Next time you attend a parade, there might be an eye in the sky. A new law signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker expands local police departments’ authority to use drones to surveil certain events, respond to certain 911 calls, inspect buildings and participate in public relations events.

Michael McCuskey is charged with investigating complaints of corruption or other misconduct from members of the General Assembly or the people that work for them. The post was created in 2003, and all three people who have held it in the past have criticized the lack of power given to the office.

Illinois has more units of local government than any other state. That fact has some critics asking the question: how much is too much?

The new law declares it to be the policy of Illinois to “encourage and protect the freedom of libraries and library systems to acquire materials without external limitation and to be protected against attempts to ban, remove, or otherwise restrict access to books or other materials.”

Illinios ranks first in the nation in the number of individual units of local government. WTTW News Explains what is going on with all of those property tax line items.

The state of Illinois’ reparations commission, known as the African Descent-Citizens Reparations Commission, is hard at work on a daunting mission.

Link, a Vernon Hills Democrat, has spent years denying news media reports that he was the legislator-turned-cooperating witness described in charging documents made public after the arrest of ex-state Rep. Luis Arroyo in October of 2019.

The bill came in response to a flurry of lawsuits filed in recent years in courthouses throughout the state challenging such things as Pritzker’s COVID-19 mitigation orders, a law that would end cash bail, and, most recently, the state’s ban on assault-style weapons and large-capacity magazines.

James Weiss stands accused of bribing two Democratic lawmakers in an effort to shield his fledgling business from threatened bans at the state and local levels.

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch joined “Chicago Tonight” for a one-on-one conversation about the spring legislative session, recently passed $50 billion state budget and asylum seekers.

Backers of a new state budget say they've passed a balanced plan crafted in cooperation. Many Republicans, however, say the measure largely ignores their input and sets the state up for obligations it won’t be able to meet.

Illinois’ legislative session is wrapping up in earnest, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker will soon face the task of deciding whether to crystalize legislators’ ideas by signing them into law. 

The $50.6 billion spending plan (SB250) passed the Illinois Senate late Thursday night, with only the support of Democrats who drafted it.

Legislators and environmental activists alike say they were caught off guard by fast-tracked proposals that would pave the way for a private entity to own a piece of an expanded I-55. 

A more than $50 billion dollar budget agreement Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the leaders of the legislature trumpeted on Wednesday afternoon isn’t a done deal yet.

Passing a budget is arguably the single must-happen task for lawmakers and it was supposed to have been done by Friday, but that self-imposed deadline came and went without any budget action.