The Illinois House should change its legislative rules to diminish the control they give the House speaker over the legislative process, which far exceeds the power that other states grant their legislative leaders.
Chicago State University spent more than $200,000 lobbying Springfield politicians, while deteriorating finances caused it to lay off hundreds of employees, including professors.
Senate Bill 63 would make signature requirements to get on the ballot uniform for all candidates.
Gov. Bruce Rauner signed an extension of the EDGE tax credit program, though the program has an unsuccessful record of using taxpayer money.
Expect Kentucky to gain even more Illinoisans in coming years.
The Illinois Senate budget proposal merely puts off the state’s day of reckoning through more of the same: tax hikes, borrowing and spending, without the necessary reforms to put the state on a path to fiscal and economic health.
The Illinois Supreme Court shut down a tax Chicago was imposing on car rentals outside city limits, noting the potentially chaotic nature of the policy.
The criminal justice commission’s recommendations work toward providing more opportunity for ex-offenders and reducing the state’s prison population.
New Illinois jobs data reveal a state with thousands of job losses, unemployment rising to 5.7 percent, a collapsing manufacturing sector, and several downstate communities sliding back into recession — all of which make the Illinois Senate’s new tax hike proposal especially harmful.
As pressure mounts on state senators and representatives to vote in favor of multibillion-dollar tax hikes, lawmakers should remember the promises they’ve made to taxpayers.
Illinois law provides state workers a right to strike – but only if a strike is legal. State workers represented by AFSCME can go on strike only if the union and the state are at impasse in contract negotiations – and AFSCME claims they are not.
As an AFSCME strike looms on the horizon, many are questioning how a strike would affect state workers and Illinois residents. While a potential strike should have minimal impact on residents, AFSCME members have much more to lose.
The union representing Illinois state workers scheduled a strike authorization vote for sometime between Jan. 30 and Feb. 19 – and it could be the first AFSCME strike in state history.