Capitol News
Illinois high court asked to review law limiting venue in constitutional challenges
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Supreme Court is being asked to decide on the constitutionality of a new state law that says constitutional challenges to state laws and actions can only be filed in Cook or Sangamon counties. Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office on Monday filed an appeal directly…
Diversity, judicial appointments at issue in 1st District Supreme Court race
By HANNAH MEISEL DILPREET RAJU & JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com The race for one of the seven Illinois Supreme Court seats pits an appointed incumbent against a second-time candidate as the two Democrats vie for their party’s nomination next week. Because no Republican has filed to run for the Cook County-based seat, it’s…
Pritzker agency heads questioned on $1.1 billion revenue proposals
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker’s revenue and budget directors took questions from a legislative panel Thursday on his proposals to generate another $1.1 billion in the upcoming fiscal year through various tax changes. Pritzker’s proposed spending plan anticipates $52.9 billion in revenue, with new funds raised by increasing…
Diversity, judicial appointments at issue in 1st District Supreme Court race
By HANNAH MEISEL DILPREET RAJU & JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com The race for one of the seven Illinois Supreme Court seats pits an appointed incumbent against a second-time candidate as the two Democrats vie for their party’s nomination next week. Because no Republican has filed to run for the Cook County-based seat, it’s…
Bailey vs. Bost congressional race among GOP primaries to watch
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – The March 19 primaries in Illinois may seem anticlimactic to those who are only interested in presidential politics. Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump sewed up their nominations a full week before polls even opened in the Prairie State. But further down…
Candidate Q&A: Cunningham, Reyes make pitch for Supreme Court seat
Compiled by Capitol News Illinois There’s one contested primary for an Illinois Supreme Court seat on the March 19 ballot, with appointed incumbent Justice Joy Cunningham facing challenger and 1st District Appellate Court Justice Jesse Reyes. The 1st District race is for one of three Cook County seats and one of seven spots on the…
Pritzker agency heads questioned on $1.1 billion revenue proposals
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – Gov. JB Pritzker’s revenue and budget directors took questions from a legislative panel Thursday on his proposals to generate another $1.1 billion in the upcoming fiscal year through various tax changes. Pritzker’s proposed spending plan anticipates $52.9 billion in revenue, with new funds raised by increasing…
House panel opens hearings on Pritzker’s health insurance reforms
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – A panel of Illinois lawmakers began hearing testimony Wednesday on Gov. JB Pritzker’s proposals for sweeping changes in the state’s health insurance industry. The changes, which Pritzker first unveiled in his State of the State address in February, would limit the ability of companies to deny…
Capitol Briefs: Lawmakers push bills addressing water quality, free school meals
By COLE LONGCOR ALEX ABBEDUTO & ANDREW ADAMS Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – Lake Michigan is Illinois’ largest drinking water supply, serving almost 6.6 million people in the state. Legislators including Sen. Laura Ellman, D-Naperville, are working to increase research and monitoring of Illinois’ water resources, including the lake. “Just note with climate change,…
With recession fears subsiding, new state economic forecast expects ‘firm but steady growth’
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – The state’s two main fiscal forecasting agencies agree: Illinois’ finances will see a strong close in the final 3 ½ months of the fiscal year before things tighten a bit next year. It’s a picture laid out in Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget proposal last month, and…
Capitol Briefs: Chicago school board, student teacher pay, local food measures all advance in Springfield
By PETER HANCOCK & JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – By 2026, Chicago will have a fully elected school board for the first time in its history if Gov. JB Pritzker signs a measure that cleared both chambers of the General Assembly this week. Senate Bill 15, sponsored by Senate President Don Harmon,…
Unions back measure protecting employees who skip religious or political work meetings
By ALEX ABBEDUTO Capitol News Illinois abbeduto@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – Democrats in the Illinois Senate on Wednesday advanced a measure that would prohibit Illinois companies from requiring employees to attend work-related meetings about politics or religion. Senate Bill 3649, which is backed by organized labor, passed the Senate Labor Committee 11-4. Backers have dubbed it the…
State commission says Illinois underfunds public universities by $1.4 billion
By COLE LONGCOR Capitol News Illinois Clongcor@capitolnewsillinois.com A state commission created in 2021 has issued a new report calculating that public universities in Illinois are underfunded by approximately $1.4 billion. The Commission on Equitable Public University Funding is made up of 34 members, including legislators, representatives from public universities, and members of advocacy organizations. It…
With feds citing ‘extensive cooperation,’ judge gives ex-Sen. Terry Link 3 years’ probation
By HANNAH MEISEL & DILPREET RAJU news@capitolnewsillinois.com CHICAGO – On an August day in 2019, then-Democratic state Sen. Terry Link stood outside of a suburban Wendy’s and solicited a bribe from his colleague in the Illinois House. “What’s in it for me, though?” Link asked then-state Rep. Luis Arroyo, who’d asked to meet up to…
Judges, ex-lawmakers, lobbyists wrote to support convicted ex-Madigan aide
By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com After Tim Mapes’ August conviction on charges of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice in the federal criminal probe of his longtime boss, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, many of his friends still had his back. Mapes was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison last month,…
Former Gov. Pat Quinn backs GOP-sponsored ethics amendment
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – A Republican proposal that would give citizens the ability to propose ethics-related constitutional amendments on the ballot received a bipartisan boost Tuesday when former Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn endorsed it. “I think it’s very, very important that this year, 2024, that the people of Illinois have…
Funeral home director subject to ‘scary, filthy freak show’ complaint surrenders license
By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com A Centralia funeral home director who was subject to a complaint that his embalming room looked like a “scary, filthy freak show” agreed to a permanent revocation of his license late last week. Moran Queen-Boggs funeral home director Hugh Moran signed a consent order on Friday, March 1,…
U.S. Supreme Court rules states can’t bar Trump from ballot based on insurrection clause
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that individual states do not have authority to disqualify candidates for federal office based on the insurrection clause of the 14 th Amendment. The unanimous ruling by the nation’s high court overturned a decision by the Colorado Supreme Court. But…
Nearly 9 in 10 state-level primaries give voters no choice in candidates
By ANDREW ADAMS Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com On March 19, voting will conclude in primary contests for hundreds of seats in the Illinois legislature and in the state’s court system. But most of those contests are uncompetitive. Statewide, 88 percent of judicial and state legislative primaries feature either a single candidate or no one running…
‘This place is horrific’: 10-week-old complaint details ‘filthy’ conditions at Centralia funeral home
By BETH HUNDSDORFER Capitol News Illinois news@capitolnewsillinois.com The pictures that are said to depict the condition of the embalming room of the Moran Queen-Boggs Funeral Home in Centralia are shocking. Eight photographs and one video taken late last year purported to show the conditions of the funeral home depict piles of dirty sheets, a dead…
Cook County judge orders Trump removed from GOP ballot but holds decision pending appeal
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com Update: Judge Tracie Porter issued an updated order on Thursday, further staying her decision until an appeal “is fully and finally resolved” by an appellate court or either the U.S. or state Supreme Court. Trump’s name will remain on the ballot throughout that process. SPRINGFIELD – A Cook…
Native tribe seeks return of ancestral land in Dekalb County
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – Illinois currently has no federally recognized tribal land within its borders, but that could change in the coming months. A bill pending in the General Assembly this year would give back roughly 1,500 acres of park land in DeKalb County to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.…
His conviction was overturned after 35 years wrongfully served. State law caps his compensation at 14 years.
By DILPREET RAJU Capitol News Illinois draju@capitolnewsillinois.com In December, 57-year-old Brian Beals spent Christmas with his sister Pattilyn for the first time 35 years. Beals was exonerated and freed from Robinson Correctional Center in southeastern Illinois on Dec. 13 after a Cook County circuit court judge vacated his conviction and dismissed charges against him. “In…
Cook County judge orders Trump removed from GOP ballot but holds decision pending appeal
By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – A Cook County judge on Wednesday ordered former President Donald Trump’s name to be removed from the March 19 Republican primary ballot but stayed her order until Friday to give time for an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court. In a lengthy decision, Judge Tracie Porter…
Local News
Pols want 63rd St. armory for new police HQ
. Porfirio, Guerrero-Cuellar push plan in Springfield . By Tim Hadac Any plans the Chicago Department of Aviation may have had for the vacant Army National Guard Midway Armory, 5400 W. 63rd St., may be grounded, at least for now. Several elected officials are eyeing the parcel as the headquarters of a new police district,…
Her back against the wall, Stacy needs help
. By Tim Hadac Editor Clear-Ridge Reporter & NewsHound (708)-496-0265 . Clearing and Garfield Ridge have earned a reputation as a place where people look out for each other—and that sometimes means caring for each other in times of need. Today, I want to talk about one such person, who sure could use a boost…
It’s (pizza) party time at OLS
. Third graders at Our Lady of the Snows School break into cheers as they learn they’ve won a pizza party for selling more raffle booklets than any other class. The recent Grand Raffle fundraiser brought in about $6,000. Parents looking for a grade school for their sons and daughters for 2024-25 are welcome to…
Dart wants free mental health care for first responders
. From staff reports The Illinois Senate has passed legislation proposed by Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart that eliminates out-of-pocket expenses for first responders seeking mental health treatment. “We ask first responders to be constantly exposed to traumatic and dangerous situations to protect us,” Dart said. “This legislation is a solid step toward helping…
Volunteers give Palos Heights a spring cleaning
By Kelly White Palos Heights works hard to keep its city beautiful. Gathering residents together for a day of cleaning and fun was the Palos Heights Green Team with a Clean Up Day on April 13. “This event invited everyone in our community to do their part in combating pollution by having a fun morning…
Hunt man who tried to rob Chase Bank
. FBI looking for tips from public . From staff reports FBI officials are appealing to the public for help in finding a man who attempted to rob a Southwest Side bank branch. The bandit tried to rob the Chase Bank branch at 5687 S. Archer (just west of Laramie) at about 11 a.m. Wednesday,…
Casten lauds Biden for ‘clean energy’ move
. From staff reports A move designed to spur the responsible development of clean energy on America’s public lands was recently lauded by U.S. Rep. Sean Casten (D-6th). The congressman, co-chairman of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) Clean Energy Deployment Task Force, joined by co-chairman Mike Levin (D-Calif.), released a statement in…
E-Notary makes things easier, Giannoulias says
. From staff reports Illinois residents will no longer have to notarize documents in person under a new Electronic-Notary system administered by Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’ office. Electronic Notarization, or “E-Notary,” will radically change the way people and use notary services, Giannoulias predicted. Without leaving the home or office, an individual or business can…
Oak Lawn honor Fire and Public Safety Contest winners
By Joe Boyle The Oak Lawn Chamber of Commerce presented awards to the winners of the 2023 Fire and Public Safety Coloring Book Contest at the Oak Lawn Village Board meeting on April 9. Fire Bureau Chief David Wheeler and Police Chief Daniel Vittoro were on hand to present the plaques, along with Oak Lawn Mayor…
Rashid scolds TV news orgs on climate change
. From staff reports State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid (D-21st) recently scolded major news organizations for what he called a lack of attention to climate change. “Last year was marked by alarming climate extremes, from record-breaking heat waves to devastating floods, droughts and wildfires,” Rashid wrote earlier this month in a letter to his political supporters.…