Former state senator and one-time gubernatorial hopeful Sam McCann is seeking a delay of at least four months in his trial on federal charges of money laundering, tax evasion and misuse of campaign funds.
In a motion filed July 6 in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Assistant Federal Public Defender Rosana E. Brown said the complexity of the charges and the volume of information turned over in the discovery process requires her to “seek a contract for discovery review software capable of organizing the voluminous discovery.” The motion said the software is necessary “to review essential discovery with the defendant once it is organized and made searchable into a manageable software program, to conduct investigation, and consult with the defendant therefrom, and to either negotiate with the government or prepare for jury trial.”
The motion said more than 64,000 pages of material has been presented in the case.
Brown was appointed to represent McCann after his Feb. 23 indictment. McCann, who is free on bond, told the court at the time that he is unemployed, $53,000 in debt, and has about $500 in his checking account.
He’s already had one delay, but the prosecution is not thrilled with this new request. Click here to read about it.
* I explained this in detail to subscribers earlier today, but here’s Politico…
Another FEC advisory opinion is issued on Kelly as Dem Party Chair: The opinion is out before the Federal Election Commission meets Thursday. At issue is to what extent Rep. Robin Kelly can continue to lead the Illinois Democratic Party given FEC rules don’t allow a federal officeholder to raise local funds.
The latest advisory calls for a “special committee” to be formed “without review or approval by Congresswoman Kelly and Congresswoman Kelly has no role in the appointment of any member of the special committee.”
The proposed advisory opinion is here. Kelly had initially suggested that she be allowed to appoint a minority of the special committee’s members, which will have sole authority over raising and spending all money that isn’t federally regulated. But the FEC is moving away from that idea.
So, the state party chair can’t be directly involved in any state and local campaigns. Brilliant.
* Back in May, some remap reformers criticized Democrats for not asking the Illinois Supreme Court to somehow set aside the constitutional timeline to craft a new map. Well, some Michiganders tried that avenue and lost…
The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday denied a petition to grant relief to the state’s redistricting panel, who expects to adopt new congressional and legislative maps months later than allowed by the constitution.
The Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in April asked the state Supreme Court to extend the existing Nov. 21, 2021 deadline to redraw districts in the state, as census data required for redistricting has been significantly delayed amid the pandemic.
* Press release issued yesterday morning…
Secretary of State candidate Pat Dowell is announcing the members of the Finance Committee for her campaign for Secretary of State. “I am honored that these community and business leaders have committed to help our campaign,” said Dowell. “While I just joined this race only a short time ago, I am humbled by the support and generosity of so many. I look forward to more events around the state including the suburbs, southland and the city.”
Dowel entered the race recently and her fundraising during second quarter outpaced others in the race. This committee will build on this fundraising progress achieved in the second quarter with $375,000 raised and $440,000 cash on hand.
Congressman Adam Kinzinger has raised a whopping $1.3 million in the second quarter of the year, according to a source close to his campaign. Broken down, that’s $800,000 for his re-election campaign and $500,000 for his leadership PAC.
In the past six months, Kinzinger has raised $3.6 million, nearly all from individuals, and more than $700,000 from within Illinois.
Tim Arview from West Frankfort ran unsuccessfully last year in the Republican primary for state representative.
“I’ve always been interested in politics, always voted, always followed the issues, but never felt like that was something that I would want to do or feel like I need to do. But just the way things are going now, and through prayer and consideration, we decided it was the time to do it.”
He doesn’t want to challenge any fellow Republicans again, which eliminates running for state house or senate or even Congress in southern Illinois, so the only Democrat left for him to run against is Senator Duckworth.
Arview is pro-life and pro-gun rights, and thinks Duckworth has not done enough to help veterans, despite being a veteran herself.
“Ran unsuccessfully” is a pretty huge understatement. Dude got 14.4 percent against Rep. Dave Severin in the 2020 primary.
*** UPDATE *** Oops. Forgot to post this media advisory…
Judge Elizabeth Rochford to Announce Candidacy for Illinois’ 2nd Supreme Court District
WHAT: The Hon. Elizabeth M. Rochford, a sitting judge in Lake County’s 19th Judicial District, is announcing her candidacy for the newly redrawn Supreme Court seat that encompasses the counties of DeKalb, Kendall, Kane, Lake and McHenry. Judge Rochford has been an associate judge in Lake County since her appointment in 2012, hearing civil and criminal matters, with a significant focus in family law. She is currently sitting in probate court.
Judge Rochford is a former assistant state’s attorney and solo practitioner. She has served on the Illinois Judges Association (IJA) Board of Directors since 2015 and is currently Secretary, in addition to chairing literacy and access to justice initiatives.
Judge Rochford also served on the Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) Board of Governors, and as Secretary and past President of the Lake County Bar Association (LCBA). She remains active in both organizations. Her recent distinctions include the 2020 ISBA Carole K. Bellows Woman of Influence Award, the Lake County Women’s Association (LCWA) 2019 Woman of Significance Award, and the LCBA’s 2019 Access to Justice Award.
Point by point, the judge in downstate Clay County on Friday ticked off the many ways he found Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order had devolved into “insanity” and become “completely devoid of anything approaching common sense.”
Clay County Judge Michael McHaney complained that recently legalized pot shops had been deemed essential over generations-old family businesses. People had been led to believe they could avoid COVID-19 at Walmart but not at church.
Judge McHaney said the Governor has no constitutional authority as Governor under the cited provisions of the IEMAA to restrict a citizen’s movement or activities and to forcibly close businesses because any such authority was restricted to the Department of Health. This Court has previously held that the State’s police powers authorize measures to be implemented to protect its citizens when confronted with contagious diseases and other threats to public health and safety. Again, this Court reiterates that the state’s police powers are outlined in both the state and federal constitution and supports the Governor’s actions in combating this pandemic. Without such authority the state would be paralyzed to act when needed. The Illinois constitution provides the Governor with supreme executive authority.
When it comes to back-to-school this fall, Governor J.B. Pritzker has said the state of Illinois will follow CDC guidance.
That means vaccinated students and teachers are not required to wear masks. However, those who are not vaccinated do need to wear a mask in the classroom. The mandates are not sitting well with a lot of schools and parents.
* Unlike every other local reporter I’ve seen cover this topic in recent days, WCIA’s Mark Maxwell is the only one who actually asked someone in authority for a response…
Some Republican state lawmakers who have resisted most of the state’s Coronavirus restrictions are pushing back against the public health recommendations for unvaccinated people to wear a mask indoors.
“They feel like their kids are going to be discriminated against because they’re not vaccinated,” state representative Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) said. […]
“He’s literally asking for a policy that is already in place and has been since Friday,” Pritzker spokesperson Jordan Abudayyeh said in an email.
The Governor’s office said while schools are “supposed to follow the CDC guidance,” “school boards run their school districts,” and the new recommendations are “not a mask mandate.”
In his letter to Pritzker, Caulkins cited a study that measured how much carbon dioxide is caught in a face covering. The author suggested the elevated carbon dioxide levels near the nose and mouth could carry unspecified “adverse effects,” though other medical experts who reviewed the study found its measurement devices, methods, and analysis severely lacking. For example, the study measured the air trapped inside the mask, not the other air around it, only measured for a fraction of the time it takes to inhale, and did not measure actual blood-oxygen levels.
“The buildup of carbon monoxide (sic) has been detected in children’s masks which can lead to serious health issues,” Caulkins wrote, mistaking the air we exhale with a toxic flammable gas.
Other medical experts who reviewed the study said that even if children were breathing in that higher rate of carbon dioxide, the “elevated levels” cited in the study were so low, they were “not dangerous.”
“I don’t think the CDC is out here trying to torture children and wear a mask,” Abudayyeh said in a phone call.
Estimates suggest 10% to 30% of people who get COVID-19 will develop long COVID-19, according to Dr. Jerry Krishnan, University of Illinois Chicago associate vice chancellor for population health sciences and professor of medicine and public health.
“The CDC estimates that about 33 million Americans tested positive for COVID-19, which means 3 to 10 million Americans likely have or have had long COVID,” Krishnan said. […]
In December, Congress provided $1.15 billion in funding over four years to the National Institutes of Health to support research into the prolonged health consequences of long COVID-19. The initiative called RECOVER, or Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery, is designed to learn whether differences in long COVID-19 risk are due to different virus variants, host response (ability to fight the virus infection and to heal after the infection is cleared) and the social determinants of health.
UIC has been selected to lead an Illinois-based team for the U.S. RECOVER consortium. Krishnan is a part of the team spearheading the efforts to bring health centers, community-based organizations and faith-based organizations in Chicago, Peoria, Rockford and Urbana together to form a network of state resources for a directory that can be available to people with long COVID-19.
Long-haulers can develop an array of neurological and physiological symptoms after their recovery from the virus that doctors are just now beginning to piece together. But getting treatment often has been difficult for some because of that spectrum of problems.
“I want to go to a place where they all know me and what I’m dealing with,” Atwell said. “It needs to not be so disjointed.”
Edward-Elmhurst Health is one of several suburban health care systems that are creating one-stop clinics for long-haul COVID-19 patients. […]
Northwestern Medicine in Chicago opened one of the region’s first long-hauler clinics in the area in January and is now treating more than 1,500 patients in several suburban locations in its network, including Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, Delnor Hospital in Geneva and Lake Forest Hospital.
* Related…
* Long Covid: rogue antibody discovery raises hope of blood test: “It’s hard to escape a prediction that 100,000 new infections a day equates to 10,000 to 20,000 long Covid cases a day, especially in young people. That’s a lot of damage to a lot of lives. And it’s hard to see that we’d have the healthcare provision to deal with it on that scale,” said Danny Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial. “All of us working on this could not be more alarmed.”
To rank America’s Top States for Business in 2021, CNBC scored all 50 states on 85 metrics in 10 broad categories of competitiveness. Each category is weighted based on how frequently states use them as a selling point in economic development marketing materials. That way, our study ranks the states based on the attributes they use to sell themselves. We developed our criteria and metrics in consultation with a diverse array of business and policy experts, and the states. Our study is not an opinion survey. We use data from a variety of sources to measure the states’ performance. Under our methodology, states can earn a maximum of 2,500 points. The states with the most are America’s Top States for Business.
* There’s some really good (and surprising) news and some not so good (and unsurprising) news in here. But the state’s overall ranking has really shot up…
* The above link was sent to me from someone in the governor’s office who offered up this accompanying commentary…
So let me get this straight: A Democratic governor led Illinois to two credit upgrades and helped vault us from bottom half to top third of states to do business in?
New legislation in Illinois could require sex education be taught in schools but not just for those in middle school but for those in Kindergarten as well.
The Harlem school district held their monthly meeting and allowed people in the community to speak about their concerns. Several people arrived at the meeting, some said they were there to talk about the legislation that could change the curriculum for their students.
If signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the law would require sex education to start in Kindergarten, teaching students about safe or non-safe touch. It would also cover how to respect someones boundaries.
Pamela Harding has worked in the Harlem school district for over 20 years. She says very young children have innocent minds and can be easily confused when learning about things like sex.
“For them to be trying to educate our elementary school children, and start formulating their mind about transgenders and the sex promiscuity and all the various issues these are the things that we need to sit down and talk,” Harding said.
WIFR must be getting its bill analysis from Facebook or from Ms. Harding. The bill does not require that the lessons start in kindergarten…
A school district may provide age and developmentally appropriate consent education in kindergarten through the 12th grade.
Also, the mandate only applies to personal health and sex health education classes. If a school doesn’t offer the class to some or all of its students, the mandate doesn’t apply. So, if it chooses to teach that course to kindergarten kids, then it would have to follow the state mandates. And, of course, there’s nothing in the bill about teaching little kids about “transgenders and the sex promiscuity.” Not to mention that parents are allowed to opt their kids out…
No student shall be required to take or participate in any class or course in comprehensive personal health and safety and comprehensive sexual health education.
Also, if you’re gonna run a story that insults transgender people, maybe reach out to someone else for rebuttal?
Thoms said he wasn’t happy with House Bill 3653, the Police and Criminal Justice Reform Bill, passed by lawmakers in January and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in February.
The sweeping reform bill calls for the elimination of cash bail by 2023 and prevents police officers from reviewing their own body camera footage prior to writing reports, among other measures.
Except a trailer bill has since been approved. From an analysis of that trailer bill by the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, which supported the revisions…
(a) Allows an officer to review his or her body camera video before writing an initial report except in certain specified circumstances, including when an officer has been involved in or a witness to an officer-involved shooting, use of deadly force incidents,or use of force incidents resulting in great bodily harm, or if an officer is ordered to write a report in response to a misconduct investigation. (b) In those limited cases where the exceptions apply, after writing an initial report, an officer, subject to a supervisor’s approval, may write a supplemental report after reviewing his or her video.
Google makes things so much easier for reporters these days. But you gotta use it to reap its benefits.
The State of Illinois released guidance for school districts this fall in Illinois but a local State Representative is calling on the Governor to allow local districts to make their own decisions.
District 186 says it is still reviewing the latest guidance from the CDC to determine the safest way to welcome all students back to classrooms for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
Superintendent Jennifer Gill says the guidelines give local districts some latitude to adapt the policies based upon local facility limitations and other factors. Masks may be required for all unvaccinated students, including all students under age 12 who are not yet eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine… but Gill says she’s still looking for more clarification about whether that’s a mandate or just a recommendation.
Late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced updated guidelines for schools to reopen safely — unvaccinated teachers and students will need to continue masking up, while those who are vaccinated can go without.
But as CBS 2’s Charlie De Mar reported Monday night, a growing chorus of administrators and parents are calling on the state to leave the choice up to them.
Not one of those reporters bothered to seek out a quote from anyone in state government to respond.
* So, I asked the governor’s office about this and was told the Illinois State Board of Education sent this to schools on Saturday…
Clarifying Mask Guidance
The Illinois Department of Public Health has fully adopted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated guidance for schools released on July 9. View the guidance and the press release.
Q: Is masking required in schools?
A: The CDC guidance that Illinois has fully adopted for all K-12 public and nonpublic schools states: “Masks should be worn indoors by all individuals (age 2 and older) who are not fully vaccinated. Consistent and correct mask use by people who are not fully vaccinated is especially important indoors and in crowded settings, when physical distancing cannot be maintained.
“The CDC continues to recommend masking and physical distancing as key prevention strategies. However, if school administrators decide to remove any of the prevention strategies for their school based on local conditions, they should remove them one at a time and monitor closely (with adequate testing through the school and/or community) for any increases in COVID-19 cases. Schools should communicate their strategies and any changes in plans to teachers, staff, and families, and directly to older students, using accessible materials and communication channels, in a language and at a literacy level that teachers, staff, students, and families understand.
“Schools should work with local public health officials to determine the prevention strategies needed in their area by monitoring levels of community transmission (i.e., low, moderate, substantial, or high) and local vaccine coverage, and use of screening testing to detect cases in K-12 schools … A school in a community with substantial or high transmission, with a low teacher, staff, or student vaccination rate, and without a screening testing program should continue to require masks for people who are not fully vaccinated.”
The local districts, in other words, can make their own decisions. It’s pretty broad guidance, not a mandate. “It’s up to local control,” a Pritzker spokesperson told me. And if the schools don’t follow the guidance? “There’s nothing much we can do,” was the response.
The question comes down to liability, however. If schools don’t follow the guidance and something bad happens, then the schools could be opened up to lawsuits. It’s the chance you take and there’s not anything that Illinois can do about the CDC.
* But this myth about how kids can’t get sick is being busted wide open in Mississippi right now…
With a surge in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant in Mississippi, health officials are encouraging people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
In a tweet on Tuesday, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said there are 12 children in the ICU due to the Delta variant. Ten of them are on life support.
According to Dobbs, a majority of the COVID-19 cases in Mississippi are the Delta variant. He said a “vast majority” of the cases, hospitalizations and deaths are of people who have not been vaccinated.
Durbin suggested that “too many guns” and “gangs coming down from Chicago and other big cities” were behind a recent uptick in violence against law enforcement officers.
I asked for evidence of this Chicago gangs shooting Downstate police thing last night. I haven’t yet heard back.
The FBI has been investigating a Cook County Board of Review employee who allegedly used his position to lower property assessments in exchange for thousands of dollars in cash bribes, according to a federal court affidavit obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
That employee also said the money would be split with others in the office, insisting that, “I’m just the middle guy” and that certain colleagues had factored the cash into vacation plans as the recent Fourth of July holiday approached, according to the 45-page document.
The federal probe dates to at least January 2019 and involves an unnamed individual who was secretly cooperating with the feds and is separately under criminal investigation, according to the affidavit. The Sun-Times is not naming the Board of Review employee at the center of the probe because records show he has not been criminally charged. He could not be reached Monday for comment.
The revelation of alleged corruption could deal another blow to public confidence in Cook County’s property tax system, just as tax bills are supposed to be hitting mailboxes. The bills already might be delayed because of “major errors” the Sun-Times exposed in a $250 million-a-year program that offers a tax break to certain seniors.
* Dean Olsen at the SJ-R has a comprehensive story on the $210 million renovation plan for the Statehouse’s west wing. You should read it all, but here’s an interesting little excerpt…
Also scheduled for removal is the north side drive next to the building. The drive features more than 100 parking spaces that put lawmakers and others with those spaces only a few steps away from the entrance doors.
The curved drive has been part of the Capitol grounds ever since the building was constructed over a 20-year period that ended in 1888. But modern-day concerns about car bombs, events such as the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and terrorist attacks on government facilities nationwide fueled plans to eliminate the drive, according to Eleni Demertzis, spokeswoman for Illinois House Republicans.
“Especially given everything that’s happening across the country, this is a huge issue I think that needs to be addressed as soon as possible,” she said.
The Capitol architect’s office is looking at ways to “memorialize” the north drive through paving or landscaping “to mimic it,” Aggertt said.
That drive made it really easy to drop people off and pick them up. Also, I’m now wondering what will happen to the parking spots of us lesser mortals.
* Kankakee County’s public health department wasn’t great during COVID, but they were sure Johnny on the spot when a little Black girl opened up a lemonade stand. And now there’s a new state law because of it…
Illinois’ children are finally safe to sell lemonade without fear of government overreach.
Hayli’s Law was signed into law July 9 by Gov. J.B. Pritzker after unanimously passing the Illinois House and Senate. Hayli’s law ensures children under 16 can run a lemonade stand without a permit or license.
In 2017, Hayli Martenez started her Haylibug Lemonade stand to raise money for her college fund with the help of her mom, Iva. In a violent neighborhood where people are reluctant to go out, Hayli brought together her Kankakee, Illinois, neighbors as she happily sold 50-cent cups of lemonade.
“It was kind of scary [at first] because we liked to stay in the house. We didn’t like to come outside because of all the stuff happening around here,” Hayli said previously. “As we kept doing it, I got to see everybody smile when they tasted my lemonade. It was just … wow. They were lining up to get my lemonade.”
Shortly after being profiled in the Kankakee Daily Journal, city and county health department officials paid the 11-year-old a visit and told her to shut down the stand or face fines. They cited the lack of water and sewer service to the Martenez’s home – the result of a billing dispute – even though bottled water for the lemonade was purchased at the grocery store.
Illinoisans may have hoped for a soft summer landing from the pandemic, but federal and state data show COVID-19 infections are again climbing in some parts of the state.
Blame it on a crisis in neighboring Missouri, on nastier virus variants and lower vaccination rates, or — most likely — some combination of these factors.
But after a monthslong decline in cases from fall and spring peaks, the rate of new daily cases is up in the west-central and southern regions of Illinois, as well as the Metro East region near St. Louis.
Case rates remain relatively low, but there’s concern more of Illinois could follow suit, especially in areas lagging on vaccinations.
The state reported 2,945 new cases over the past week, compared to 2,120 the previous week. That’s a 39% increase in average daily cases, from 303 per day to 420 — even during a week that saw a dramatic testing drop due to the Fourth of July holiday.
The jump has been even more pronounced in regions bordering Missouri, which has one of America’s lowest vaccination rates and has emerged as the nation’s current epicenter of the pandemic.
Ryder said that’s likely a key reason the Southern 7 saw a “startling” jump in its positivity rate last week, tripling to 4.4%. “A lot of people have family in southern Missouri. They work there. They shop there. They’re mixing around there a lot,” he said.
The Metro East region near St. Louis has jumped from 3.2% on June 25 to 6.1% — on a clear trajectory for the 8% threshold that could prompt Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office to intervene with “mitigations” such as restaurant capacity limits that have been lifted since the state fully reopened last month.
That region includes two of the eight counties — all outside the Chicago area — that are now considered by state officials to be at a COVID-19 warning level due to metrics moving in the wrong direction. Until Friday, it had been at least a month since any of Illinois’ 102 counties had been slapped with the warning label.
Below, we’ll provide a look at the remaining 24 states, which we consider “not currently vulnerable.” Obviously, we are still early in the election cycle, so states could shift higher or lower in our vulnerability ratings as time goes on. […]
We have been handicapping the gubernatorial races every cycle since 2006. Our analysis is based on reporting with dozens of political observers in the states as well as a look at historical, demographic, and polling data. We’ve included the gubernatorial races below in alphabetical order. […]
Illinois: Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D)
Pritzker, a deep-pocketed heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, has had what observers consider a generally successful term in this increasingly blue state. He received good marks for his handling of the pandemic and has enacted budgets that have kept the state’s fiscal situation more stable than it has been in recent years. He’s also kept his progressive flank happy by enacting a minimum wage hike to $15; a law that would continue allowing abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade; a law to strengthen guardianship protections for immigrant children; and a marijuana legalization measure. This means that Pritzker has little to worry about from a primary, especially since any challenger would need to raise a ton of money to compete against him.
Meanwhile, a few Republicans have announced or expressed interest in the race, but they are largely aligned with Trump and back socially conservative policies, both of which amount to non-starters in Illinois these days. Any center-right Republican hoping to make it a race against Pritzker would not only need to self-fund and win a Trump-era GOP primary but would also face the daunting prospect, if elected, of working with a Democratic supermajority in the legislature. All in all, Pritzker should be able to secure a second term if he wants it.
I don’t agree that a Republican nominee will have to self-fund if Ken Griffin jumps in all the way. I suppose we’ll see.
Little has changed following a WGN Investigates’ report in 2019 that highlighted children being forced to sleep in offices because the Department of Child and Family Services does not have enough space.
Following multiple reports, the first which aired in June 2019, the governor and other officials called the conditions “unacceptable.”
Two years later, WGN Investigates has obtained new pictures that shows all that’s changed is the addition of a blow-up mattress. […]
In the last six months of 2019, 54 children in DCFS care spent the night in a state office. In all of 2020, the number ballooned to 129. It has continued to happen at a similar pace this year; 52 children have had to spend at least one night in the office of DCFS or more often, a private agency.
“Keeping children in offices is unacceptable unless no other options are available. Finding an immediate placement for a child was more challenging during the height of the pandemic, as caregivers were hesitant to accept youth due to health and safety concerns.”
* First came the sewage, then the hunger strike - After a plumbing flood at the aging Logan Correctional Center, three women organized one of the first successful hunger strikes in an Illinois women’s prison in years.
As I write this, two of the three national credit rating agencies have upgraded the State of Illinois’ rating in a week’s time. And the only remaining holdout owes us one. Bigtime.
As you know, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded its Illinois rating by a notch in late June, and S&P Global Ratings followed suit on July 8. Fitch Ratings is the only one left.
Back in April of 2020, when the pandemic was gripping the world, Fitch downgraded Illinois’ credit rating — the only credit downgrade Illinois has received since Bruce Rauner’s days as governor.
Just a month before, Moody’s and S&P, which had both lowered the state’s credit rating in June of 2017 (just before members of both parties in the General Assembly overrode Rauner’s tax hike veto), revised their outlooks on Illinois from “stable” to “negative,” but didn’t actually lower the state’s rating. Fitch’s previous ratings downgrade came in February of 2017.
“We are concerned with how the state is going to fare through what is clearly a significant economic dislocation,” a Fitch executive told Reuters in April of 2020.
At the time, the Illinois legislature was unable and unwilling to meet. The governor’s office was projecting a $7.3 billion hole in the FY 2020 and FY 2021 budgets and had undertaken a $1.3 billion cash flow borrowing program. Fitch also worried that the temporary measures Illinois was taking to deal with its budget shortfall would be difficult to unwind after the pandemic passed.
Almost nobody thought that Fitch was wrong about the future back then, even though the action seemed a bit too severe. A divided Congress and a Republican president’s open hostility to certain large-state Democratic governors who were also having budget problems made for a very bad situation.
Fiscal and political factors
But then the federal government began the first of what turned out to be several economic and state and local government fiscal stimulus measures. Then there was a change in the U.S. Senate’s majority and the election of a Democratic president. Some very prudent Illinois budget moves, of both increasing annual revenues and keeping spending flat, all led to Illinois eventually emerging from FY21 with a budget surplus.
Indeed, state revenues for the just-concluded fiscal year (which ended June 30) finished $1.9 billion higher than the Governor’s Office of Management and Budget projected when the budget-makers were doing their business in May. The total was also $1.2 billion higher than projected in May by the legislature’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
COGFA reported last week that, excluding borrowing, state receipts finished the fiscal year a “stunning $6.792 billion” above the previous fiscal year, which had included the long months of stay-at-home orders in response to the worldwide pandemic. Of that, net income tax receipts were up $5.6 billion. And only $1.3 billion of that was attributed to the shift of the income tax filing deadline from April 15 of last year (which was in Fiscal Year 2020) to July 15 of last year (Fiscal Year 2021).
State sales tax receipts grew $1.1 billion due to “strong consumer spending reflecting stimulus payments, improving job picture, and improved consumer confidence,” COGFA reported, and federal receipts were up $1.19 billion from Fiscal Year 2020. Tax revenue sharing with local governments grew by $442 million due to higher personal and corporate income tax receipts.
But this stark number stood out to me in the COGFA report: Revenues from the state’s inheritance tax grew by 59%, or $167 million, during Fiscal Year 2021. More than 23,000 Illinoisans have died so far during the pandemic. Notably, last month’s inheritance tax receipts were 14% below the same timeframe during the previous fiscal year as the pandemic’s impact has now tapered off. May’s inheritance tax receipts were down 7% and April’s were off by 37.5%. This year’s March receipts, however, were up 414% from March 2020, when the pandemic was just beginning.
As we’ve already discussed, the enormous amount of federal money pumped into the economy last year and this year contributed to the strong gains in income and sales tax receipts, here and everywhere else. The country’s mostly successful vaccination program also certainly helped, as many workers felt safe enough to return to their jobs.
But the hard truth is the state never came close to missing a bond or pension payment during the pandemic (or since the 19th Century, for that matter). Fitch’s prediction, while perhaps accurate during a time of great international crisis, proved to be false.
Mistakes can always be corrected. This one should be, too. Fitch owes us one.
* The Bond Buyer’s Illinois correspondent…
I love that @capitolfax raises the point in piece that gets forgotten in debate….that bond ratings are supposed to be gage of default risk. Moody’s, S&P have upgraded Illinois’ bond rating. It’s time for Fitch’s to do the same https://t.co/ZemXwkuqds via @SunTimes
— yvette.shields@arizent.com (@Yvette_BB) July 12, 2021
exactly why the high yield folks loved the Illinois credit over last couple years as market treated like junk …they'd say it's a sovereign state with sweeping fiscal powers, prepays debt service, and billions in non general fund surpluses can also go to cover debt service….
— yvette.shields@arizent.com (@Yvette_BB) July 12, 2021
Also, I love how the @SunTimes uses "Fitch's" in the headline. So very Chicago
* The ongoing climate/energy bill negotiations mean I can’t really plan anything like a real vacation, so long weekends are gonna be the rule for a while…
Since economic shutdowns began and COVID-19 death counts started to rise in March 2020, national unemployment rates have hovered at historically high numbers, stressing state unemployment systems left dealing with an unprecedented number of claims.
In Illinois, that’s led to a deficit in the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund – or the pool of money used to sustain the social safety net – that could rise to $5 billion.
Stakeholders from both political parties, as well as business and labor groups, are now warning of “crippling” tax increases on businesses and cuts to unemployment benefits that could result if the ongoing deficit goes unaddressed for too long. […]
Lawmakers and stakeholders reached by Capitol News Illinois said they were hopeful for another round of federal aid, this time targeted to shore up trust funds nationwide. Failing that, members of both parties believe the state should use a large portion of its remaining federal American Rescue Plan Act funds – a sum of more than $5 billion of the $8.1 billion allocated to the state – to address the deficit.
As I’ve said before, I really think that’s where much of the set-aside money is going if Congress doesn’t act.
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) is fully adopting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated guidance for COVID-19 Prevention in Kindergarten (K)-12 Schools released today.
“Our goal is to protect the health of students, teachers, and staff so that in-person learning can resume as safely as possible,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “The CDC is right: vaccination is the best preventive strategy. As school board members, parents, teachers and superintendents plan for a return to in-person learning in the fall, we strongly encourage those who are not vaccinated to continue to mask. IDPH is proud to fully adopt school guidance issued by CDC, which is based on the latest scientific information about COVID-19.”
The updated school guidance now aligns with guidance for fully vaccinated people, which allows activities to resume for fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask except where required by federal, state, and local rules and regulations.
Major elements of the updated guidance include:
• Masks should be worn indoors by all individuals (age 2 and older) who are not fully vaccinated.
• CDC recommends schools maintain at least 3 feet of physical distance between students within classrooms, combined with indoor mask wearing by people who are not fully vaccinated, to reduce transmission risk. When it is not possible to maintain a physical distance of at least 3 feet, such as when schools cannot fully re-open while maintaining these distances, it is especially important to layer multiple other prevention strategies, such as indoor masking.
• Screening testing, ventilation, handwashing and respiratory etiquette, staying home when sick and getting tested, contact tracing in combination with quarantine and isolation, and cleaning and disinfection are also important layers of prevention to keep schools safe.
• Many schools serve children under the age of 12 who are not eligible for vaccination at this time. Therefore, this guidance emphasizes implementing layered prevention strategies (masking, distancing, testing) to protect people who are not fully vaccinated.
Schools and communities should monitor community transmission of COVID-19, vaccination coverage, screening testing, and outbreaks to guide decisions about on the level of layered prevention strategies being implemented.
State Superintendent of Education Dr. Carmen I. Ayala issued the following declaration mandating in-person learning with limited exceptions:
Beginning with the 2021-22 school year, all schools must resume fully in-person learning for all student attendance days, provided that, pursuant to 105 ILCS 5/10-30 and 105 ILCS 5/34-18.66, remote instruction be made available for students who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine or who are not eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, only while they are under quarantine consistent with guidance or requirements from a local public health department or the Illinois Department of Public Health.
“All our students deserve to return safely in-person to schools this fall,” said Dr. Ayala. “With vaccination rates continually rising and unprecedented federal funding to support safe in-person learning, and mitigations such as contact tracing and increased ventilation in place in schools, we are fully confident in the safety of in-person learning this fall. We look forward to a great school year and to the energy of Illinois’ young minds once again filling our school buildings.”
The Illinois Education Association released the following statement attributable to IEA President Kathi Griffin:
“We are very excited that the Illinois Department of Public Health has decided to adopt the Centers for Disease Control’s guidance for schools. Both agencies are correct that vaccines are the best way to keep students and staff safe and for those who can’t get vaccinated, wearing a mask is the next best option. This news has been highly anticipated. Our members are looking forward to the start of this school year and now we have an idea of what the year will look like, and it is based on science, which is a great comfort.”
“There’s a long-standing myth in Illinois that downstate taxes are going to Chicago and supporting Chicago and that is just not true,” [political scientist John Foster], a former member of the SIU political science faculty, explained.
In fact, he said, the research shows that Southern Illinois gets more in state funding for every dollar spent on taxes than any other part of the state.
“Here in the southern 19 counties — basically I-64 south with the exception of the metro east area of St. Louis — we are getting back between $2.75 and $3 for every one tax dollar we pay depending on the year,” Foster said. “On the other end of that are the suburban counties; they are not getting nearly as much back as they are sending.” […]
“If you could somehow get around the Constitutional issues and split, you would create a very poor state,” he said. “Illinois, as a whole, is very wealthy. In total, our economy is in the top 20 in the world, but if you separated the 96 counties outside of Cook County from it and those around it, the 96 would be, by far, the poorest state in the country. It would create an economic disaster.”
Returning to the broader question we began with – the assertion that perception is more important than the facts – is a fundamental axiom of politics that does not bode especially well for mass democracy. Facts should count for something – indeed, for a lot – and are essential to any form of rational decision-making. Rational action at both the individual voter level and the aggregate public opinion level is crucially important in a representative democracy. The operation of a successful mass democracy depends in the long run on the people being well informed and acting according to reality rather than inaccurate perceptions and myth.
“Perception is reality” is destroying this country.
* I told subscribers about this earlier today. Alexi Giannoulias will report having $3 million in his campaign account at the end of the second quarter. Fundraising email…
Dear Friends,
During the past six months, we’ve been working hard so we have the resources and support that our campaign needs to win the Illinois Secretary of State race in 2022.
We recently exceeded our quarterly fundraising goal, having received an overwhelming number of contributions to bring our campaign fund total to more than $3 million cash on hand by the June 30 deadline.
I can’t thank you enough for your help!
Your response shows that we have amassed a broad-based coalition that continues to grow momentum and gain support each day from all parts of the State.
In the end, Illinoisans want solutions-driven leadership that brings people together, restores trust in government and delivers results for hard-working families that I promise to deliver.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s re-election campaign reports $5 million cash on hand after raising $2.37 million in the second quarter of 2021. “Almost all, 97 percent, of the more than 43,000 contributions received over the quarter were under $100,” the campaign said in a statement. The average individual contribution was under $40, according to Illinois Democrat’s camp.
* The ILGOP criticizes Democrats’ attempts to “tighten controls on utilities” in a fundraising email. Utilities don’t produce power…
Friends,
Springfield Democrats are currently attempting to enact a number of SUBSTANDARD energy policies. Led by Governor Pritzker, IL Democrats want to tighten controls on utilities and close several major coal-fired power plants in the state.
This is unacceptable, and Illinois Republicans are fighting back.
Will you join us?
Protect Illinois Jobs
Democrats want to turn Illinois from an exporter of energy to an exporter of jobs. They would rather import dirtier power from less efficient plants in other states than fund the energy plants in their own districts.
Just two of the power plants suggested for total shutdown by Pritzker would cost Illinoisans over 2,000 jobs. As you know, Democrats control every level of Illinois state government, and they have all but shut out the GOP from having any part in this new energy legislation.
Our current power grid is among the most RELIABLE in the country and keeps us PROTECTED from brownouts and blackouts. To shut these down is to shut down the entire state of Illinois.
Pitch in now to stand up to Governor Pritzker and his awful energy proposals:
* US Rep. Danny Davis’ primary challenger Kina Collins…
Hey Rich, I wanted to reach out to give you an urgent update from the finance team.
If you didn’t see Kina’s message yesterday, here’s what’s going on: a new establishment super PAC has been formed just to protect Danny Davis from our campaign and the movement we’re building together.
But like Kina told me, “My opponent can depend on corporate money, we’re busy building people power.” That’s why I’m reaching out to our grassroots supporters and asking: can you chip in whatever you can to help our movement beat this PAC?
Illinois Democrat Sean Casten is doubling down on his defense of critical race theory and arguing that it is “unpatriotic” to oppose an ideology that teaches young children that “whiteness” is the devil.
NRCC Comment: “Every vulnerable House Democrat should be as candid as Sean Casten when it comes to their views on critical race theory.” – NRCC Spokesman Mike Berg
Hilarious. Click here to hear what he actually said.
Today, we’re calling on Governor J.B. Pritzker to ensure the SAFER Communities Act is funded by the federal ARP assistance.
The SAFER bill would reduce mass incarceration in Illinois, as well as create a job training program for formerly incarcerated people. This would not only keep people out of prison, but help them get jobs so they can take care of themselves and their families. This is a win-win for the community!
Take 30 seconds to send prewritten emails urging Governor Pritzker to ensure that the SAFER Communities Act is funded by the federal ARP assistance.
Our collective efforts have powered this important proposal forward in Springfield, but there is still work to be done.
Help push the SAFER Communities job program over the finish line by taking part in today’s digital action!
Today, Governor JB Pritzker signed HB 376, the Teaching Equitable Asian American History Act, into law, making Illinois the first state in the nation to require a unit of Asian American history be taught in public schools. The monumental measure will ensure every high school graduate in Illinois will learn about Asian American history as well as the rich contributions and traditions of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
The legislation builds on the progress the state has made in ensuring the content taught in Illinois classrooms reflects the diversity of the people who call Illinois home. With the recent rise in acts of violence and bigotry against the Asian American community, teaching students about rich culture and important contributions of the Asian American community throughout history will help combat false stereotypes. […]
The legislation adds a new section on Asian American history study to the Illinois School Code. Beginning with the 2022-2023 school year, every public elementary school and high school will be required to include a unit of instruction studying the events of Asian American History, including the history of Asian Americans in Illinois and the Midwest. […]
The bill specifies that the curriculum should include:
• The contributions of Asian Americans toward advancing civil rights from the 19th century onward
• The contributions made by individual Asian Americans in government, arts, humanities, and sciences
• The contributions of Asian American communities to the economic, cultural, social, and political development of the United States.
While the legislation specifies topics that should be addressed in the curriculum, the state will not require or designate a specific curriculum for school districts. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is authorized to make instructional materials available to all school boards; however, each school board will determine the minimum amount of instructional time that qualifies as a unit of instruction as stated in the bill.
* Comments from the press release…
“This TEAACH legislation will not only better educate all of our young minds about the contributions of Asian Americans and their communities and culture, but it will give our Asian American students a chance to learn about the experiences and stories they have a personal connection with,” said House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Westchester). “Illinois is now a leader for the entire nation, and it’s our children, our future, who will be better because of it.”
“Asian American history is American history. Yet we are often invisible. The TEAACH Act will ensure that the next generation of Asian American students won’t need to attend law school to learn about their heritage,” said State Representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz (D-Glenview). “Empathy comes from understanding. We cannot do better unless we know better. A lack of knowledge is the root cause of discrimination and the best weapon against ignorance is education.”
“This historic measure makes Illinois the first state in the nation to set a standard for culturally competent Asian American history curriculum,” said State Senator Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago). “This milestone offers students of all backgrounds cross-cultural education, and ensures that the stories and experiences of our communities are accurately reflected in the classroom. As the son of Indian immigrants and representative of one of the most diverse districts in the state, I am proud to have sponsored this legislation.”
Vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to wear masks inside school buildings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday in relaxing its COVID-19 guidelines.
The changes come amid a national vaccination campaign in which children as young as 12 are eligible to get shots, as well as a general decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.
“We’re at a new point in the pandemic that we’re all really excited about,” and so it’s time to update the guidance, said Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC task force that prepares recommendations designed to keep Americans safe from COVID-19.
The nation’s top public health agency is not advising schools to require shots for teachers and vaccine-eligible kids. And it’s not offering guidance on how teachers can know which students are vaccinated or how parents will know which teachers are immunized.
The agency will also call on school districts to use local health data to guide decisions about when to tighten or relax prevention measures like mask wearing and physical distancing. Officials said they were confident this is the correct approach, even with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, and the fact that children under 12 are not yet eligible for vaccination.
The guidance, which The Times has seen in draft form, is a sharp departure from the C.D.C.’s past recommendations for schools, bluntly acknowledging that many students have suffered during long months of virtual learning and that a uniform approach is not useful when virus caseloads and vaccination rates vary so greatly from city to city and state to state. […]
The new guidance will continue to recommend that students be spaced at least three feet apart, but with a new caveat: If maintaining such spacing would prevent schools from fully reopening, they could rely on a combination of other strategies like indoor masking, testing and enhanced ventilation. The guidance recommends masks for all unvaccinated students, teachers or staff members. […]
It also strongly urges schools to promote vaccination, which it called “one of the most critical strategies to help schools safely resume full operations.” Studies suggest that vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant. […]
The guidance relies heavily on the concept of “layered” prevention, or using multiple strategies at once. In addition to masking and social distancing, those strategies may include regular screening testing, improving ventilation, promoting hand washing, and contact tracing combined with isolation or quarantine.
The recommendations call on local officials to closely monitor the pandemic in their areas, and suggest that if districts want to remove prevention strategies in schools based on local conditions, they should remove one at a time, monitoring for any increases in Covid-19.
The guidance, which is not binding, reflects many of the same concepts that the CDC released in April and May for the broader population.
But it may fuel a new round of political debate about masking and vaccinations — heralded by some, derided by others — as divisions carry over to practices in schools.
And practically speaking, it may be difficult to implement: It does not spell out how schools would collect accurate information about who is vaccinated — and thus able to go without a mask — and who is not.
“The school has to decide if and how they’re able to document vaccination status,” Sauber-Schatz said. If that is not possible, she said, “the safest thing to do to protect those people who are not fully vaccinated” is to go with a universal policy requiring masks.
I’ll post the guidance when it’s published by the CDC.
The CDC also recommends that all bus drivers and their passengers — vaccinated or not — wear a mask while traveling to school.
The biggest sticking point for schools though will likely be whether to require proof of vaccination. Most schools already require proof of childhood immunizations with few exceptions.
The CDC, which does not set vaccination requirements for schools or child care centers, makes clear in its recommendations that it will be up to schools and local officials to decide what to do. The agency specifically notes that schools may opt for a universal masking policy, particularly if they have unvaccinated populations and don’t want to require verification that a person has been vaccinated.
“We do allow for flexibility in our guidance,” said Capt. Erin Sauber-Schatz, who helped to write the guidelines as a member of CDC’s COVID response team.
*** UPDATE *** The new CDC guidance for K-12 is here. The new guidance for daycare is here.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has requested President Joe Biden send federal troops to her city amid a rising crime wave, an offer she previously rejected under former President Donald Trump.
A day after Mayor Lori Lightfoot talked with President Joe Biden at O’Hare Airport about the extra resources he promised to combat crime in Chicago, the mayor said Thursday more federal help will come “relatively soon.”
Lightfoot also dismissed as false a report from a conservative news outlet that she asked Biden to send troops to Chicago, a story that seemed the peg for a Fox News reporter to ask White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about it at the Thursday briefing. […]
“And no, we don’t need federal troops; we need federal resources of a different kind. And I’ve been very vocal about that; really vocal about both issues since 2019, and I talked at length last summer about the Trump administration’s disastrous policy of sending troops into cities like Portland and Seattle, which was an unmitigated disaster. Troops don’t know how to do local law enforcement. They’re not interchangeable,” Lightfoot said.
SCOOP: Democratic Rep. Dave Vella and Republican Rep. Tom Bennett, assistant minority leader, had planned a bipartisan legislative update over lunch tomorrow, but the invitation rankled Republicans who didn’t see the benefit of such public camaraderie. There was even talk about some GOP members calling a caucus meeting to voice their concerns. Their view: “Why would our leader co-host a Democratic meet-and-greet?”
The event didn’t just cross party lines, it crossed district lines, too. Vella is in the 68th District and Bennett in the 106th. Vella thought it would be a good way for lawmakers to get to know his district, he told Playbook. “My goal is to bring as many people as I can to look at the manufacturing, trade schools, and restaurants that are here,” he said. It’s about “reaching across the aisle.”
But before anyone could RSVP, Bennett had to bow out, said Vella. “He wasn’t able to make it.”
Um, no.
Anyone who knows anything about Leader Bennett knows that he holds these luncheons all the time, with members of both parties. Vella, a Tier One target, made the mistake of promoting the lunch as some sort of big event and Bennett decided he’d rather not participate. Also, while there may have been some talk among the more extreme elements of the HGOP caucus, the caucus chair told me nobody ever asked him about holding a meeting to discuss this topic.
House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch is giving a new meaning to bipartisan campaign reform. He’s holding a fundraiser tonight with Republican state Rep. Joe Sosnowski.
It’s a rooftop event overlooking the Cubs game against the Cardinals. Welch and Sosnowski have done this before. They split the tickets they sell and do their own sales and promotion.
Back when Welch was just another Democratic rep, it seemed like a nice way to show that lawmakers can work across the aisle. Now that Welch is House speaker, the gesture takes on a whole new meaning.
It plays into Welch’s pitch for bipartisanship — something he’s talked about since becoming speaker in January — and his efforts to show that it’s here to stay. It could benefit Sosnowki. Even Republicans want time with the speaker, after all.
Friday, Jul 9, 2021 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Lawmakers are on the verge of passing legislation that would raise electric rates and turn Illinois into an exporter of jobs and importer of energy from neighboring states with higher carbon intensity. While masquerading as a clean energy bill, the proposal would shut down highly efficient, state-of-the-art power plants in Illinois in favor of energy produced in states that are far behind on meeting carbon reduction goals. Legislators must reject this plan and keep energy affordable, reliable and made in Illinois.
Coming online in 2012 during the Obama-Biden Administration and purpose-built with $1 billion of emissions controls, Prairie State Energy Campus stands apart from older, traditional coal plants. Employing more than 650 full-time workers and another 1,000 union contractors, Prairie State has also partnered with state and federal officials to study ways to further cut emissions. Illinois Electric Cooperatives and municipalities that own Prairie State are committed to keeping energy affordable and reliable while we invest in a cleaner energy future, but we cannot let policy get ahead of technology. Forcing a premature closure of Prairie State will have affordability and reliability impacts for Illinois electric cooperative and municipal consumers. Prairie State is the bridge to Illinois’ energy future.
llinois’ credit rating got another boost on Thursday, but some disagree on what’s behind the growing faith in the state’s ability to pay its debts. […]
Senate Minority Leader Dan McConchie, R-Hawthorn Woods, said the recent actions are driven by the federal bailout.
“We still have the worst unfunded pension liability in the entire nation, we’re still the worst credited state in the entire nation, and at some point, somebody is going to have to be the adult in the room and do their job,” he said.
Being an adult would entail working on a budget, which the Senate Republicans didn’t do this year, even though that very prudent state budget helped the state earn two ratings upgrades in a week. Instead, the Republicans mocked the budget and one of McConchie’s members even used it as target practice in a campaign video.
Look, I actually like the guy and he definitely has a role to play, but backing away a tiny bit from the “Illinois sucks” frame every now and then wouldn’t kill anybody.
* Meanwhile…
Um. Paid back? $138 billion? Nope. Not by the state anyway. And it's not like we were the only state economy flooded with federal money. Sheesh. https://t.co/uBooM3MrUn
The Illinois Department of Employment Security is finally implementing a so-called work-share program — first authorized under a 2015 law — that could have saved anywhere from 43,600 to 123,900 jobs statewide during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to research from the University of Illinois and Illinois Economic Policy Institute.
Work-share laws, also known as short-time compensation, allow companies to avoid mass layoffs by reducing workers’ hours so they’re still employed, while also allowing them to receive partial unemployment benefits. The concept is popular in European countries and more than two dozen other states have work-share programs.
While Illinois has had such a law on the books for nearly seven years, work-share was never actually implemented during former Gov. Bruce Rauner’s term or the first half of Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration. But the state’s employment agency is belatedly making good on the program — just as the state’s economy has reopened from all COVID restrictions. To help with the endeavor, the U.S. Department of Labor last week announced Illinois will receive a $4.2 million grant from the federal government.
But work-share will come too late for the thousands of Illinois workers laid off permanently during the pandemic, losing wages, healthcare benefits tied to their employment and sometimes getting divorced from the workforce completely.
“It’s really frustrating, it’s disappointing,” State Sen. Steve Stadelman (D-Rockford) said. “State government failed its workers, failed its employees by not implementing this seven years ago.”
A few days after the Fourth of July in 2018, Zay Manning was shot outside his neighborhood corner store in Bronzeville — the one he grew up going to for a bottle of lemonade and a bag of hot fries.
He was 19 and loved helping his younger brother produce music — picking out beats, tweaking the sound one bar at a time.
The one bullet that hit him nearly killed him.
During his hospital stay, police officers and doctors told him about the Illinois’ Crime Victim Compensation Program, which uses state and federal dollars to reimburse victims of violent crime and their families for injury-related expenses. Manning applied, hoping to recoup some of the costs of his medical bills and replace clothing destroyed and bloodied in the shooting. But he found the program difficult and confusing as he also was navigating back-to-back hospital visits.
“It was a lot of documentation I didn’t really understand,” Manning says. “I got discouraged.”
More than a year after submitting his claim, Manning faces a similar situation as most of the program’s applicants.
He hasn’t gotten a single penny of compensation.
The nearly 50-year-old government program that’s supposed to help ease the blow of being a crime victim largely isn’t doing that, an investigation by The Trace has found.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is mad at China for not containing Covid-19.
“I don’t want anybody in this country to depend on our enemy, China, who sent a Chinese virus that was made in a lab, that is a bio weapon, not only to our country, but all over the world,” Greene, a freshman member of Congress from Georgia, said. “And people died.”
However, speaking at a political fundraising event on Thursday night [for US Rep. Mary Miller], Greene encouraged hundreds of older voters to resist the life-saving vaccines that have proven to be society’s best weapon at fighting Coronavirus infection, hospitalization, and death.
It would not be her last contradiction of the evening.
On Tuesday, speaking about the country’s ongoing efforts to recover from the pandemic, President Biden said, “Now we need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oft times door to door – literally knocking on doors – to get help to the remaining people protected from the virus.”
Before Biden made those remarks, local public health departments and community groups had already begun deploying similar public awareness campaigns to combat misinformation about the vaccines.
Still, Greene seized on Biden’s comment to scare people in the audience that federal agents, not local public health officials or volunteers, might arrive at their door if they didn’t take the vaccine. She said her ‘We Will Not Comply Act,’ which she filed in April, would offer wary citizens protection against federal overreach.
“It gives you permission to tell Biden’s little posse that’s gonna show up at your door, you know, that intimidate you — they probably they probably work for Antifa by night, and then they come and intimidate you to take the vaccine by day — Well, you get to tell them to get the hell off of your lawn,” she said to a room of about 500 people.
Of course, you don’t need permission from Congress to tell someone to get off of your private property. But Greene said her legislation would also allow people who refuse the vaccine to sue their employers for discrimination if the company makes vaccination mandatory.
* Mihalopoulos was also there…
More talk about Chicago than Downstate I’m this opening video.
Rep Miller says Chicago is a “war zone” and that she, her family and others in her district do not let people attack their businesses: “We shoot back”
The Bailey aide is asked if he wanted to avoid being associated with #MarjorieTaylorGreene by coming here. The aide replies no, he just had somewhere else to be.
Here’s my story from last year about Bailey, who sued the challenge the stay at home orders https://t.co/m31×777w0A
Friday, Jul 9, 2021 - Posted by Advertising Department
[The following is a paid advertisement.]
Climate change is no longer an impending crisis. We’re in a state of emergency right now. Last month, more than 480 people died in the Pacific Northwest when temperatures skyrocketed to 117 degrees. Last week, the Gulf of Mexico was on fire.
But instead of taking action in Illinois, fossil fuel companies and out-of-state interest groups are working overtime to mislead consumers about the health, cost, and climate impacts of toxic coal plants. Recently, Congressman Rodney Davis earned a “Pants on Fire” rating for claiming that the Prairie State coal plant was somehow not a major polluter.
Here’s the truth: Prairie State is one of the largest polluters in the nation, and that one plant is responsible for nearly 30% of all CO2 emissions in the Illinois power sector.
The impact of this toxic coal plant isn’t theoretical: Prairie State causes roughly one premature death every week and costs nearly $2 billion a year in damage to our health and environment.
Legislators have an opportunity to pass an equitable energy bill that not only closes dangerous coal plants like Prairie State, but provides resources for impacted communities while maintaining reliable power for everyone in Illinois.
