THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All

May 02, 2022

May 2, 2022

Good morning, Illinois.

First, on subscriptions. If you are due for renewal in the next few days, you likely received an automated e-mail. The accounts are generally set for automatic renewal, so if you don’t want that, please let me know. It won’t hurt my feelings. If you would like to become a paid subscriber with the cool kids in the state learning the ins and outs of what’s happening and why, a subscription is just $99 per year or $9.99 per month. Just click below to join us!

It has been 25 years since the great Mike Royko passed away, and the Trib did a great rundown of some old columns here. Some good reads for a Monday morning.

As always, I want to hear from you. Let me know what you think, what’s on your mind, your questions, comments, or complaints. I’m all ears. (Seriously, my ears are huge.) Just drop me a note 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)

Connor resigns from Illinois Senate (Shaw Media)

State Sen. John Connor, who succeeded Pat McGuire in the 2020 election, announced his resignation from the Illinois Senate on Friday.
Connor’s resignation took effect noon Saturday.
“It is with great sadness that I must resign my position as state senator to care for an immediate family member over the next three months,” Connor said in a written statement on Friday.
In 2021, Connor announced he would run for the 12th Circuit judicial vacancy in Will County in the 2022 election.

Related: Will County Progressives want ‘lame duck’ to replace Connor (Shaw Media)

Will County Board member Rachel Ventura and Joliet firefighter Eric Mattson are both seeking the Democratic nomination to replace Connor in the Senate.

Will County Democratic Chairman Burke Schuster essentially has the sole vote in choosing Connor’s successor, but it must be done within 30 days…before the June primary. That makes the idea of a seat filler more likely. We left him a message last night but haven’t heard back.

If you’re wondering, Ventura had around $23k on hand as of April 1. Mattson filed April 1 with $1,000 on hand, but raised at least $10,000 from firefighter PAC’s last month.

Pritzker knocks a $29 million hole in Lightfoot's re-election-year budget (Crain’s Chicago Business)

The Pritzker administration is poking a $29 million hole in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s re-election-year budget, a move prompted by slow-to-recover taxes on Chicago hotel rooms but also a sign of continued jostling between the two officials.
Earlier this week, the Illinois Department of Revenue notified the city that the state will be withholding $29 million in sales taxes that ordinarily would go into the city treasury—the so-called local government distributive share. Instead, that money will go to pay debt at the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, the agency that owns and operates Guaranteed Rate Field, home of the White Sox, and pays the bond debt tied to the 2003 renovation of Soldier Field.
To pay its bills, the authority generally relies on revenue from the 2% tax on city hotel and motel rooms. But with COVID having driven patronage at inns way down, revenues have fallen well short of what’s needed for debt service.

Related: Lightfoot tells Sun-Times she will run for second term (Chicago Sun-Times)

Opinion: Critics want Mayor Lightfoot gone, but you can’t beat somebody with nobody (Chicago Sun-Times)

Changing the narrative: Out-of-state businesses are buying Illinois' sales pitch (Daily Herald)

Maybe before you scream "Get me outta this $%^& state!!!" again, you should read what Dan Seals says to out-of-state businesses when he tells them, you should be in Illinois.
"Sometimes we don't appreciate what we have here," said Seals, the CEO of economic development organization Intersect Illinois, a public-private partnership between state government and many of the leading companies in the state. "And maybe it's a grass-is-always-greener sort of dynamic, but I meet a lot of people who are doing well but think they're the only ones who are doing well. And it just surprises me that there is such a wide gap between how we perceive ourselves and what the reality actually is here as far as our business environment is concerned.
"You don't get an economy this big, you don't get one this diverse and you don't get companies that large all here by having a bad business environment. That's illogical. And so I wish we could get more Illinoisans to be those kinds of ambassadors for what we have here and help me tell that story."
Out-of-state companies are paying close attention to Seals' marketing spiel. Maybe you should too.

Related: Editorial: Restaurants need the help of their customers, not more cash from Uncle Sam (Chicago Tribune)

Opinion: Can governor force businesses to brag on his behalf? (Champaign News-Gazette)

Opinion: Rep. Chesney: Welcome to Illinois: Stay for the family values, leave for the high taxes (Peoria Journal-Star)

Health officials recommend masks indoors in suburban Cook County (Crain’s Chicago Business)

The number of COVID-19 cases in suburban Cook County has steadily climbed over the last week, pushing the region into a “medium” level of transmission, according to the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention’s COVID community guidelines.
As of Thursday, suburban Cook County was reporting 210 cases per 100,000 residents in the last seven days, and the Cook County Department of Public Health is now recommending that residents in the region wear masks indoors.
CCDPH recommends suburban Cook County residents to wear masks indoors as a way to help protect high-risk individuals from becoming infected with a severe case of COVID. High-risk individuals include adults over 50 years old, those with underlying conditions and the immunocompromised.
For suburban Cook County residents, CCDPH also recommends residents socialize outdoors when possible and avoid poorly ventilated indoor settings. The department also suggests getting tested for COVID before gathering with others. Lastly, recieving COVID-19 vaccines and boosters is essential to fighting off the virus and combating rising cases, CCDPH said.
“These recommendations are not new but are being emphasized to protect our communities from further increases in COVID,” Dr. Rachel Rubin, the senior medical officer and co-lead of CCDPH, said in a statement. “As hospitalizations remain low, we want to contain further spread now.”

Eight weeks before an election, good luck expecting politicians to institute another mask mandate, either statewide or in a large municipality.

Shaw Media Candidate Surveys

Not just because they pay me to write a column, but Shaw Media has posted a big batch of candidate surveys. I’m confirming with my editor, but it appears Darren Bailey and Jesse Sullivan did not submit surveys, neither did Tom DeVore for Attorney General.

Governor:

Secretary of State:

Attorney General: