Stories by Hannah Meisel — Capitol News Illinois

Barbara Flynn Currie was first elected to the House in 1978, at a time when women made up only a small minority of the legislature. After 18 years in Springfield, Currie was promoted to House Majority Leader, the first woman to hold the second-in-command role.

After years of litigation, the state of Illinois faces one final lawsuit over how it rolled out licenses to “social equity applicants” under the 2019 law legalizing recreational cannabis.

A federal appeals court is deliberating whether hundreds of undocumented immigrants arrested in the Chicago area in recent months should be released from detention and sent home with electronic monitoring.

Nearly six decades after becoming a lawyer, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has been disbarred following his convictions on federal corruption charges earlier this year.

Emil Jones III, a Chicago Democrat, stands accused of agreeing to take bribes from red-light camera entrepreneur-turned-government cooperator Omar Maani in 2019, then lying to FBI agents about it.

Just one day into her campaign to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin in the U.S. Senate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton on Friday received a key endorsement from Gov. J.B. Pritzker, nearly eight years after he first tapped her to be his running mate.

The senator, who’s served 16 years in Springfield since he replaced his father was charged with three counts of bribery and lying to the FBI. Before they began deliberating Monday, jurors heard eight days of arguments, evidence and testimony, including from Jones himself.

On a warm Tuesday evening in late June 2019, state Sen. Emil Jones III walked out onto the patio at a suburban steakhouse and into an hourslong dinner that would set the table for alleged bribes.

Emil Jones III has remained in office since his September 2022 indictment on three counts including bribery and lying to the FBI, even winning another four-year term in an unopposed race six weeks after being charged.

Jayden Perkins, an accomplished young dancer, was stabbed to death last March while his mother, Laterria Smith, sustained “multiple life-threatening stab wounds to her neck, back, and chest while desperately trying to protect her children,” according to one of the lawsuits she filed last week.

U.S. District Judge Manish Shah tossed four of the nine counts on which the “ComEd Four” were convicted, agreeing with defense attorneys that the jury was wrongly instructed in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last summer that narrowed federal bribery law.

The report found more than 6,000 people enrolled in the state-funded programs were classified as “undocumented” despite actually having social security numbers. Some of those people were green card holders who would have instead qualified for health coverage like Medicaid or traditional insurance.

After an extraordinarily short day of trial Monday, jurors may only remember one detail: those high up in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s 2018 campaign had nicknamed then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan “Sphinx.”

Solis’ undercover work helped bring down two of Illinois’ biggest and longest-serving Democratic powerbrokers. Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke is now serving a two-year prison sentence after his bribery, racketeering and extortion convictions last December, while the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is in its seventh week of testimony. 

Solis’ extraordinary cooperation deal will see the single bribery charge that was eventually pressed against him in 2022 dropped so long as prosecutors are satisfied with the truthfulness of his testimony in the trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

The government wrapped up 14 hours of questions for ex-Ald. Danny Solis on the witness stand halfway through a trial in which former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is accused of bribery, racketeering and extortion.

Prosecutors paint picture of Mike McClain’s extreme loyalty to ex-Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan as the trial wraps up for the week.

Illinois surpassed $2 billion in tax revenue last year from all types of gambling and the state lottery — a record bolstered by continued growth in video gambling, sports betting and the opening of several new casinos.

After nearly 15 hours of deliberation over three days, the jury’s foreperson told U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman that she was “absolutely positive” she and her fellow jurors could not find a way out of their stalemate.

It’s up to a jury to decide whether Paul La Schiazza, who retired from AT&T in 2019, intended that contract as a bribe to then House Speaker Michael Madigan in order to ensure the passage of AT&T’s prized legislation, as the feds have alleged. 

Former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza is accused of bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in exchange for the passage of legislation that was important to AT&T.

Former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza is accused of bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in exchange for the passage of legislation that was important to AT&T.

Former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza is accused of bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in exchange for the passage of legislation that was important to AT&T.

Former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza is accused of bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan — a politician he described as “all-powerful” and “King Madigan” in email snippets shown to the jury — in exchange for the passage of legislation that was important to AT&T.

“OGs for Harris” who supported the vice president in 2019 reunited for a celebratory brunch last week outside of official DNC programming.

Wednesday’s meeting comes on the heels of President Joe Biden’s performance during the first of two scheduled debates with former President Donald Trump last week, which raised concerns about Biden’s mental acuity.