THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All...Zuckerberg's cash infusion...Immigrants...Gambling
October 9, 2023
I don’t typically post national stories in these state-centric e-mails, but the Washington Post did a big piece on the Democratic congressional gerrymandering in Illinois in the new maps that took effect with the election last year.
The Governor’s protective Chief of Staff, Anne Caprara, unleashed quite the tweetstorm lambasting the story.
It’s of course silly gaslighting for a top Democrat to try to argue that the maps were anything but gerrymandered or that now-Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski won a district she argues was some kind of tossup, even though Joe Biden won it by 11 points in 2020.
And, yes, it’s a shocker that if you pack in a giant group of partisan voters (Republicans downstate or if you did it to Democrats in the city of Chicago) that you’re going to get more partisan elected officials. Give me a break.
Rant over.
The General Assembly returns two weeks from tomorrow for veto session. There’s nothing on Governor Pritzker’s public schedule today.
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YOUR MONDAY FREE FOR ALL
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Why Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg are spending $250M on science in Chicago (Crain’s Chicago Business)
Chicago beat out rivals across the country to land $250 million for a bio-research center from Dr. Priscilla Chan and her husband, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, thanks to a combination of ingenuity, moxie and cooperation from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
But all that wasn't what really won Chan over.
Chan praised “the tenacity, the grit, not incidentally the enthusiasm of the city’s leadership” today when she visited the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub’s home being built out at Fulton Labs. It was her first visit to Chicago since the biohub's announcement in March.
She also noted that Gov. J.B. Pritzker "showed up at the applicant interview day as the top cheerleader of the team presenting their case for a biohub” a year ago. He also offered $25 million in state support.
“The part of the application that sealed the deal for me,” she said, “the person that set the application apart from all other applications was Dr. Shana Kelley.”
Kelley, a biomedical engineer who had recently joined Northwestern, is now president of the Chicago biohub. She’s responsible for staffing up the research facility, which ultimately will employ about 50, and building out the lab where scientists will create the first “instrumented tissues.”
Related: Buoyed by state funding, new biomedical research hub launches in Chicago (Capitol News Illinois)
Mayor Brandon Johnson exploring backup plan to tent cities for migrants as Gov. J.B. Pritzker says more state funding unlikely (Chicago Tribune)
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration is exploring unspecified backup plans should it not hit its goal of setting up tent base camps for new asylum-seekers before winter, a top deputy said Thursday while also pushing back at comments from Gov. J.B. Pritzker that more state funds for migrant services aren’t going to be made available anytime soon.
With winter fast approaching and temperatures expected to dip into the low 40s in the next few days, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff Cristina Pacione-Zayas said the strategy announced one month ago to erect tent encampments throughout the city still has no start date and that no sites have been finalized because of the need to “do our due diligence.”
Her comments came as Pritzker appeared to close the door on any more state money being allocated for migrant relief by state lawmakers, who are meeting later this month and next for their fall veto session.
“It isn’t as if we’re coming in with enormous surpluses,” Pritzker told reporters Thursday. “This is not something where we have hundreds of millions of dollars to support.”
Asked about the governor’s comments, Pacione-Zayas, a former state senator, responded: “We have to continue to educate the General Assembly about this critical point that we’re in.”
“We have to go through the exercise, right? We have to identify what’s already committed, and might be able to be directed,” she said. “We have to think outside of the box and be creative around this, and so I don’t see the discussions (as) closed. I think that this needs to be ongoing. And as I’ve said before, everyone has to do more.”
Late Thursday, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch was spotted at City Hall and headed up toward the mayor’s office on the fifth floor.
Related: Opposition mounts as Joliet Township plans meeting on asylum grant (Shaw Media)
Gambling taxes generated record $1.99 billion for Illinois last year, but can it last? (Daily Herald)
The expanding array of wagering opportunities in Illinois created the state's largest windfall to date from gambling-related taxes during the last fiscal year.
The Illinois legislature's Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability's recently released annual "Wagering in Illinois" report shows the state's gambling taxes from lottery sales, casinos, horse racing, sports betting and video gambling climbed to $1.99 billion in the fiscal year that ended June 30, a 5.1% increase from the previous fiscal year.
But some industry experts are concerned the proliferation of gambling options statewide may not be sustainable long-term, ultimately resulting in a revenue decline.
"I'd question any of these companies investing more money into casinos there," said Alan Woinski, president of Gaming USA Corp., a Florida-based gambling industry consulting and market research firm. "All the state has done is create more competition for them and strangle them with taxes and regulations."
The state's 13 casinos generated $157 million in taxes for the state last fiscal year, far from the nearly $700 million annually they were generating in the early 2000s when the only competition for gamblers' dollars were the lottery and horse racing.
Rivers Casino in Des Plaines and several downstate casinos saw increased revenues from the previous year, but casinos in Elgin and Aurora saw fortunes decline, according to the report.
Related: Bally’s temporary casino at Medinah Temple nets $6.7 million and 80,000 visitors in first few weeks (Chicago Sun-Times)
Report shows first month's haul for Bally's temporary Chicago casino (Crain’s Chicago Business)
LAST WEEK ON THEILLINOIZE.COM
POLITICAL POTPOURRI
Durbin: Hamas attacks 'reprehensible;' other government leaders condemn action (State Journal-Register)
lllinois presidential primary process [began] Saturday with petitions for candidates and delegates (Chicago Tribune)
Illinois kickstarts funding to state prison libraries with $420K in grants (Chicago Sun-Times)
State-run developmental center in Dixon will not lose Medicare funding despite citations (Capitol News Illinois)
Chicago becomes largest US city to independently abolish subminimum wage for tipped workers (Chicago Tribune)
Illinois tollway launches new strategic and capital plan process, seeks input (Daily Herald)
Secret recordings cite ties between Berrios relative, Chicago mobster: ‘Jimmy and Frank were good friends’ (Chicago Sun-Times)
About 1,000 birds killed after colliding into McCormick Place Lakeside Center in one ‘tragic,’ deadly night (Chicago Sun-Times)
Editorial: Downtown buildings shouldn’t be bird death traps (Chicago Sun-Times)
Editorial: Brandon Johnson is going to the border. What about Austin, Texas, to meet with Gov. Greg Abbott? (Chicago Tribune)
Editorial: There's a familiar vacancy in a troubled state agency (Champaign News-Gazette)
Opinion: Here’s how to create a future for moderate Republicans in Illinois (Chicago Tribune)
Opinion: An uptick in robberies has made Chicagoans feel unsafe. Drop the politics and take action. (Chicago Tribune)
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