Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan reportedly uses his large quantity of Cubs and White Sox tickets as gifts for his political volunteers, but his history with professional sports teams in Chicago isn’t so generous.
House Speaker Mike Madigan and House Minority Leader Jim Durkin used shell bills to avoid the March 31 deadline for bills to pass out of committee. Madigan passed 936 shell bills. Durkin passed 528. Meanwhile, thousands of substantive bills died without so much as a committee hearing.
An amendment to Illinois’ longstanding Liquor Control Act creates curious guidelines that seem likely to favor a few specific Chicago businesses, while keeping the status quo intact for the rest.
Government workers in Illinois can opt out of union membership, but they still have to pay fees to the union. Those fees are not supposed to go toward political activities, but a close look at AFSCME’s most recent union report demonstrates how unions use fair share fees for activities most people would consider “political.”
Luxembourg’s ambassador to the United States has voiced objections to an Illinois House bill that would label Luxembourg a tax haven and subject corporations expatriated there to restrictions on investments and business dealings with the state of Illinois.
A bill in the Illinois Senate would provide certain alcohol producers some freedom within the state’s three-tier system – which has been maintained through measures limiting competition and benefiting the politically connected.
Chicago’s $1.15 billion projected budget gap is the latest in a decades-long string of structural deficits. Making Chicago’s high taxes worse is not the solution.