Daily news headlines for April 17 – Illinois Policy

Get the latest news headlines from around Illinois. Pritzker’s “soak the rich” strategy seems to have changed. On April 1, he and six other Democratic governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to remove the cap placed on federal state and local tax deductions by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Get the latest news headlines from around Illinois.

Pritzker’s “soak the rich” strategy seems to have changed. On April 1, he and six other Democratic governors sent a letter to President Joe Biden urging him to remove the cap placed on federal state and local tax deductions by the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Michael Madigan’s legal bills connected to an ongoing federal corruption probe skyrocketed in the first three months of this year as he was ousted from his longtime role as Illinois House speaker and resigned the Southwest Side legislative seat he occupied for a half-century.

Madigan’s main campaign fund, Friends of Michael J. Madigan, paid almost $2.7 million in legal fees to law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman from January through March, nearly $1 million more than he paid the firm in 2020, according to state campaign finance records.

Nearly one quarter of the state’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data released Friday by the Illinois Department of Public Health.

With more than 3.18 million state residents fully vaccinated, the percentage of fully vaccinated Illinoisans has reached 24.95 percent as of Thursday.

The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) is resuming in-person visitation at its correctional facilities statewide that were halted because of the pandemic.

Visitations will start at Lincoln, Logan and Menard correctional centers on May 3. It will be the first time in a year incarcerated people will have the opportunity to see loved ones.

The Illinois Legislature is in full swing for the spring session with most of the action so far focused in the House.

Their first week back after spring break, members of the Illinois House passed scores of bills, ranging from creating an elected school board for Chicago Public Schools to regulating puppy breeders and more.

When Democrats in the Illinois House voted in a new Speaker in January, many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were optimistic a new era would follow.

But three months later, Republicans claim they’re still being treated unfairly by Democrats who hold supermajorities in both the Illinois House and Senate.

Viewers reacted with a mix of outrage and grief to newly released bodycam video that showed a Chicago police officer fatally shoot a 13-year-old last month less than a second after the boy appeared to drop a handgun, turn toward the officer and begin raising his hands.

Amid renewed appeals for policing reform, some called for the officer who shot Adam Toledo to be charged or fired. But for others, the footage released Thursday showed how difficult such decisions might be for prosecutors and police higher-ups, with an officer making a split-second decision after chasing a suspect down a dark alley while responding to a report about gunshots.

The tentative agreement to reopen Chicago public high schools Monday has passed another hurdle and is heading to a full vote by the Chicago Teachers Union.

The pending deal was approved “overwhelmingly” by CTU’s House of Delegates late Thursday, and now needs a majority vote from the 25,000 rank-and-file members to be finalized, according to an email to members from union President Jesse Sharkey. That vote is expected this weekend.

Commonwealth Edison today filed with state regulators for a $51 million power-delivery rate hike to take effect at the start of next year. Coupled with a separate and larger hike in ComEd’s transmission rates, which are regulated by the federal government, and anticipated higher power prices taking effect in June, the total increase for the average household will be in the neighborhood of $1.60 per month, the utility said today.

Chicago voters would get to decide who sits on the city’s school board in the next two municipal elections under a bill that passed the Illinois House on Thursday and now moves to the state Senate.

All Chicago-based legislators voted in favor of advancing the bill, which would allow for the election of members of the Chicago Board of Education “for the 2023 and 2027 consolidated primary elections only” and requires the General Assembly to “review and revise the election of members of the Chicago Board of Education” at a later date.