…Adding… This is a really good point in comments that my sleep-deprived brain did not consider…
== - King Louis XVI - Wednesday, Sep 1, 21 @ 12:15 pm:
Madigan would not have made such a mistake. He could count. ==
How was it a mistake? Several targeted GOP members voted against prohibiting elected officials from lobbying. I’d say the new Speaker knew exactly what he was doing when they took a roll call vote knowing full well more than a dozen of their members had already left.
* After strong hope for a deal on the climate/energy bill earlier today, the governor and the House Speaker are not going along with the proposal pushed by the Senate Democrats late this afternoon and heard in committee.
At this moment (and things can and do change), it appears that the House will vote on the newly revised remap plan, take up veto messages and then adjourn. It’s still “to be determined” when the chamber will return.
Speaker Welch said yet again this week that he wouldn’t move forward with a bill if all the stakeholders were not in agreement, and they’re not, so that’s that for now.
Stay tuned.
…Adding… The House has passed the remap bill with 73 Democratic votes.
* Leader Durkin…
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) released the following statement on the Illinois Democrats’ passage of partisan maps today:
“Today’s vote confirms that the Illinois Democrats have no interest in honest government. Contrary to their campaign promises, the House Democrats passed a legislative map that lacks any transparency or public input. After lying to taxpayers once, the Governor now has the opportunity to live up to his campaign promises and veto this politician-drawn map.”
*** UPDATE 1 *** Opposition from House Republicans on a motion to accept the governor’s amendatory veto of the ethics bill caused the sponsor to pull the bill from the record. The Democrats don’t have enough members present to accept the AV (71 votes) tonight. They’ll take it up when they return to town.
*** UPDATE 2 *** The Democrats put the motion back up on the board and it failed with just 59 votes. It’s a renewable motion, however.
*** UPDATE 3 *** The Senate has decided to add the climate/energy bill language to a Senate bill and send it over to the House tonight. Doing it that way means the House can amend the bill as well. The ball will soon be in the House’s court, in other words.
*** UPDATE 4 *** Since so many House Democrats cleared out before the ethics motion roll call, it’s pretty safe to assume that there will be no session tomorrow.
…Adding… I’m told SB18 is the new energy bill vehicle.
*** UPDATE 5 *** The Senate approved the climate/energy bill with 39 votes. Its fate in the House is certain: It’s gonna be significantly changed before it’s sent back to the Senate for concurrence. Senate President Harmon said he believes the governor and House Speaker “can get this done in a matter of days.”
*** UPDATE 6 *** Pritzker administration…
The Governor’s Office looks forward to working with members of the House to finalize an energy package that puts consumers and climate first. The Governor’s Office is in discussions with stakeholders to ensure that Prairie State and CWLP’s closure in 2045 includes real interim emissions reductions consistent with previous bill drafts, and is committed to working with the General Assembly to address some drafting errors in the Senate bill that the Governor raised during talks today because they could have unintended legal consequences.
BACKGROUND
Provisions to be reworked
1. The Senate draft requires project labor agreements (i.e. you have to use union labor) on all utility scale projects with public utility REC contracts and there are several places where the bill requires a PLA to even be a regulated entity that gets some benefit from the state (see, e.g. p. 271: you can’t be a high voltage direct current transmission facility unless you have entered into a PLA; p. 368-369: renewable resources are only “deemed generated in Illinois….if the high voltage transmission line was (i) constructed with a project labor agreement…” This is likely preempted by federal law, and is not the only provision with similar issues. If a court finds a provision of the bill unconstitutional, it could delay or prevent every piece of the bill from taking effect: including the critical funding for wind and solar and the right sized subsidy for the Byron and Dresden nuclear plants. The Governor’s office recommended that problematic provisions be removed and the Senate refused.
2. The bill does not update the rollover solar language, despite the fact that refunds began going back to ratepayers last week (on 8/26).
3. Provisions relating to State hiring of displaced energy workers (Page 128, line 10). These interfere with all state hiring practices, including Shakman-related compliance. The Governor’s Office and the Clean Jobs Coalition previously agreed to remove this provision.
4. Remove references and language for several bills that are now law: amendments to the High Impact Business Program, HB 165, which created the Prairie Research Institute carbon capture advisory group, and SB 265, which made critical changes to the Energy Assistance Act. Keeping this language could create conflicts with already enacted law.
Provisions that should be added
1. Alternative Fuels Act rewrite to use existing funds to create a $4,000 rebate for consumers who purchase an electric vehicle.
2. The bill removes the elimination of customer deposit requirements for low-income utility residential customers, a key priority for the Governor’s Office to ensure low income consumers are protected.
* Press release…
Following the Senate’s passage of a landmark piece of legislation that will cement Illinois’ status as a leader in the clean energy sector and save thousands of jobs, State Senator Michael E. Hastings (D-Frankfort) released the following statement:
“After years of difficult negotiations, a broad coalition of stakeholders came to a bipartisan agreement that will define the future of clean energy in Illinois. The Illinois Senate, and the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee, refuse to allow ratepayers to foot the bill for a transition to a cleaner energy future that did not include our valued nuclear fleet. We traveled the state, conducted thorough hearings and made clear in negotiations that good-paying jobs and our environment must be preserved at all costs. This starts with our nuclear fleet, the most precious natural resource the state of Illinois can offer.
“We came together to win a must win battle to not only save jobs and generate clean energy, but to create new ethical standards for utility companies. The result of this agreement is the preservation of 28,000 direct and indirect jobs and $149 million in local economic impact, maintaining our dominance in the energy generation market space, and allowing us to reach our renewable goals. Greed has run rampant in Illinois for far too long, forcing many to pay the price for the actions of a greedy few. Under this legislation, those who cast a dark cloud over our state’s government will be held to the highest ethical standards.”
…Adding… Press release…
Path to 100 Coalition Thanks Illinois Senate, Urges Quick Passage of Omnibus Energy Legislation
We thank the Illinois Senate for passing SB18, the strongest clean energy, pro-climate legislation in the country. The renewable energy provisions in this legislation would reverse the job losses happening now, and they would make the state the national leader in growing equitable clean energy jobs and fighting climate change. SB18’s bipartisan support reflects the widespread support for strong clean energy policy in Illinois.
We urge Governor Pritzker and Speaker Welch to act quickly to resolve any outstanding issues while preserving the critical renewable energy policies that all parties agreed to after years of negotiations.
Until this legislation becomes law the Illinois renewable energy program will remain broken. Our industry is losing jobs daily and our state is falling further behind other midwestern states in developing the clean energy sector. Rooftop solar installations in Illinois have fallen by more than 90% since last year, and more than 6,000 solar projects remain waitlisted and will not be built without the policies in SB18. For the thousands of families supported by renewable energy jobs in Illinois, the urgency remains very real.
Speaker Welch and the Illinois House have an opportunity to deliver an energy bill that will make Illinois a model for a just transition to a clean energy economy. But to seize this opportunity, the House must act soon.
