THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All

Feb 28, 2022

February 28, 2022

Good morning.

Governor JB Pritzker spoke yesterday at rally supporting Ukraine in its conflict with Russia. He started his comments “Screw Vladimir Putin.”

That’s the most bipartisan thing he’s ever said.

Welcome to your Monday Free for All, where we add some stories and comment on things that happened over the weekend. Our main newsletter comes out tomorrow. Subscribers get exclusive newsletters Wednesday and Friday mornings.

I hope you’ll join the growing list of paid subscribers as we get to the last six weeks of the spring legislative session and the June 28 primary rapidly approaches. There will be a lot going on and we try to break it down here.

Just click below to subscribe. It’s only $7.99 per month or $75 for a whole year.

Some people think this is just a Republican newsletter or an anti-whatever newsletter. My opinion content skews moderately conservative and I won’t hide that, but I always try to present the stories of the day to you fairly and honestly. Everyone gets a fair shake, whether it’s a liberal Democrat or the most ardent Trump-supporting Republican.

Drop me an e-mail if you’d like to discuss anything. Questions, comments, complaints? They’re always welcome at patrick@theillinoize.com.

Let’s get to it.

YOUR MONDAY FREE FOR ALL

(note: we’re not responsible for paywalls and restrictions from other news outlets)

Pritzker Withdraws School Mask Mandate After Supreme Court Sends Lawsuit Back to Circuit Court (The Illinoize)

Depending on which side you talk to, Governor JB Pritzker either won big or lost big with the Illinois Supreme Court Friday night.
The Pritzker administration had asked the Supreme Court to clarify the Governor’s authority under both the Illinois Emergency Management Act and the Illinois Public Health Act.
n their brief to the Supreme Court, attorneys argued the Appellate Court left too many unanswered questions.
“The lack of clarity in the law in this area caused by the circuit and appellate courts has practical effects, too, as school districts, parents, students, and staff across the state struggle understand what is required of them going forward,” attorneys wrote. “So long as this and other questions presented by this case remain unresolved, state defendants will face uncertainty about the scope of their authority to protect the public from the ongoing pandemic, and the public will continue receiving mixed messages about the legality of the Governor’s EO’s and the state agencies’ emergency rules.”
Instead, the Supreme Court denied the request to take up that issue, kicking it back for a Sangamon County Circuit Judge to take up.
The court did vacate the Temporary Restraining Order against the school mask mandate, declaring it moot after a legislative panel refused to accept rules to enforce Pritzker’s order.
Late Friday, following the ruling, Republicans like Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) called on Pritzker to step back from his executive actions on .
“The Governor should accept defeat and allow us to begin to govern the way we ought to be—through collaboration of the Legislature and local stakeholders,” McConchie said in a statement.
Pritzker’s office did not respond to The Illinoize Friday, but told the Chicago Tribune he would instead said he would allow his school mask mandate to expire Monday along with the rest of the statewide indoor mask mandate.
“I’m also extremely pleased to say that because the CDC has recommended that masks are needed only in areas of high transmission, the state of Illinois will move forward to remove our school mask mandate, effective Monday,” Pritzker said. “We will recommend that all school districts follow CDC guidance and will update our existing guidance in the coming days.”
In a video statement posted on Facebook late Friday, Tom DeVore, a southern Illinois attorney who brought the suit, said the Supreme Court made it clear Pritzker does not have the authority to make his orders.
“JB Pritzker has no authority in his executive orders to do anything in a vacuum,” DeVore said. “There is no mandate under an executive order. Because [the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules didn’t adopt rules], the executive order means nothing.”

I’ll be doing some more digging on the constitutional questions around this issue today. I’ll have it in the newsletter tomorrow.

Related: Face mask requirement ends Monday, but some exceptions apply: Here's what you need to know (Daily Herald)

Masks can come off Monday in most places. After almost two years of COVID mandates, is this the end? (Chicago Tribune)

Opinion: My mask is not coming off (Chicago Sun-Times)

Incumbents in electoral trouble include Pritzker, Lightfoot, Democratic analyst says (Chicago Sun-Times)

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is the “favorite” to win a second term but it won’t be a “walk in the park” —no matter how deep his billionaire pockets.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot is in so much political trouble she may want to consider not even trying to get reelected.
That’s the no-holds-barred assessment from David Axelrod, an astute political strategist who has helped to elect mayors, senators and the nation’s first Black president.
A former presidential adviser to Barack Obama, CNN analyst and co-founder of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, Axelrod believes Illinois voters are so fed up with rising crime, two years of pandemic restrictions and inflationary pressures exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, incumbents from Pritzker on down will have a tough time getting reelected.
An even bigger billionaire, Illinois’ richest man Ken Griffin, has already pumped $20 million into the gubernatorial campaign of Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who’s seeking the GOP nomination.
That’s believed to be just a down payment for Griffin, who says he’s “all in” to oust Pritzker after succeeding in blocking Pritzker’s proposed constitutional amendment that would have implemented a graduated income tax in Illinois.
“Given the nature of the year and the resources that are massed against him and some of the scars of having to lead a state through the pandemic, he has to be seriously focused. …This is not gonna be a walk in the park for him,” Axelrod said of Pritzker.

While I’m sure Pritzker’s polling shows his weaknesses, and our November poll showed he had issues, Republicans still have to nominate a candidate that can win. And I’m not convinced they have one.

Hotel tax revenues fall $29M short; Chicago taxpayers could be on the hook to make up difference on Soldier Field bonds (Chicago Sun-Times)

Chicago taxpayers could be on the hook for a $29 million shortfall in hotel tax revenues needed to retire Soldier Field renovation bonds thanks to the pandemic’s lingering impact on hotels.
For the second straight year, the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority doesn’t have enough money to repay $415 million in outstanding debt, most of it tied to the much-maligned renovation of Soldier Field completed long before the Bears agreed to purchase the shuttered site of Arlington International Racecourse, where they are may build a new stadium.
The reason for the shortfall is simple. Occupancy and room rates at Chicago hotels haven’t come close to rebounding to pre-pandemic levels, according to Michael Jacobson, president and CEO of the Illinois Hotel & Lodging Association.
For the week ending Feb. 19, 35.1% of Chicago’s hotel rooms were occupied, compared to 63% in both 2020 and 2019.
Stadium authority board members were informed of the hotel tax shortfall at Wednesday’s monthly meeting. It was first reported by the Bond Buyer.
“Omicron kind of brought us to a new low. We thought we were gonna be further along in the recovery than we are right now,” Jacobson said Friday.
“We still think that 2024 will be the year when we’ll be back to pre-pandemic levels. … What we’re gonna see this year is still a heavy reliance on leisure travel. “
The bonds that funded the $660 million stadium renovation are paid off with part of the city’s hotel tax — but that financing package also assumed hotel tax revenue would grow a rosy 5.5% a year.

I do some business travel throughout the year, even during the pandemic. The hotel industry is hurting nationwide, but obviously in a tourist city like Chicago, it has huge ramifications. This is also a key sign the state won’t be getting involved building a new stadium for the Chicago Bears.

Pritzker’s gas tax relief plan faces opposition (Capitol News Illinois)

Gov. JB Pritzker’s plan for pausing a scheduled automatic increase in the state’s motor fuel tax is facing opposition from several quarters, including engineering companies that design road and bridge projects.
On Thursday, officials from the American Council of Engineering Companies of Illinois said pausing the scheduled increase could have long-term consequences that could endanger funding for future transportation projects.
“We're open to working with all parties to find options for relief,” ACEC Illinois president Kevin Artl said during a news conference. “But I think the history here in Illinois is that when you skip payments, it only makes things worse. And in this instance, skipping this adjustment will lead to a half a billion dollars in lost funds for infrastructure projects over five years.”
The automatic, inflation-adjusted increase in the tax was part of the funding package for the $45 billion “Rebuild Illinois” capital improvements plan that lawmakers approved in 2019. Proceeds of the tax are used for transportation projects such as road and bridge repairs.
Administration officials have estimated this year’s increase would be a little more than 2 cents per gallon. But in his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year, Pritzker called for a one-year pause in that increase, which would save consumers about $135 million over the year.
That was part of a nearly $1 billion package of tax relief measures that Pritzker offered to help soften some of the impact of inflation on Illinois consumers. Administration officials have said the one-year pause in the tax increase would not affect funding of any future projects or the state’s ability to repay bonds that are backed by motor fuel tax revenues.
But P.J. Fitzpatrick, with the firm HR Green Inc., said the inflationary increases in the motor fuel tax were an important element of the Rebuild Illinois program because without it, revenue from the tax could not keep up with the rising cost of construction projects
“HR Green works on quite a few IDOT-related projects, in addition to some local agency projects. And some of the projects we've worked on have experienced some delays in funding over the years,” he said. “This delay in funding has created what we'll call a backlog of projects, and that backlog prior to the Rebuild Illinois program was created because as inflation increased, the funding stayed flat and the ability to fund those projects didn't exist.”
Other groups that benefit from state transportation funding have come out against the proposed tax freeze as well, including road construction companies and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150, which represents road construction workers.
State lawmakers are still working on a budget package for the upcoming fiscal year, and they have not yet acted on Pritzker’s proposed one-year pause on the gas tax hike.
“There’ve been different groups who’ve had differing opinions pro and con on that,” House Majority Leader Greg Harris, D-Chicago, said during a separate news conference Thursday. “So that’ll be one of the topics both the House and the Senate are going to discuss. Do you keep it as the governor introduced in his budget? Do you do a modification? Or is there a better alternative somewhere?”

I live just a couple of miles from the City of Chicago line, and the first gas station in city limits had regular unleaded for $4.09 this weekend. That two cent break isn’t going to save taxpayers a lot of pain and will potentially cause more problems for the state budget and road fund.

SOME TOP LINKS FROM LAST WEEK

JOIN US

Bookmark our website

Like us on Facebook

THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All

Discussion about this post