By CAPITOL NEWS ILLINOIS

SPRINGFIELD – For the first time since lawmakers expanded the state’s hate crime law in 2018, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is launching a civil lawsuit against two Illinoisans for allegedly engaging in hate crimes.

The lawsuit says two residents of Carroll County in northwest Illinois lynched an effigy of their neighbor, who is Black, to intimidate him. Cheryl Hampton and her adult son, Chad Hampton, both white, also allegedly displayed a Confederate flag and a racial slur in a window facing their neighbor Gregory Johnson’s home.

Raoul’s complaint argued the effigy was used “as a threat of racial violence against Johnson, because he contacted law enforcement about the Hamptons” stemming from a dispute about damage to Johnson’s lawn.

The attorney general’s complaint includes two counts each against Cheryl and Chad Hampton for intimidation and disorderly conduct as part of a hate crime, seeking a $25,000 maximum fine under state law for each count.

Each count also seeks a prohibition on the Hamptons from contacting Johnson or participating in any damage to his property or other violations of Illinois hate crime laws.

The complaint details a history dating back to July 2020, when Johnson notified police in the city of Savanna that a fence on his property was damaged after Cheryl Hampton had threatened to tear it down.

Johnson again contacted police after witnessing Chad Hampton “purposely” spray weed killer on Johnson’s lawn, damaging the grass. Chad Hampton was charged with a misdemeanor for damage to property, and in September 2020 he allegedly painted swastikas on his garage facing Johnson’s house.

Court records show the criminal damage to property case is still pending.

Police returned to tell Hampton to remove the swastikas in September 2020, and by October 2020, the effigy of Johnson was hung from the Hamptons’ tree.

“The life-size effigy resembled Johnson by design,” the complaint stated. “The head consisted of a mask intentionally painted black and a curly wig altered to resemble Johnson’s hair.”

Savanna police returned to the Hampton home and, according to the report, Cheryl Hampton “openly admitted” she hung the effigy to target Johnson because she was “tired” of Johnson complaining about “everything she and her son did.”

After a visit from police and the town’s mayor, she refused to move or alter the effigy, so police took custody of it and charged Cheryl Hampton with a felony for intimidation of a witness. Court documents show that case is still pending.

The Hamptons rented the property in question and no longer resided there as of the filing of the lawsuit, according to the complaint.

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PARENTAL NOTICE: Doctors in Illinois may now perform abortions on minors without notifying the child’s parents or obtaining a judicial bypass of the notification requirement.

That’s because a bill passed by the General Assembly during last year’s fall veto session and signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker repealing the state’s 1995 parental notification requirement officially took effect Wednesday, June 1.

That development came as the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to overturn its landmark 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide, and as the debate over abortion rights has become a central issue in this year’s elections.

House Bill 370 passed the General Assembly in October despite opposition from some Democrats. It creates the Youth Health and Safety Act which, among other things, declares it to be public policy in Illinois that residents and people coming into the state should have access to reproductive health care, free of unnecessary barriers or bans on particular procedures.

It also repeals the 1995 Parental Notice of Abortion law, which did not go into effect until 2013 due to prolonged litigation.

Supporters of repealing the law argued that it imposed an undue burden on young pregnant women, especially those who became pregnant through rape or incest, while opponents argued that the notification requirement protected a parent’s right to guide their child’s health care.

Those same arguments were reiterated Wednesday as groups on both sides of the issue reacted to the new law taking effect.

“It is a grave injustice that the Illinois General Assembly and Governor Pritzker repealed this law,” the Catholic Conference of Illinois said in a statement Wednesday. “The Parental Notice of Abortion Act was a broadly-supported, reasonable safeguard that allowed Illinois’ parents to properly exercise love and care for their children.”

But the ACLU of Illinois, which lobbied in favor of the repeal, said the new law gives young people more autonomy over their own health care.

“Prior to today, pregnant young people could make any medical decision without barriers except abortion. Now thankfully they have the same right to make a confidential decision about their health care as everyone else,” Emily Werth, staff attorney at the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement. “Today abortion is treated just like all other forms of health care in this state.”

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NURSING HOME FUNDING: Gov. JB Pritzker signed legislation Tuesday, May 31, that will pump an additional $700 million annually into Medicaid-funded nursing homes, provided they use that money to increase staff and wages in their facilities.

The payment reform bill, spelled out in a Senate amendment to House Bill 246, is among the first of its kind in the nation, according to Department of Healthcare and Family Services officials. It passed unanimously out of both chambers of the General Assembly, but only after nearly two years of negotiations between the administration and the nursing home industry.

The Illinois Medicaid program pays for the care of about 70 percent of all the nursing home residents in the state, or roughly 45,000 seniors and disabled individuals.

For years, though, there have been concerns about the quality of care those people receive. HFS officials have cited studies showing Illinois has more understaffed nursing homes by far than any other state, a problem driven by high turnover rates and low wages.

That problem became especially acute during the COVID-19 pandemic when nursing homes became the source of multiple outbreaks and accounted for a disproportionate number of COVID-related deaths.

Sen. Ann Gillespie, D-Arlington Heights, who carried the bill in the Senate, said that even before the pandemic, many for-profit nursing facilities were reporting profits even as they operated with staffing levels below clinical requirements.

The estimated $700 million in new annual funding is split evenly between state and federal funds. Most of the state’s portion comes through an increase in the state’s nursing home bed tax, which is used to draw down additional federal dollars.

Under the law, nursing homes can qualify for higher payment rates as they hire additional staff to reach certain target levels. The law also establishes new reimbursement rates for services provided by certified nursing assistants, or CNAs, providing them with wage increases based on their years of experience in the profession, rather than their tenure at the specific facility where they work.

The new law also requires more disclosure about the ownership of nursing homes, something that HFS officials said is needed, particularly with for-profit nursing homes. It was also a provision meant to address concerns among nursing home owners that the new payment model could force some nursing homes to close their doors.

The new rules still need approval from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, but HFS Director Theresa Eagleson said she is confident of getting that approval.

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BROADBANDD STUDY: A $400 million investment in broadband internet infrastructure approved by Illinois lawmakers in 2019 could pay for itself by added tax revenues alone within four years of completion of construction, according to a new study.

That’s according to a June 1 report by the University of Illinois Project for Middle Class Renewal and the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, which estimated an additional 238,000 households, businesses and farms would have new internet accessibility as a result of the state funding combined with at least $100 million in new federal funding and other non-state funds.

ILEPI is a nonprofit research organization with strong ties to organized labor, while the Project for Middle Class Renewal is housed in the UI School of Labor and Employment Relations and has a mission of “elevating public discourse” on worker-related issues to promote middle-class jobs and reduce poverty.

Their report found the broadband expansion has several implications, from economic impacts in the billions of dollars to social impacts such as access to telemedicine that are more difficult to quantify.

The social importance was shown at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, as those who could work from home were able to maintain jobs during stay-at-home orders, and students with internet access fared better as schools were shut down.

From a direct economic standpoint, the broadband expansion will boost worker wages by $843 million annually, according to the study, while creating over 25,000 short- and long-term jobs.

That includes 14,400 construction-related jobs, about 38 percent of which would be subject to the prevailing wage rate, and 11,400 jobs maintained afterward.

Income, sales and property taxes would increase by $126 million during the construction and installation phase, according to the study, and by $77 million every year after, not adjusting for inflation.

The study analyzed the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data which showed about 83 percent of Illinoisans have internet access, and that number was expected to grow to 87 percent because of the new funding.

The report also outlines a “digital divide” between urban and rural areas, as 82 percent of the city of Chicago, 88 percent of its suburbs and 76 percent of the rest of the state had internet access per an analysis of 2017-2019 ACS data.  

To drive that connectivity number to 100 percent statewide, the study found, it would require about $3 billion in funding from state and non-state sources.

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ARROYO SENTENCED: Former state Rep. Luis Arroyo was sentenced last week to nearly five years in prison for his role in a bribery scheme involving a state senator and one of Arroyo’s private lobbying clients who sought favorable legislation for the sweepstakes gambling industry.

Arroyo, 67, is a Chicago Democrat who represented the 3rd District in the House from 2006 to 2019. He was arrested on bribery charges in October 2019 and resigned his seat on Nov. 1 that year, just moments before a special investigative committee was to meet to consider whether he should be ousted from office.

Even after resigning, though, Arroyo maintained that he was innocent. He finally pleaded guilty to the charges in November 2021.

According to the indictment, in 2018 and 2019 Arroyo accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from a gaming company, Collage LLC, in exchange for promoting legislation authorizing electronic sweepstakes machines, which look and operate much like slot machines.

In addition, he was accused of bribing a sitting state senator at the time, now known to be former Sen. Terry Link, a Lake County Democrat, for supporting that legislation. Arroyo and Link, who was wearing a wire, reportedly met at a Skokie restaurant in August 2019 where Arroyo handed Link a $2,500 check from Collage with a promise of additional monthly payments for as long as a year in exchange for Link’s support of the legislation.

During that conversation, according to federal prosecutors, Arroyo told Link, “This is the jackpot.”

That investigation was part of a wide-ranging probe into public corruption in the Chicago area conducted by U.S. Attorney John Lausch’s office and the FBI.

Also as a result of that investigation, Link was later charged and pleaded guilty to tax evasion. He was not immediately sentenced in exchange for his agreement to cooperate with the ongoing investigation. He resigned from the Senate in September 2020.

And former House Speaker Michael Madigan, who had pressured Arroyo to resign and called the allegations against him “beyond extraordinary,” was indicted earlier this year on charges related to a separate bribery scheme involving utility giant Commonwealth Edison. He resigned in January 2021 after failing to win reelection to another term as speaker.

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CENSUS UNDERCOUNT:  Gov. JB Pritzker said Tuesday, May 24, that he is asking President Joe Biden and the federal government to increase Illinois’ share of federal funding to reflect the results of a recent Census Bureau study showing the state was very likely undercounted in the 2020 census.

The news release from the governor’s office proclaimed, “Updated census data indicates Illinois has surpassed 13 million residents for the first time in history.” Meanwhile, Democrats in Illinois’ congressional delegation wrote directly to the Census Bureau to ask how the survey data will be used, warning of “grave consequences” of ignoring the new data.

The official 2020 census numbers released last August, however, have not been changed, “adjusted,” “updated” or “revised,” according to the Census Bureau. Illinois population is still counted as roughly 12.8 million.

Pritzker’s assertions, along with those of many others, are based on last week’s release of data from the Census Bureau’s “Post-Enumeration Survey,” or PES for short, which showed the state might have gained as many as 250,000 residents since the 2010 census.

“Consistent with our prior practice, we will not be adjusting the census counts for apportionment or redistricting,” Census Bureau statistician Timothy Kennel said during a media briefing last week. “The Post-Enumeration Survey is a probability survey of about 161,000 housing units in about 10,000 blocks across the country that is independent of the census operation.”

Based on data gathered in the PES survey, Illinois was among six states that had “statistically significant” undercounts in the 2020 census while eight states had statistically significant overcounts.

After each decennial census, bureau officials go into the field to conduct a follow-up survey, known as the PES. This year, they randomly selected 161,000 households – out of roughly 127 million occupied housing units in the country – and sent the occupants a survey questionnaire, basically asking them the same questions that appear on the census form: names, ages and demographic profile of each occupant of the household.

After subtracting from the sample any vacant structures, group living quarters and households that didn’t respond to the survey, they were left with a sample of about 114,000 households nationwide. From there, they compared the information on the survey form with the information submitted in the actual 2020 enumeration.

In this case, Illinois’ undercount was estimated at 1.97 percent. That would mean the population of the state that was reported in the 2020 census was only 98.03 percent of what it should have been, based on the survey. With “90 percent confidence,” officials pegged the undercount between 3.43 percent and 0.51 percent.

Pritzker and congressional Democrats aren’t trying to gain back the U.S. House seat that Illinois lost this year, which the Supreme Court ruled in 1999 is not permissible. They’re concerned about Illinois’ share of roughly $1.5 trillion in federal funding that flows to state and local governments based on formulas that use census data.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government that is distributed to more than 400 newspapers statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.