Hannah Meisel
Hannah covers state government and politics for NPR Illinois and Illinois Public Radio. She previously covered the statehouse for The Daily Line and Law360, and also worked a temporary stint at the political blog Capitol Fax in 2018.
She has also worked as a reporter for Illinois Public Media in Urbana, and served as NPR Illinois' statehouse intern in 2014 while working toward a master's degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Hannah also holds a journalism degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she was a reporter and managing editor at The Daily Illini.
In 2020, the Washington Post named Hannah one of the best political reporters in Illinois. Since January, she has hosted WSEC-TV's CapitolView roundtable political program twice monthly.
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey on Tuesday said he’d prioritize eliminating “critical race theory” and “egregious” sex education standards from Illinois schools if elected to replace Gov. JB Pritzker in November, courting a relatively new coalition of voters radicalized during the COVID-19 pandemic. -
Before closing out its truncated spring legislative session earlier this month, the General Assembly approved language that will be put to voters in November, asking whether Illinois should amend its constitution to add a so-called “Workers’ Rights Amendment” to guarantee the right to collectively bargain in a state with a long tradition of strong organized labor. But those behind a new lawsuit filed Thursday hope to prevent the question from being printed on the ballot in the first place, claiming the proposed amendment would conflict with federal labor law.
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Democrats in control of state government were racing to approve a budget and public safety legislation, among other items, before their self-imposed adjournment deadline passed. The budget plan included several tax relief proposals, which will be heavily touted during the upcoming campaigns.
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Breaking a decades-long tradition in shared sacrifice, the continued deepening of partisan animosity in the state legislature left Democrats voting by themselves Wednesday night on a plan to begin paying back the $4.5 billion of federal debt Illinois accrued over the last two years as the COVID-19 pandemic brought the state’s unemployment system to the brink.
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More than a year after his ouster as the longest-serving legislative leader in the country, former House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) has been indicted, federal prosecutors are set to announce Wednesday afternoon.
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Gov. JB Pritzker on Friday evening announced an end to the state’s school mask mandate shortly after the Illinois Supreme Court denied his appeal seeking the justices overturn a Sangamon County judge’s decision earlier this month that sought to halt the governor’s executive orders requiring masking in school settings.
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Pritzker to fight Springfield judge's ruling voiding school mask mandate, K-12 staff vaccine-or-testGov. JB Pritzker’s mandate for masks in schools was thrown into legal limbo late Friday after a Sangamon County judge voided his rules on both masking and mandated COVID-19 vaccines or regular testing for school staff — flashpoints in a bitter ideological fight over the governor’s pandemic management. But Pritzker vowed to escalate the matter to a higher court, asking for an expedited appeal on the ruling.
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The mayor of Illinois’ second-largest city officially launched his campaign for governor on Monday, seeking the Republican nomination in a crowded field seeking to take out Gov. JB Pritzker in the November election.
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Five-hundred new COVID patients were admitted to Illinois hospitals between Sunday and Monday — a number that represents a quadrupling of COVID patients hospitalized in Illinois since a late-October lull in the pandemic after the state’s battle with the Delta variant in late summer.
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The primary is still half a year away, but the 2022 Illinois governor's contest is starting to heat up. There were reports this week that Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin is considering a bid. The Republican field already has four candidates who have announced, but there is speculation Irvin would gain financial backing from billionaire Ken Griffin.
