Expect a hiring boom from the state’s marijuana producers by the end of the year—and a likely boost in union membership.
The law that legalizes recreational marijuana use, which the General Assembly approved Friday, has two distinct features: a quick timeline and clear language that encourages union jobs. Existing players in the state’s medical-cannabis market plan to move into the bigger recreational business, resulting in a hiring surge that will dwarf the industry’s initial wave. […]
Cresco Labs will double its Illinois headcount from about 300 today, Bachtell said.
“To supply the adult use-market will require significant investment,” said Dina Rollman, GTI’s senior vice president for government and regulatory affairs, though she declined to quantify it. “There will be massive increases in headcount at production facilities and dispensaries. We’ll increase hiring at the facility level and corporate offices.” […]
Cresco and MedMen say they expect their employees eventually will be unionized. (MedMen, which is based in Los Angeles, already has workers in California and New York represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers union.)
The Illinois cannabis legislation contains multiple references to labor-peace agreements, which will be part of the selection criteria for applicants for new licenses for distribution centers. The intent of the legislation was clear: “to have good, well-paying union jobs in this industry,” Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat from Westchester, testified just before the vote May 31 in the Illinois House.
* Parental notification was not repealed this spring and the RHA’s sponsors would definitely push back hard on the “brutal ways to the moment of birth” claim. But the congressman is actually saying that people are fleeing his state because teenagers can’t buy cigarettes? Seriously?…
Illinois Govt wrapped up session after they raised taxes w/ no property tax relief, increased spending, legalized abortion in brutal ways to the moment of birth & got rid of parental notifications, then raised the tobacco age to 21. It’s no wonder people are fleeing our state.
Yes, yes, yes. Your favorite horse track will likely have a sportsbook and basically a casino. They just don’t fall under the “sports venues” category.
The bill allows: -Casinos in Chicago, Waukegan, south suburbs, Rockford, Danville and Williamson County (So-IL) -Allows slots at O'Hare and Midway airports -Slots @ horse tracks -New horse track in Palatine -Video gaming facilities can add machines, gamblers can bet more on 'em https://t.co/EaRZFC1yTS
Gaming bill language has been filed. Chicago, Waukegan, Rockford, Danville would all get a license each to operate a casino. One license for one township in Cook County (Bloom, Bremen, Calumet, Rich, Thornton, or Worth Township), and one license for Williamson County.
The southern Illinois casino is going to Walker’s Bluff.
…Adding…The bill also authorizes up to 50 video gaming terminals during the Illinois State Fair in Springfield and up to 30 during the DuQuoin State Fair. Beer tents can have up to 10 terminals each.
The massive gambling bill that included a major casino in Chicago and smaller ones in the south suburbs and Waukegan also would open up slots for Chicago’s airports and the state’s horse racetracks, and legalize sports betting. It awaits Senate approval.
The Chicago casino would be privately owned, and the city would get one-third of all tax revenue from it. The casino would have up to 4,000 gambling positions — slot machines or seats at a gaming table — while other new and current casinos could increase their gambling positions from 1,200 to 2,000. It also would allow horse tracks to have 1,200 gambling positions.
For sports betting, licenses would go to all existing and newly authorized casinos as well as horse racetracks and sports venues with license fees ranging from $3.2 million to $10 million.
For the first year and a half, bettors would have to create an account at a licensed gambling facility and then could make deposits online afterward. After 18 months, three online licenses would be created at $20 million per license. Fantasy sports wagering firms could partner as an online vendor at casinos, racetracks or sports venues.
A lottery sports wagering program also would be created.
Sports leagues would not get any of the cut, and wagering on Illinois college teams would be prohibited by the legislation.
The bill, which the governor is expected to sign into law, grants retail casinos an 18-month head start on the mobile market. The casinos will be able to begin accepting bets almost immediately whereas all other entrants—such as DraftKings and FanDuel—will have to wait until late 2020 or early 2021 to begin operations. Eilers & Krejcik Gaming estimated that DraftKings and FanDuel accounted for 79 percent of New Jersey’s mobile betting market in April. Illinois will limit online-only sports books to three licenses, each to be sold for $20 million. Mobile betting is widely projected to capture at least three-quarters of the betting market.
DraftKings CEO Jason Robins criticized the bill on Twitter, writing, “While it is good to see sports betting bills passed, excluding DraftKings and FanDuel is like passing a ride sharing bill that excludes Uber and Lyft. Very disappointing that Illinois customers will not have the best options available to them for 18 months.”
While the leagues will not receive any kind of royalty or integrity fee, they will receive direct revenue from a provision requiring official league data for all in-play and prop bets. Illinois is now the second state to mandate this, following Tennessee’s new law in May.
Large sports venues such as the Bears’ Solider Field and the Cubs’ Wrigley Field would be able to apply for licenses to install betting kiosks on site. The only other current U.S. legislation to enable installations at stadiums, arenas, and ballparks is the one passed by the District of Columbia, though its regulations have not yet been finalized. Capitals, Wizards, and Mystics owner Ted Leonsis has championed legalized sports betting and plans to install a sportsbook at his Capital One Arena. Currently, the only sports venues where a fan can legally bet are the ones with mobile sports betting, such as in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
SB 690 enables the Illinois Gaming Board to issue six different types of licences to operators seeking to offer sports betting in the state: a master sports wagering licence, occupational licence, supplier licence, management services provider licence, tier two official league data provider licence, and central system provider licence.
Each license will be applicable to a certain service or offering in the state, with the fee for a master licence to be set at 5% of the holder’s total handle from the following calendar year, up to a maximum of $10m
Additionally, the legislation permits a new harness track to be built in one of seven townships located within Cook County, which includes Chicago and both Chicago-area tracks. The new venue couldn’t be situated within 35 miles of either existing racing facility without the track granting permission. Harness tracks Maywood and Balmoral both ceased operations in recent years. Only a truncated harness meeting remains at Hawthorne. […]
The new legislation will fortify horse racing in the state because it specifies minimum racing dates for tracks that take on a casino license. If one casino license is issued to a Chicago track, that track must run 110 days the year it’s awarded, 115 the next, and 120 per year afterwards. If two casino licenses are issued to Chicago tracks those numbers rise to 139, 160, and 174. Fairmount would be required to run at least 700 races per year if it receives a gaming license. The legislation also boosts purses for Illinois-bred horses and monetary awards paid to the state’s breeders.
Within the capital measure to fund vertical projects, which include buildings, such as schools and recreational facilities, $150 million would come from an increase in video gaming terminal taxes; $10 million from sports wagering revenue; $500 million from upfront license fees from casino and sports betting; $30 million from a tax on parking garages and lots; $68 million from an increase on the real estate transfer tax on commercial properties; $45 million from removing the sales tax exemption on traded-in property valued above $10,000; and $156 million from an increase on the cigarette tax by $1 per pack.
State Senator Terry Link, a Democrat from Vernon Hills, has pushed for years to expand casino gambling. He finally got his wish Sunday, on his wedding anniversary.
“For the sake of my marriage, for the sake of the state of Illinois, vote this out with your green lights,” Link said.
The bill passed the Senate 46-10-2. Senate Republican Leader Bill Brady voted “Present”…
State Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington has financial ties to the company that operates half the video gambling terminals in Bloomington-Normal.
State records show Ellsworth-based Midwest Electronics Gaming has brought in $18 million from video gambling terminals in Bloomington-Normal over the last two years. That’s the firm ProPublica reported has financial ties to Brady, the Senate minority leader.
State and municipal records show Midwest Gaming licenses 174 terminals at 39 establishments in the Twin Cities. That’s about half.
When the gambling expansion bill was approved by the Illinois Senate last week, state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, was a “present” vote. […]
“In this case, I have an equity interest in a hotel in Danville, Illinois. And, when Danville was thrown into the bill, my ethics officer advised me that I should declare a conflict by voting present,” Brady said.
* Gov. Pritzker posted several signs around his ceremonial office for his post-session press conference. I call dibs on this one…
We legalized adult-use cannabis, creating the most equity-centric system in this nation which will right historic wrongs and reinvest in the communities that have suffered the most because of the War on Drugs. pic.twitter.com/4grMqIzG5E
— Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) June 2, 2019
* But, Illinoisians? No thanks…
We gave 1.4 million people a raise by putting all our minimum wage workers on a path to a $15 an hour living wage. pic.twitter.com/V9vT1QtGLb
— Governor JB Pritzker (@GovPritzker) June 2, 2019
Lawmakers took action to help save the teaching profession and repealed the 3 percent salary threshold on teacher salaries and reinstated the 6 percent salary threshold. The change was attached to the budget implementation bill.
Illinois Education Association (IEA) President Kathi Griffin, along with members, delivered 55,000 petitions calling for the repeal to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office just last week. IEA members also have sent thousands of emails and made hundreds of phone calls to lawmakers urging them to repeal the 3.
“This shows that our members’ voices were heard loud and clear in Springfield. Educators from around the state stepped up to save our profession and protect our students,” IEA President Kathi Griffin said. “It’s amazing to see how powerful we can be when we are united. We have a strong collective voice and we will continue to use it to advocate for our students and public education.”
Last year, deep within the budget implementation bill, lawmakers passed a provision that limited bumps in salary to 3 percent for members of the Teachers’ Retirement System or State Universities Retirement System for those in the last 10 years of their career, unless the employer wanted to pick up the excess pension cost. The 3 percent was simply a cost shift putting the financial burden on local taxpayers and college students instead of the state. The threshold had been 6 percent prior to that.
This law unfairly penalized veteran educators and could have significantly reduced lifetime earnings for all teachers. Because educators can qualify for a pension after five years and can leave their school district at any time, school board attorneys had been arguing for a 3 percent limit on all salary increases across the entire length of an educator’s teaching contract, creating havoc in districts in the midst of negotiations.
“We want to thank our lawmakers for standing with our educators and doing the right thing for our students and public education,” Griffin said. “Restoring the 6 percent threshold means we are allowing districts to attract the best and brightest to their schools. Our students benefit when we value and fairly compensate our teachers.”
The 6 percent salary threshold is expected to take effect effect as soon as Gov. Pritzker signs the budget package. You can find more information about the push to repeal the 3 here.
The language deleting the 3 percent limit is on pages 351 and 352 of the Budget Implementation Act, which passed the House 97-17-1 and passed the Senate 52-6.
“Those 6 percent-plus salary increases cost local taxpayers more than $38 million over the past decade in payments to the Teachers’ Retirement System alone,” reported the conservative lobbying group Illinois Policy recently.
“That policy … means a career worker with an average salary of $73,000 will earn approximately $250,000 more during the course of her retirement” over what it would have been without the boost.
Finally, the legislators, watching a growing share of state spending going toward pension funding, declared in 2005 that end-of-career salary spikes could not exceed 6 percent. Any school district that boosted pay for retiring teachers above that amount would have to pay extra into the TRS.
Teachers unions, once again showing their negotiating brilliance, soon persuaded many school districts that they must give 6 percent annual increases to retiring teachers. What was supposed to be a ceiling became a floor. […]
Just a year ago, the Legislature, again trying to slow increasing pension costs, lowered the 6 percent level to 3 percent.
The limit doesn’t mean that local school districts can’t give increases to impending retirees larger than 3 percent. It just means school districts that do will have to pay the extra costs to cover the higher pensions.
The Senate Sunday passed the infrastructure bill to double the state’s gas tax and increase vehicle registration fees the day after the House rushed the bill through in overtime. […]
State Rep. Blaine Wilhour, R-Beecher City, who voted against it, said the GOP votes provided cover to the Democrats in districts Republicans should be winning.
“And I just don’t really see anything substantial on the table there to put 20 votes on the table for a gas tax increase,” Wilhour said.
Nothing substantial, eh?
Rep. Wilhour’s Beecher City is in Effingham County, which is in IDOT District 7. District 7 received about $600 million in road and bridge projects in the capital bill. If you click here you can see the district’s projects. The district received about the same as District 2 (Rock Island, DeKalb, Kankakee).
District 8 (Metro East to Marion) received a couple of hundred million more than Wilhour’s District 7 (and Wilhour’s House district reaches into that IDOT district), and District 4 (Peoria) did slightly better than 7.
So, Wilhour’s sparsely populated IDOT district was basically tied for fourth out of 9, with District 1 receiving the most at $3.1 billion. But that’s Chicago and the suburbs, which has 65 percent of the state’s population.
All in all, I think he did pretty well. His region gets a bunch of state money and he didn’t vote to pay for it.
* Rob Karr at the Illinois Retail Merchants Association pushed two revenue producing plans last month which made it into Senate Bills 689 and 690. Here is his explanation of what they do…
1. Marketplaces. Beginning January 1, 2020, marketplace facilitators (think Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Facebook, etc.) have to collect and remit the Illinois Use Tax (6.25%) from all the sellers who sell through the marketplace. Keep in mind that 5% of the 6.25% goes to the state, .25% goes to counties and 1% goes into a fund and is divided among all municipalities by population. Winners here would be the state and, to a small extent, units of local government. They win because compliance will go WAY up. For example, IDOR currently only has 2,900 remote retailers registered and collecting. One marketplace has over 1 million sellers and only 38,000 are in Illinois. Pennsylvania did just this marketplace piece and will collect over $250 million in a full fiscal year.
2. Remote sellers. Beginning July 1, 2020, any remote seller (think Wayfair, Zappos, etc.) must collect and remit the Illinois Retailer’s Occupation Tax (ROT) in effect wherever the product is being shipped. As an example, if someone in Chicago purchases something from a remote retailer, that remote retailer must collect the city of Chicago’s ROT which is currently 10.25%. The winner in this example would be not only the state but the City of Chicago and the RTA. The RTA gets 1.25% of the City’s 10.25%. But not only does Chicago win, all muni’s with a locally-imposed ROT win because compliance shoots way up. Additionally, every muni wins because more remote retailers are collecting meaning the 1% divided by population increases.
Per the SCOTUS South Dakota v. Wayfair decision, the Court is going to judge any collection requirement through the lens of simplicity. Our proposal as contained in SB 690 gives remote sellers a choice: they can collect and remit on their own or they can utilize a Certified Service Provider (CSP) to do the work for them. CSPs (think Intuit, Turbo Tax, Tax Cloud) do the administrative, collection and remittance work on behalf of the remote retailer. The CSP’s services are free to the remote retailer but the CSP, because they are doing the work, keep the Retail Discount. CSPs are doing this work in the 24+ marketplace states and doing some sort of work in every state so none of this is new. So, not only does our proposal make it simple (the CSP will do the work) we make it free to the remote retailer.
Remember that IDOR only has 2900 registered remote retailers. CSPs report they have over 6,000 retailers selling into South Dakota using their services who are not required to collect and remit but do so because it’s just easier.
Thanks to the SCOTUS’s Wayfair decision, everyone wins here, Rich. Retailers win because the competitive advantage remote retailers is erased. Local governments win two ways – their 1% share divided by population grows and, if they have a locally-imposed ROT, they get all of it. Over 50 counties have passed a sales tax for school construction. They win because they can pay their bonds off faster, expand their projects, or both. Counties that have imposed a sales tax for public safety benefit for the same reason. In Chicago, the RTA benefits as noted above.
Nothing changes for an Illinois retailer or someone with a warehouse/distribution center in Illinois. Nothing.
IRMA estimates the two changes will produce $460 million in annual revenues by the second year of full implementation ($230 million the first year).
The governor and his top staff showed again last week that they can make things happen under the Statehouse dome.
To corral 73 votes for a graduated income tax constitutional amendment in a 74-member House Democratic caucus accustomed to extreme coddling and over-protecting its more politically vulnerable members was quite something. Nobody was left off the hook.
The one they missed remains a mystery to pretty much everybody. Rep. Andre Thapedi (D-Chicago) left the chamber during the “fair tax” debate and never returned, vanishing into thin air. He didn’t tell the governor’s office that he’d be skipping the vote and some of his colleagues didn’t even realize he’d left while others could only hazard a guess as to why.
Gov. Pritzker’s effort to make Illinois a progressive Midwestern oasis took a huge leap forward with the passage of that constitutional amendment. Generations of Illinois politicians have tried and failed to get the issue onto the ballot. One of Bruce Rauner’s top priorities when he decided to run for governor was stopping a graduated income tax. And, now, not even five months after the near-billionaire Rauner’s involuntary departure, the voters will soon be given a choice, courtesy of the billionaire Gov. Pritzker.
Both Rauner and Pritzker had and have sweeping, even radical visions of how they wanted to change their state. Where Rauner mostly failed, Pritzker has mostly succeeded. That doesn’t mean Pritzker has chosen the right path, mind you. The Republicans warn (and some Democrats privately fret) that his economic agenda of a $15 an hour minimum wage, a progressive income tax, higher taxes for infrastructure construction and a blizzard of pro-union laws will make the state uncompetitive with its neighbors. But it’s too late to turn back now.
Pritzker vowed to make Illinois law the most pro-choice in the country, and as I write this, he is succeeding. The Reproductive Health Act is ostensibly designed to wipe out the state’s abortion laws that were knocked down by courts in years past to make sure they couldn’t somehow be reactivated if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
You can probably gauge how pro-choice the Pritzker-backed RHA is by looking at the intensity of the opposition. It’s reviled by pro-life activists to the point where a conservative southern Illinois minister giving the morning invocation in the House chambers last week actually called on God to “judge Illinois for the sanctioned destruction of the innocent unborn” two days after the House passed the bill.
The measure even caught the eye of President Donald Trump, who posted a link on his Facebook page to an article about the bill and wrote “The Democrat Party is unhinged! Their radical position on abortion is horrible!”
Yeah, I’m thinking that’s a pretty solidly pro-choice bill.
And then there’s the cannabis legalization bill, which unlike all the others listed above had some bipartisan support in both chambers last week.
Not only is possession of up to 30 grams of weed legalized, but the law will grant clemency to people who were busted for possessing up to that same amount in the past. It contains programs for communities that have been hit hard by the ridiculously punitive “war on drugs.” There’s also a grant and loan program for people in those communities who want to become involved in the cannabis business. And a community college program is created to help folks, including minorities, train for jobs in the industry.
No other state that has legalized cannabis has done anything like this.
None of the above could’ve happened without this particular governor’s support.
Democratic legislators know that Pritzker will have their backs should any of this spring session’s votes haunt them in the next campaign cycle. He has enough money under his couch cushions to fund their campaigns.
Pritzker also truly believes in this stuff. Where others settled for tiny increases in the minimum wage, Pritzker is nearly doubling it. When his most recent Democratic predecessors either rejected income tax hikes or insisted they be “temporary,” Pritzker went all out and proposed permanently raising taxes on the top 3 percent of earners. Gov. Pat Quinn reluctantly signed a way too restrictive medical marijuana bill into law. Pritzker enthusiastically pushed for legalization.
This much change this quickly can frighten people. So, we’ll see what the future holds. But for now, the governor and his supporters can bask in a bit of glory.
* Pritzker, Democrats take victory lap while Republicans find reasons to celebrate: As on the House floor Sunday night, Republicans lent their votes to a bill that doubles Illinois’ gas tax for the first time in nearly three decades, from the current 19 cents per gallon to 38 cents, and indexes the gas tax in the future to inflation. The tax revenues will also go toward the state’s Road Fund, where it can’t be touched thanks to a Lockbox Amendment voters approved in November 2016. “I certainly understand why some people might be concerned about voting yes for this,” Brady said during debate on the horizontal capital funding bill late Sunday afternoon. “But I will be voting yes. Our citizens deserve a safe, viable transportation system.”
* SJ-R Editorial: Legislative session one to remember: But a few days of overtime should not overshadow the fact that this legislative session was successful — if you define successful as setting a new trajectory for the state. We’re not saying we agree with everything lawmakers have done during the past five months. But after years of partisan bickering and failures when it came to shoring up the state’s finances, actions taken during 2019 are poised to turn Illinois in a more positive direction. Vital to that effort will be a statewide construction plan. There is no doubt our buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure need attention now. Ironing out all the details — including how to raise the billions needed to pay for it — are among the issues lawmakers must address this weekend, and they seem ready to do so.
* Bernie: A new attitude — and one-party dominance — eased the tension: “He’s open to talking to people who disagree with him,” Manar said of Pritzker. “He’s not into punitive response for the slightest disagreements that he has with people of his own party or the other party. That’s as opposite of Bruce Rauner as you could imagine.”
* In overtime, lllinois House OKs new taxes for public works program and a gambling expansion that includes a Chicago casino: The legislative session went into overtime despite the return of one-party Democratic rule in Springfield, with lawmakers addressing new Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s aggressive agenda after four years of dysfunctional government under his predecessor, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. While Pritzker wasn’t able to accomplish his ambitious agenda by the scheduled deadline, Democrats praised the governor for ultimately being able to check off many items, and Republicans gave him credit for brokering bipartisan agreements on the budget and infrastructure plan. “The governor has asked a lot, and he’s also accomplished a tremendous amount,” House Democratic leader Greg Harris of Chicago said, citing legislation legalizing recreational marijuana, raising the minimum wage and protecting abortions rights. “Any one of the things Gov. Pritzker and the General Assembly have done this year in other years would have been considered monumental.”
* Finke: Democrats control it all, but can’t finish on schedule: Well, Gov. JB Pritzker can claim victory on any number of issues for his first session. We won’t enumerate them because as this is being written, the session still isn’t over. Instead of adjourning on schedule on Friday, the General Assembly expected to work through the weekend to get its work done. It’s not like going into overtime alone is going to be a permanent blot on Pritzker’s record. But he did predict the session would end on time when skeptical reporters started asking if all of those remaining big issues could be addressed quickly.
