THE ILLINOIZE: Thursday Free for All
November 18, 2021
Good morning. Happy Thursday.
I’m not going to get deep into this because, well, God help us if there’s more on it. But on the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the young man from Lake County accused of murder in the killing of another man during the violence and protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake*, is getting a ton of attention from the national media.
*An earlier version mentioned the George Floyd aftermath. I apologize for the mistake.
Everybody and their brother seems to think they’re an expert on Wisconsin’s gun laws. And everyone with a Twitter account seems to think they know he’s guilty or not.
As someone who has sat through a crap ton of felony trials as a reporter, let’s just say these things are nuanced, difficult, and incredibly hard to hard to predict.
So, my advice to you is this: don’t overreact. Don’t let your political instincts or the people you follow on Twitter drive your reaction. Take a deep breath, pray for those involved, and close the Twitter window on your computer. (Only after you follow @the_illinoize, though.)
I am interested in your thoughts and questions on what’s happening around the state.
Drop me a note anytime at patrick@theillinoize.com.
And as we approach the end of the calendar year, I hope you’ll take a minute to join us as one of our paid subscribers. Subscribers get exclusive newsletters, first dibs on big news, and my lifelong love and adoration (which, really, is priceless.)
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Thanks for all of your support so far this year. I’m just in awe of the community we’re building here.
Let’s get to it.
YOUR THURSDAY FREE FOR ALL
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Illinois sees uptick in youth COVID-19 cases, school outbreaks heading into Thanksgiving break (Chicago Tribune)
An uptick in youth COVID-19 cases in Illinois in recent weeks is fueling school outbreaks and student quarantines, just days before the start of the Thanksgiving holiday break.
In the past two weeks, the average number of youth cases reported, ages 0-17, has risen from 628 a day to 1,020 a day, which equates to a 62% increase, based on a seven-day average, according to a Tribune analysis of state health department data.
All age groups are seeing major jumps, with a 57% rise in cases for those ages 0-4, a 59% rise for those ages 5-11, and 71% rise for ages 12-17.
As schools approach Thanksgiving break, the recent spike in cases is approaching the peak level of the fall 2021 surge for youth cases, which was an average of 1,228 a day, recorded on Sept. 4, in the early weeks of kids returning to classes.
But the recent figure, accurate through Tuesday, remains notably lower than the pandemic’s highest average daily tally of new youth cases — 1,532 — which was reported exactly a year earlier, on Nov. 16, 2020.
Anybody who asks me if the Governor is going to remove the indoor mask mandate anytime soon just needs to look at those numbers.
Related: Springfield District 186 school board votes to terminate teacher who skirted COVID mandate (State Journal-Register)
COVID-19 numbers creep up across Southern Illinois; cases up 29% statewide (The Southern Illinoisan)
Waukegan officials ‘rigged’ casino selection to favor bid from former state lawmaker, rejected competitor alleges in lawsuit (Chicago Tribune)
The former mayor of Waukegan and other officials “rigged” the bidding process for a casino in the north suburb to favor a proposal from a former Democratic lawmaker turned video gambling executive who bankrolled the campaigns of the mayor and City Council allies, a rejected bidder alleges in newly unsealed court documents.
The allegations, detailed in a recent federal court filing from a company owned by the Forest County Potawatomi Community, come as state gambling regulators are scheduled to vote Thursday to give preliminary approval for the license to operate a long-sought Waukegan casino. The Illinois Gaming Board is choosing between North Point Casino, led by former state Sen. Michael Bond, and Las Vegas-based Full House Resorts.
On Tuesday, the Potawatomi group filed a separate request in Cook County Circuit Court to block the Gaming Board from taking the vote, arguing that the city has not met its obligations under state gambling law before a license can be issued.
Tell me that’s not the most Illinois politics story ever.
Related: Businessman pleads guilty to rewarding then-state Sen. Martin Sandoval (Chicago Sun-Times)
GOP rivals rip Pritzker on pensions. Their answer? Well . . . . (Crain’s Chicago Business)
The four declared GOP candidates for governor gathered together to hold Democratic incumbent J.B. Pritzker’s feet to the fire on a critical problem he arguably has pretty much ignored: soaring state pension debt.
But with one partial exception, they were just as vague as Pritzker on how they’d solve the problem.
The gathering was a webcast by Wirepoints, a distinctly right-leaning research group that has been yowling for years about the state’s pension woes.
Wirepoints is right that there’s a problem. While the official unfunded liability in the state’s main pension funds is at $144 billion by last count, Wirepoints in a report issued today sets the real unfunded liability for Illinoisans at more than half a trillion dollars, $530 billion to be exact.
In comments during the webcast, [Sen. Darren] Bailey (R-Xenia) noted that he sponsored a measure (it didn’t pass) to repeal the pension clause of the Illinois Constitution, which the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled prevents any reduction in retirement benefits during the tenure of any public employee in the state. If that happened, Illinois would fulfill its “promise” to retirees that they would get benefits, while allowing for changes, such as “reasonable” cost-of-living increases rather than the 3% compounded paid now.
Bailey also termed Wirepoints’ own proposal “a good starting point.” The proposal calls for immediately freezing all pensions at what’s been earned to date, with workers instead put into 401(k)-style programs in which they’d pay 8% of salary and the state 7% of salary. Wirepoints would hold COLAs to 1% a year—and for only those earning under $50,000 a year—and abolish the Tier 2 plan that state workers hired after 2011 get.
Kudos to Bailey for actually having a plan on paper and being the only Republican to offer one. Unfortunately, his plan is completely unrealistic and will never be enacted into law.
If a Republican wants to be successful, they need a pension plan that improves the situation and can actually become law. Otherwise, they need to hang the problem squarely around the necks of the Democratic legislative majority.
Illinois Democrats used O’Fallon voters as a political pawns. Few people seem to care. (Belleville News-Democrat)
When Charlie Cook looks out across South Lincoln Avenue through the front window of her downtown O’Fallon bakery, she’s looking into a different congressional district.
It’s a boundary line that splits the southwestern Illinois town practically in half. “It seems like cherry-picking as far as the representatives are choosing their demographics,” said Cook, 38, a lifelong O’Fallon resident who opened The Happy Bakery eight years ago. “I don’t really support the idea of our representation being split that way just because anyone from O’Fallon should be able to go to the same representatives and be heard.”
Before Cook was asked about the issue, she, like many others, didn’t know state Democrats had drawn a line through O’Fallon. Roughly a dozen people approached by reporters had no clue their city had been split down the middle for political purposes following the 2020 Census.
Gerrymandering, a party’s manipulation of district boundaries for political advantage, contributes to polarization in the United States, dividing neighbors, family and friends. Yet few seem to know or care they’re being manipulated for political power.
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