* Press release…
After reviewing the General Assembly’s revised legislative maps drawn with 2020 U.S. Census data, Governor JB Pritzker signed the new House and Senate district maps that reflect Illinois’ diversity and preserve minority representation in Illinois’ government in accordance with the federal Voting Rights Act.
“These legislative maps align with the landmark Voting Rights Act and will help ensure Illinois’ diversity is reflected in the halls of government,” said Governor JB Pritzker.
A landmark achievement of the civil rights movement, the Voting Rights Act prohibits practices and procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color or membership in a protected language minority group. Building on and strengthening that consequential law, the Illinois Voting Rights Act of 2011 ensures redistricting plans are crafted in a way that preserves clusters of minority voters if they are of size or cohesion to exert collective electoral power. The maps signed into law today meet those requirements to adequately preserve minority representation and reflect the diversity of our state.
The district boundaries also account for population changes in the state, particularly in the regions that saw the most population loss as recorded by 2020 U.S. Census. In addition, the General Assembly held more than 50 public hearings statewide.
Detailed summaries of each individual House and Senate district, including communities of interest, geographic descriptions, and demographic data were adopted by both the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate and are contained in House Resolution 433 and Senate Resolution 3 respectively.
The General Assembly Redistricting Act of 2021 (SB 927) takes effect immediately.
* The Question: Your thoughts on this bill action?
* Related…
* Pritzker’s silence on revised maps ‘deafening,’ state Senator says: “What’s the delay,” said state Sen. Jason Barickman, R-Bloomington. “I don’t think many people even realize that he hasn’t signed these maps. They thought it was a foregone conclusion and yet we haven’t seen anything.”
*** UPDATE *** To the react…
Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) released the following statement on Governor Pritzker’s second signing of partisan maps:
“Governor Pritzker’s signing of the legislative maps sends a clear picture of the severity of his ‘retrograde amnesia’ and efforts to deceive Illinois citizens. The Governor now joins the multitude of Democratic legislators who lied to voters by campaigning for and promising “fair maps”. Once again, Governor Pritzker has proven that he governs only for the Democratic political insiders and not for the people of Illinois.”
* McConchie…
“Rarely do politicians get the chance to break a campaign promise twice,” said Illinois Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods). “I am deeply disappointed that Gov. Pritzker has turned his back on the many minority organizations that have asked him to protect their voting rights outlined in the constitution and Voting Rights Act by vetoing this gerrymandered map. The governor has now twice chosen to actively betray the people he said he was elected to protect. This choice again proves he is more concerned with protecting the political elite than the people of Illinois.”
* Change IL…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker Friday fueled his litany of broken vows to the people of Illinois by signing into law maps that do not reflect the rich diversity of Illinois, but instead steal representation from Latino, Black and other Illinoisans who have repeatedly pleaded for equitable representation.
For the second time this year, Pritzker joined supermajority lawmakers in ignoring and disrespecting the input of constituents.
Many major groups agree the new maps reduce the numbers of majority Black voting age population districts and majority Latino voting age population districts. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s lawyers have said they believe the state representative and senate maps dilute Latino voting power. The Latino Policy Forum asked Pritzker to veto the maps for the same reason. Illinois African Americans for Equitable Redistricting also said the maps do not create enough Black majority voting age districts. Valerie Leonard, who leads the group, said, “In fact, every redistricting plan the legislature has come up with after 2011 has done progressively more harm to Black voters.” The Decalogue Society of Lawyers noted Jewish communities on Chicago’s north side and suburbs were split up.
Despite all of this, and despite repeated claims that he wanted maps that accurately reflect the state’s rich diversity, Pritzker chose party fealty over the people of Illinois. He again broke his pledge to honor our diversity. This, after previously violating his repeated promises to push for and support independent redistricting and to veto partisan maps.
The actions of supermajority lawmakers are utterly undemocratic. CHANGE Illinois and its partners remain deeply concerned about the maps’ negative effects on the voting power of communities of color guaranteed by the federal Voting Rights Act. We are compelled to redouble our battle for transparent, independent redistricting that honors the will of the people of Illinois.
* Paul Schimpf…
By signing the Democrats’ new gerrymandered legislative map this afternoon, JB Pritzker once again demonstrates that all his promises have expiration dates. In 2018, then-candidate Pritzker supported legislative maps drawn by an independent commission. By his actions today, JB Pritzker shows once again that he is undeserving of the voters’ trust to lead our state.
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*** UPDATE *** I’d heard about this, but I totally missed Ray Long’s story…
A former top financial officer with the Illinois State Police Merit Board has been indicted by a grand jury in Springfield for allegedly padding her salary significantly by filing for overtime she didn’t work.
Jenny Thornley, 41, a political activist whose campaign work has included Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s 2018 run for governor, is accused in an indictment issued Wednesday of stealing between $10,000 and $100,000 by allegedly forging documents purportedly signed by Jack Garcia, the merit board’s executive director.
As Garcia started investigating the overtime claims in early 2020, Thornley reached out to multiple ranking officials in the Pritzker administration and first lady M.K. Pritzker, according to separate filings in federal civil court.
Thornley was terminated from her post as the board’s chief fiscal officer and director of personnel in July 2020. In a federal lawsuit filed last April that names both the board and Garcia as defendants, Thornley claims she was fired by the merit board in retaliation after she filed complaints alleging sexual harassment and abuse by Garcia. He denied those charges. […]
An outside review for the merit board led by former federal prosecutor Christina Egan found evidence sufficient to support a finding that Thornley forged documents to make “payments for herself for overtime she did not work.”
The outside review also didn’t find sufficient evidence to support allegations that Garcia sexually assaulted Thornley.
[ *** End Of Update *** ]
* We talked about the 90,000 documents back in July. The interesting part to me is the line about how “The parties have not engaged in plea negotiations to date”…
* Tribune…
The former head of a state agency that was reviewing whether then-President Donald Trump was due a $1 million property tax refund for his Chicago skyscraper violated the law by deleting computer files from his official account while facing an inspector general investigation, according to a report released Thursday.
Mauro Glorioso, then executive director of Illinois’ Property Tax Appeal Board, was informed in late September 2020 that Gov. J.B. Pritzker planned to replace him as head of the agency, records show. At the time, Glorioso was under investigation by the Office of Executive Inspector General regarding a case before the board. […]
The inspector general’s office determined the initial complaint was “unfounded” and redacted details from that inquiry in its report. But the office found that Glorioso violated agency policy and state law by deleting emails and other documents related to the matter while preparing to leave the $116,748-per-year job. Board employees had been instructed to retain copies of all files related to the matter, according to the inspector general’s report.
The inspector general’s office recommended barring Glorioso from future state employment.
* Sun-Times…
For decades, under five governors, Chicago attorney and banker James J. Banks served on the board of the Illinois Tollway system, helping oversee the state agency until he and other members were dumped amid a reform push as Gov. J.B. Pritzker took office in 2019.
But now the Illinois Gaming Board has rejected Banks’ application for a video gambling license, citing requirements including having “good character, honesty and integrity” and saying he “did not meet the requirements” for the lucrative state license.
“The board conducted an investigation which included a review of your business and social associations,” gaming board administrator Marcus D. Fruchter wrote earlier this year in a letter obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times. “Based on the results of that investigation, the board finds that your business and social associations would adversely affect public confidence and trust in video gaming and would discredit or tend to discredit the Illinois gaming industry.” […]
Asked about Banks’ gaming license application being denied, DeLeo says: “I don’t know anybody that’s squarer than Jimmy Banks. If I was him, I’d sue the gaming board. How could they say that about him? He’s never even had a parking ticket.”
* SJ-R…
Community organizer and one-time state representative candidate John H. Keating II on Wednesday was arrested and charged with arson and criminal damage to property in connection with a fire at an Illinois State Fair stand on Aug. 21.
Keating, 33, was arrested by Illinois State Police without incident. Keating bonded out after about a three-hour stay at the Sangamon County Jail.
A co-defendant, Zakary Bunt, 19, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, was also in custody in Missouri. Bunt, a carnival worker at the fair, also has been charged with one count of arson and one count of criminal damage to property. […]
In a Facebook post, Keating maintained his innocence and said it was “a targeted prosecution” and “a modern day Red scare witch hunt.”
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* Senate President Don Harmon on last night’s “At The Virtual Table” with Lynn Sweet and Laura Washington…
Q: You’re going to have a veto session coming up at the end of October. Given everything that’s been happening around abortion rights, given what Texas has done to restrict them, you have a chance in the veto session to repeal the parental notification [law] in Illinois, where if a girl needs an abortion, she has to [notify] her parents … What’s your view on that and should it and will it come up in the veto session?
A: I think many of us are horrified by what happened in Texas, and even more horrified by what didn’t happen in Washington DC, with the Supreme Court declining to intervene. I think that’s given many people pause and wondering if the next action the Supreme Court takes would be overturning Roe against Wade. In Illinois, over the last 15 years we have taken affirmative steps to make sure that no matter what happens in the Supreme Court a woman’s right to a comprehensive suite of reproductive health care services is available here in Illinois. I expect that we will turn to dealing with the last vestiges of that anti-choice of laws in Illinois as well as figuring out how best to respond to Texas. I was visiting with constituents this week who were telling me that local doctors are in fact getting patients coming from Texas now because of what happened there.
Q: So you do expect to take up specifically that parental notification and you have the votes don’t you to void it if need be?
A: We have a strongly pro choice chamber. I think we’re looking at that, as well as what we might do in direct response to the law in Texas.
Discuss.
…Adding… Rep. Kelly Cassidy was on the same program…
I left home when I was almost 17 and I’m incredibly thankful that I didn’t face this challenge, that I didn’t get pregnant. Because having to go back to the father that I ran from in the middle of the night, even to tell him, because frankly there’s very little difference between permission and notice. If I told my father, I would need proof that I told my father, which is him signing something that I told him. And if he doesn’t want to sign it, he’s not going to sign it. And so, we talk about notice as if it’s no big thing, but the truth is you can’t legislate good parental relationships, you can’t legislate how a family operates.
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* Politico…
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has written to the CEOs of several Texas-based companies urging them to bring their businesses north in response to the Texas law that essentially bars abortions as early as six weeks.
“I invite you to consider a new home base — one that embraces the 21st century,” he wrote in a series of previously unreported letters to Oracle, Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard, Match.com and others.
Pritzker, who worked in the corporate world much of his life, refers to Texas lawmakers as “radical legislators” who “functionally eradicate[d] the autonomy of half the state” by enacting a law he says cuts off access to basic health care and family planning.
And if abortion rights aren’t enough to sway the CEOs, the liberal Democratic governor pressed voting rights, too. “Illinois welcomes you — we’ll even greet you with same-day registration,” he wrote.
Pritzker’s letters are being sent out as Illinois — which enshrined abortion protections into state law in 2019 — is feeling the ripple effect of the Texas law.
Planned Parenthood says it’s ramping up staffing in Illinois as it’s been seeing more patients from Texas in the weeks since the law there went into effect.
Texas’ neighbors, Oklahoma and New Mexico, haven’t been able to handle the influx, so patients are heading to Illinois instead. And Planned Parenthood of Illinois foresees that continuing to increase, said its president and CEO Jennifer Welch.
“We’re expecting there will be copycat laws that will bring more patients from other states,” Welch said. “We don’t know who will do it next. Will it be Missouri? Indiana? Or South Dakota? We don’t know what other state will be next, but we’ve seen a number of states preparing to do the same type of abortion ban.”
A sample letter is here.
* Mark Maxwell…
Sen. Darren Bailey (R) said he’d reverse the plan former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed into law.
“One of the first things that I also want to work to eliminate is taxpayer funded abortion in the State of Illinois,” Bailey said. […]
House Democrat Kelly Cassidy said the new Texas ban on all abortions after six weeks enlists civil suits, not state power, to restrict abortion, a tactic she says is designed to reverse the high court’s super-precedent.
“We built a firewall around Illinois for this eventuality. This is exactly the kind of case. It’s going to make Roe fall,” she acknowledged.
Republicans are responding to Pritzker’s letter, with Bailey calling it a “stunt,” writing in a statement, “taxpayer-funded abortion is radical and wrong, but Pritzker champions it.”
Sullivan’s campaign said, “If JB Pritzker is serious about attracting businesses to Illinois, he should stop writing letters and start lowering taxes, and make Illinois a business-friendly state.”
Thoughts?
…Adding… Gary Rabine…
“Businesses are leaving Illinois because of the hostile business environment Governor Pritzker has fostered,” Rabine said. “If Pritzker ever had to build a business, he would realize that you need to first take care of your existing customers before marketing and selling to new customers.
Illinois having the highest job loss per capita of any other state makes it obvious to me or any business leader that we must make our business policies and tax environment competitive and rewarding to our loyal Illinois businesses first. Once accomplished under a Rabine administration, I would build an All-Star team of business development leaders to go after every state and allied country selling the story of the new business thriving Illinois.
I know to most this is just common sense, unfortunately we are lacking common sense in the Pritzker administration.”
According to a WalletHub report released in March, Illinois has the highest combination of state and local taxes in the nation on top of one of the most abusive business regulatory environments in the country.
* Related…
* Texas abortion doctor lawsuits filed by allies may go nowhere. The challengers—including one from Illinois—are pro-choice, likely dooming the cases.
* Can Cook County cut ties with companies that donated to Texas abortion ban backers? A county commissioner aims to find out.
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