Stories by Hannah Meisel — Capitol News Illinois

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.

Don Tracy, who’d held the job since February 2021, explained his resignation in a two-page letter that cited intraparty “power struggles.” He also said he is concerned about the direction the party is taking under the current membership of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee.

A hearing officer is recommending the Illinois State Board of Elections dismiss a complaint that alleged conservative radio host and political operative Dan Proft illegally coordinated with former Republican state Sen. Darren Bailey during his 2022 campaign for governor.

Sports wagering and video gambling have developed into two of the most robust markets in the nation; Illinois’ sportsbooks collectively have the fourth-largest handle among all states, while Illinois’ video gambling industry is by far the largest of any state.

A Sangamon County judge blocked the Illinois State Board of Elections from enforcing a new law that would have prevented certain General Assembly candidates who didn’t run in the March primary from getting on the November ballot. The move doesn’t void the bill in its entirety, but rather blocks it only for this year’s general election for the 14 named plaintiffs in the case.

Democrats who control the General Assembly pushed the measure through the legislative process and Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed it into law in a matter of days last month, arguing that slating is unfair to voters who didn’t get a say in a primary contest. 

The Illinois Legislative Staff Association, which formed in the fall of 2022, claims House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s refusal to engage in collective bargaining since then is a violation of the Workers’ Rights Amendment.

Seven months after Democratic Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch advanced a measure that would allow legislative staff to unionize, members of his own staff on Tuesday blasted the speaker for allowing the bill to languish.

The nursing home industry is still reeling from COVID-19, which exacerbated pre-existing challenges in long-term care — difficulties hiring and retaining staff and a population more reliant on government-funded care chief among them.

Top officials with the Illinois Department of Corrections testified in front of a key panel of state lawmakers. Gov. J.B. Pritzker previously announced a plan to close Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill and Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln.

With a month and a half left in the General Assembly’s spring session, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration is readying its proposal to address Illinois’ chronically underfunded pension system.

New legislation filed in Springfield revives an ongoing debate over delta-8 and other hemp-derived products, which are totally unregulated in Illinois even as the state approaches the five-year anniversary of legalizing cannabis.

Illinois is the only state that grants residents the right to sue over businesses’ improper collection and mishandling of biometric data — whether they are an employee or a customer. Business groups have been clamoring for changes as upwards of 2,000 lawsuits have been filed under the law since roughly 2018.

A panel of federal judges seemed skeptical of legal arguments made on behalf of Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, who claims Illinois’ law allowing counting of mail-in ballots for two weeks after an election is in violation of federal law.

During a brief sentencing hearing, the 76-year-old Terry Link made a public apology. Speaking slowly and with a tremor borne of a neurological condition that has worsened since he left office in 2020, Link said he’d made a mistake and “did not intend to cheat the government.”

Tim Mapes was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison, though U.S. District Judge John Kness told Mapes he had “zero hesitation in agreeing, wholeheartedly, that you are a good man,” after reading dozens of letters written to the court on Mapes’ behalf.

The arrest caps a bizarre week that was supposed to have seen his corruption trial begin and end – until a last-minute hospitalization forced its postponement until Monday. 

Democratic leaders in the legislature appear ready to revive talks to reform the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA, after business groups poured cold water on the majority party’s ideas last spring.

Regardless of how long a detainee stays in jail, however, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said a state ID has consistently been at the “top of the list” of needs that those in jail reported to officials upon intake “because it unlocks everything else.”

The justices ruled against a pair of nurses who sued their employers over their use of fingerprint-enabled medication storage — a technology many hospitals have adopted to curb abuse or theft of certain drugs.

The nearly three-dozen pensioners and 17 individual pension funds that sued have already lost twice in lower court. But their attorney was insistent the retired police and firefighters were wronged when Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the law – passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has failed to meet its goals to speed up both initial licensing and renewals in key industries as applications to the agency grew by 15% between 2019 and 2022.

Without naming GOP figures like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Pritzker blamed political leaders who “have shipped people to our state like cargo in a dehumanizing attempt to score political points.”

Illinois on Monday will become the first state to fully abolish cash bail through an act of the legislature — a major criminal justice overhaul spurred by the advocacy of a progressive faction of the Democratic Party that’s grown increasingly powerful in recent years.

The email was introduced as evidence in the trial of longtime Madigan chief of staff Tim Mapes, who was charged with perjury and obstruction of justice after allegedly lying to a grand jury investigating Madigan and his inner circle.

A new law allowing Illinoisans to sue so-called crisis pregnancy centers under the state’s Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act is on hold after a federal judge late Thursday granted a preliminary injunction against it.