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Chicago Tribune: Editorial: The unsubtle duping of Illinois voters on redistricting reform
There may be no more stark a case of Illinois voters being hoodwinked by their own elected officials than the empty rhetoric from state legislators supporting independent maps. You would be hard-pressed to find one lawmaker out of the 177 in Springfield who hasn’t campaigned on, voted for or expressed publicly the need to get politicians out of the process of drawing their own districts.
Yet the process, now underway in Springfield, is a repeat so far of the politicians picking you, instead of you picking them. New legislative maps are being drawn and worse, they’re charging ahead using flimsy population estimates.
Daily Herald: Earmarks return to Illinois politics, and so does the debate
Amid a conservative revolution and outrage about political corruption, Congress disciplined itself in 2011 by dropping the controversial practice of earmarks.
Now the hot-button allocations, often pet projects in lawmakers’ home districts, appear to be back, with a rebrand, after House Democrats and Republicans both endorsed a return. The issue is still being discussed in the Senate.
The Center Square: More than $205.4 million in cannabis taxes collected in Illinois as nonprofits receive first round of grants
About $31 million from adult-use cannabis taxes is going to nonprofits in Illinois as part of the Restore, Reinvest and Renew, or R3 program, and it’s not all going to Chicago.
Cannabis sales for January neared $90 million. Since adult-use sales began in January 2020, nearly $757.9 million in cannabis has been sold. The taxes on that can be more than 40%, depending on the potency and whether a local sales tax is added on to the state taxes.