Hannah Meisel
Meisel works for Capitol News Illinois.
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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.
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Lawmakers on Tuesday will again hear the case for overhauling how nursing homes in Illinois get paid — and the case against Gov. JB Pritzker’s exact plans for how the system should change.
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State Rep. Mike Murphy (R-Springfield) will resign from his 99th District seat in the Illinois House on Tuesday night ahead of his scheduled start date as head of the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.