Category: 1-Draft

By ANDREW ADAMS  Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com Abortion remains legal as an emergency medical procedure in Idaho, for now, after a Thursday U.S. Supreme Court ruling, while a bill that would cement those protections in Illinois law awaits Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature.  The 6-3 decision saw the three liberal justices concur with the order. Three […]

By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com With fiscal year 2025 slated to begin Monday, Gov. JB Pritzker continues to tout available state tax incentives and promote Illinois as a site for business development. On the season finale of “Illinois Lawmakers” this week, Pritzker pointed to a pair of developments in East Alton and Normal […]

By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com Nine months after cash bail ended in Illinois, the state is taking its first steps in publishing the data that crafters of the bail reform law saw as essential to judging its effectiveness. The data shows that judges in the 75 counties served by the Illinois Supreme Court’s […]

By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – The U.S. Supreme Court announced Tuesday it will not immediately review Illinois’ assault weapons ban, leaving the law in place at least until challenges to the law have been fully heard in lower courts. The announcement came just two days before the two-year anniversary of a […]

By ANDREW ADAMS  Capitol News Illinois aadams@capitolnewsillinois.com Changes to primary election fundraising, the electoral college and the state’s voter registration database are now law after Gov. JB Pritzker signed a wide-ranging bill on Monday. The legislation, containing several unrelated election measures, passed near the end of the legislature’s spring session on a vote of 68-38 in […]

By JERRY NOWICKI Capitol News Illinois jnowicki@capitolnewsillinois.com Illinois entered a new fiscal year Monday with a bit of a financial cushion as the prior year’s revenues exceeded final projections by about $123 million.  The state ended fiscal year 2024 with about $4.7 billion cash on hand, or about 9 percent of the allocated spending for […]

By HANNAH MEISEL Capitol News Illinois hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com Gov. JB Pritzker traveled to the White House to meet with President Joe Biden and his fellow Democratic governors on Wednesday amid rising worry within the party about the president’s ability to continue running for a second term. Pritzker – whose name had been floated by the pundit […]

By PETER HANCOCK Capitol News Illinois phancock@capitolnewsillinois.com SPRINGFIELD – When Illinois high school students sit down to take their annual state assessments next year, they will take a different exam than in recent years. The Illinois State Board of Education recently announced that starting next spring, it will use the ACT exam rather than the […]