#illinois legislature

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A bill to lower the cost of a lifesaving medication is headed to the Governor’s desk.

The proposal, which passed the General Assembly, would cap the cost of a twin pack of EpiPens at $60.

Families who need them say it would make a huge difference.

“You shouldn’t have to go, ‘Am I going to pay a bill or am I going to make sure that my child has this medication,’” Tiffany Mathis, the CEO and executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Illinois, said.

One night, Mathis’ daughter was eating butter pecan ice cream, when her face and lips started to swell. At the hospital, doctors discovered she had a tree nut allergy.

Her daughter has needed to carry an EpiPen for nearly a decade. But the lifesaving medication can come at a high cost.

“I was a single mom, I was on Medicaid, she was on All Kids insurance, and around that time, some years later, the EpiPen skyrocketed, and they went from no copay, low copay to $100 an EpiPen,” Mathis said.

Mathis said her family doesn’t need just one pack — they use multiple.

“She needs to have at least four or five to split between all the households, daycare, extracurricular activities that she was participating in,” Mathis said.

EpiPens also have an expiration date, which means they need to be replaced.

“We’re not talking about Tylenol, or ibuprofen, you’re talking about an EpiPen that you can’t just not have,” Mathis said.

For many people with allergies, they could experience a life threatening reaction known as anaphylaxis. They could have hives, redness on their skin, swelling of their lips and tongue, wheezing, and even trouble breathing.

But using the EpiPen in someone’s leg can help save a person’s life.

“Having an allergic reaction is scary, because everyday you live with a threat that your child might have something happen to them, and they might die over their allergy and it’s a very severe allergy at that,” Mathis said.

Lawmakers say they want to make the medication more affordable for families.

“This shouldn’t be an area where companies are making profits off of,” State Sen. Mike Halpin (D-Rock Island), one of the bill’s Senate sponsors, said. “This is life or death for little kids, as well as adults.”

A couple of years ago, the state passed legislation requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of EpiPens for people 18 or under.

“But it didn’t say affordable coverage for EpiPens and that’s where the General Assembly’s now having to go back and try to either define that or stipulate that with a specific dollar amount,” Garth Reynolds, the executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Association, said.

A two-pack of name brand EpiPens can cost more than $600 and up to $300 for the generic version.

#us politics #news #wcia #2023 #Illinois #epipens #food allergies #anaphylaxis #anaphylactic shock #Mike Halpin #Illinois General Assembly #Illinois Legislature #Garth Reynolds #Illinois Pharmacists Association #Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Illinois #Tiffany Mathis #gov. j.b. pritzker

[tomorrowusa]

Illinois has banned the sale of military-style assault weapons. Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the bill into law soon after it was passed by the Illinois legislature. 

The state immediately banned the sale of the military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines Tuesday evening, with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s signature on a bill the House had passed just hours earlier.

“Today, we made history, becoming the ninth state to institute an assault weapons ban —and one of the strongest assault weapons bans in the nation,” Pritzker said before signing the bill in a ceremony quickly put together at the state Capitol.

Contrary to far right propaganda, Illinois will not confiscate existing weapons legally obtained.

Those already owning the banned guns would be allowed to keep them but would have to register them with the Illinois State Police by Jan. 1.

In addition to thanking the legislators and activists who bucked the gun lobby to pass the bill, the governor paid tribute to some of the lives lost to assault weapons.

The mass shooting last year at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park last year was the last straw for many Illinoisans. 

The passage comes six months after a gunman killed the seven and wounded more than 48 people at the Highland Park Fourth of July parade. Police say shooting suspect Robert Crimo III used a Smith & Wesson M&P15, an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle whose initials, M&P, stand for “military and police.”  

[ ... ]

Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering applauded the bill’s passage and called it an “important step” but also urged the federal government to follow suit and enact a national ban.

“We need continued bold action to address mass shootings across our nation,” Rotering said in a statement, calling on Washington and other states to follow Illinois’ lead.

 The proposal became law in less than six weeks after being introduced.

House Democrats introduced the measure on Dec. 1 — and held three committee hearings in Chicago that featured more than 12 hours of emotional testimony from victims of gun violence, survivors and gun-rights advocates.

The new law will help a little but national legislation would help a lot more.

#illinois #assault weapons #law banning military-style assault weapons #j.b. pritzker #illinois legislature #guns #highland park #mass shootings #gun violence #robert crimo iii

[jennifermnhi]

Activist, former Illinois State Sen. Alice Palmer dies at 83 [Video]

#IllinoisSenateNews #IllinoisLegislature #IllinoisSenate #ILPolitics #ILSenateNews #Illinois Senate News #Illinois Legislature #Illinois Senate #IL Politics #IL Senate News

[a-love-poet-at-heart]

imma go to metropolis Illinois with a batman face mask on cause fuck you

#the state of illinois passed legislature calling it The Hometown of Superman

[feminist-space]

Article by Fortesa Latifi:

"Being the child of an influencer, Vanessa tells me, was the equivalent of having a full-time job—and then some. She remembers late nights in which the family recorded and rerecorded videos until her mother considered them perfect and days when creating content for the blog stretched into her homeschooling time. If she expressed her unease, she was told the family needed her. “It was like after this next campaign, maybe we could have more time to relax. And then it would never happen,” she says. She was around 10 years old when she realized her life was different from that of other children. When she went to other kids’ houses, she was surprised by how they lived. “I felt strange that they didn’t have to work on social media or blog posts, or constantly pose for pictures or videos,” she says. “I realized they didn’t have to worry about their family's financial situation or contribute to it.”

Vanessa, who requested anonymity to speak freely about her family dynamics, says she helped create content for huge companies like Huggies and Hasbro when her mom landed endorsement deals. When she reached puberty and began menstruating, her mother had her do sponsored posts for sanitary pads. “It was so mortifying,” she says. “I just felt like I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.”

Being part of an influencer family changed everything about her life, Vanessa says. “Sometimes I didn’t know where the separation was between what was real and what was curated for social media.” And her mother’s online presence indelibly warped their relationship. “Being an influencer kid turned my relationship with my mom into more of an employer-employee relationship than a parent-child one,” she says. “Once you cross the line from being family to being coworkers, you can’t really go back.”

...

Khanbalinov has had zero new offers since he took his kids offline. “When we were showing our kids, brands were rolling in left and right—clothing companies, apps, paper towel companies, food brands. They all wanted us to work with them,” he says. “Once we stopped, we reached out to the brands we had lined up and 99 percent of them dropped out because they wanted kids to showcase their products. And I fought back, like, you guys are a paper towel company—why do you need a kid selling your stuff?”

The law has woefully lagged behind the culture here, but there’s signs that policymakers might finally be catching up. In 2023, in addition to Illinois, three other states—New York, Washington State, and New Jersey—proposed bills to protect influencer kids. Contrast that with the flurry of legislative activity in just the first two months of 2024. Seven more states—Maryland, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, California, Arizona, Minnesota—have introduced similar legislation. Some of the bills are going one step further to protect the privacy of the kids featured in this content. In some states, proposed legislation would include a clause that borrows from a European legal doctrine known as the “right to be forgotten”—it would allow someone who was featured in content when they were a child to request that platforms permanently delete those posts. None of the current legislation introduced, however, would outright bar the practice of featuring minors in monetized content.

...

The movement on this issue was glacial for years, but it finally feels like the ice has thawed. Much of that progress is thanks to activists like Cam Barrett (she/they), a 25-year-old creator (@softscorpio) who uses TikTok to talk about her experience of being overshared in their childhood and adolescence. Barrett doesn’t go by her legal name anymore because of the online history it’s tied to. “I love my legal name,” Barrett tells me. “I just don’t love the digital footprint attached to it.” Last year, Barrett testified in front of the Washington State legislature as a proponent of a bill to protect influencer kids. This year, they testified again—this time, in front of the Maryland legislature.

“As a former content kid myself, I know what it’s like to grow up with a digital footprint I never asked for,” Barrett told the Maryland House of Delegates Economic Matters Committee in February. “As my mom posted to the world my first-ever menstrual cycle, as she posted to the world the intimate details about me being adopted, her platform grew and I had no say in what was posted.” And yet, Cam says her activism has been healing.

For Cam and other influencer children, getting a paycheck won’t give them back what they lost—a normal childhood unobstructed by the cameras pushed into their faces. But it could be the beginning of some version of restitution. “My friends say I’m fighting for little Cam,” she tells me. “It feels very healing because I didn’t have anyone to fight for me as a kid.”"

Read the full article here: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a60125272/sharenting-parenting-influencer-cost-children/

#children of influencers #influencers #children's rights #social media #fortesa latifi

[amtrak-official]

A bill has been proposed in the Illinois state legislature to merge the CTA, Metra and Pace into one agency to reduce redundancy and better fund transit in the Chicago Area

#train news #cta #Chicago

[todaysdocument]

News Note: A Bill Has Been Introduced in the Illinois Legislature Limiting Women's Hats to a Diameter of Eighteen Inches

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. SenateSeries: Berryman Political Cartoon Collection

This illustration entitled, "News Note: A Bill Has Been Introduced in the Illinois Legislature Limiting Women's Hats to a Diameter of Eighteen Inches", by cartoonist Clifford Berryman, which appeared in the Washington Evening Star on April 24, 1909, depicts the serious nature of issues caused by women wearing large hats, especially for men sitting behind them at sporting events.

Two women with enormous hats sit in the front row of a sporting event.  One is holding a scorecard and pencil.  The men behind them are maneuvering to see around them.  A man further back is standing up calling to a policeman, “Officer, do your duty!”  The man wears a sport coat, tie, starched collar, and a straw hat.  The other men in the stands are similarly dressed.  The police officer is standing amid the crowded stands.  His helmet says, “Hat Cop.”  He holds an 18 inch ruler and measuring tape.

#archivesgov #April 24 #1909 #1900s #hats #illinois #clifford berryman #political cartoons

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mike Hixenbaugh at NBC News:

METROPOLIS, Ill. — The pastor began his sermon with a warning. Satan was winning territory across America, and now he was coming for their small town on the banks of the Ohio River in southern Illinois. “Evil is moving and motivated,” Brian Anderson told his congregation at Eastland Life Church on the evening of Jan. 13. “And the church is asleep.” But there was still time to fight back, Anderson said. He called on the God-fearing people of Metropolis to meet the enemy where Satan was planning his assault: at their town’s library. A public meeting was scheduled there that Tuesday, and Christians needed to make their voices heard. Otherwise, Anderson said, the library would soon resemble a scene “straight out of Sodom and Gomorrah.” The pastor’s call to action three months ago helped ignite a bitter fight that some locals have described as “a battle for the soul” of Metropolis.

The dispute has pitted the city’s mayor, a member of Eastland Life Church, against his own library board of trustees. It led to the abrupt dismissal of the library director, who accused the board of punishing her for her faith. And last month, it drew scrutiny from the state’s Democratic secretary of state, who said the events in Metropolis “should frighten and insult all Americans who believe in the freedom of speech and in our democracy.” Similar conflicts have rocked towns and suburbs across the country, as some conservatives — convinced that Democrats want to "sexualize" and indoctrinate children — have sought to purge libraries of books featuring LGBTQ characters and storylines. Republican state legislatures have taken up a wave of bills making it easier to remove books and threatening librarians with criminal charges if they allow minors to access titles that include depictions of sex.

To counter this movement, Illinois Democrats last year adopted the first state law in the nation aimed at preventing book bans— which ended up feeding the unrest in Metropolis. Under the law, public libraries can receive state grant funding only if they adhere to the Library Bill of Rights, a set of policies long promoted by the American Library Association to prevent censorship.

Many longtime residents were stunned when these national fissures erupted in Metropolis, a quirky, conservative city of about 6,000 people that has a reputation for welcoming outsiders. Because of its shared name with the fictional city from DC Comics, Metropolis has for the past half century marketed itself as “Superman's hometown.” Tens of thousands of tourists stop off Interstate 24 each year to pose beneath a 15-foot Superman statue at the center of town, to attend the summertime Superman Celebration, or to browse one of the world’s largest collections of Superman paraphernalia at the Super Museum.

“Where heroes and history meet on the shores of the majestic Ohio River,” the visitor’s bureau beckons, “Metropolis offers the best small-town America has to offer.” But lately, the pages of the Metropolis Planet — yes, even the masthead of the local newspaper pays homage to Clark Kent — have been filled with strife. Unlike in comic books and the Bible, the fight in Metropolis doesn’t break along simple ideological lines. Virtually everyone on either side of the conflict identifies as a Christian, and most folks here vote Republican. The real divide is between residents who believe the public library should adhere to their personal religious convictions, and those who argue that it should instead reflect a wide range of ideas and identities.

During his sermon in January and in the months since, Anderson has cast his congregation and their God as righteous defenders of Metropolis — and the Library Bill of Rights and its supporters as forces of evil. If Christians didn’t take a stand, Anderson warned, there would soon be an entire children’s section at the library “dedicated to sexual immorality and perversion.” And before long, he said, the town would be hosting “story hour with some guy that thinks he’s a girl.”

[...] A week later, the board went into a closed session and presented Baxter with an ultimatum: If she wanted to keep her job, she needed to sign a performance improvement plan. It stipulated that she would abide by the Library Bill of Rights, seek state grant funding and discontinue praying aloud with children and other religious activities at the library. Baxter refused to sign and began to criticize the board. Voices were raised, according to three members. After a few minutes, James, the board president, slammed her fist on the table. “This is not up for debate, Rosemary,” she said. “Either sign it, or don’t.” Baxter stood up and left. Minutes later, the board came out of closed session. By a vote of 5-3, they terminated Baxter’s employment. Baxter’s departure left the library in turmoil. Four employees resigned soon after, and the board got to work picking up the pieces.  They brought on a former library employee to serve as interim director and embarked on top-to-bottom reviews of the library’s catalog and finances. “Our focus,” James said, “is making sure our library is strong and healthy and there to serve everyone.” Then, on March 19, the story of Baxter’s firing was picked up by Blaze Media, a national conservative outlet. In a column titled, “A librarian’s faithful service is silenced by a secularist takeover,” conservative talk radio host Steve Deace interviewed Baxter and Anderson and reported that both had come under fire for their Christian beliefs.

Deace presented the local saga as a warning that evil forces were now coming for small-town America and blamed the problems in Metropolis, in part, on “a California transplant who is living with another man,” referring to Loverin, the library board member. Three days later, Metropolis Mayor Don Canada — who in 2021 had appointed Anderson, his pastor, to an open seat on the City Council — took a stand of his own. In letters addressed to James and two other board members, Canada announced that he’d “lost faith in the Board in its current state.” As a result, he was removing James and two others who’d voted to terminate Baxter. 

In Superman's alleged hometown of Metropolis, Illinois, the town has been engulfed with strife over conflicts on the direction of the town's public library, with Eastland Life Church Pastor Brian Anderson leading a war against the library as part of the faux moral panic about LGBTQ+ books that right-wingers falsely claim such books "sexualize" children.

#Metropolis Illinois #Illinois #Libraries #Book Bans #Book Banning #Public Libraries #Anti LGBTQ+ Extremism #Eastland Life Church #Brian Anderson #Alexi Giannoulias #Illinois HB2789 #American Library Association #Metropolis Public Library #Rhonda James #Rosemary Baxter #Library Bill of Rights #Culture Wars #Steve Deace #Don Canada #Library Boards

[radiofreederry]

I see a lot of posts that seem to conflate gerrymandering with voter suppression writ large, so I thought I'd take some time to define and explain what gerrymandering actually is.

Keep in mind that gerrymandering is most prominent in America and I'm using an American perspective in this post, but it can happen in any country with single-member electoral constituencies.

Firstly, gerrymandering specifically applies to the drawing of single-member legislative constituencies. Districts for the US House of Representatives, state legislatures, or even local bodies such as city councils can be gerrymandered. When applied to state-level or national-level elections - what we may consider "at large" elections - such as for state governors, US Senators, or the President, the term effectively has no meaning.

There are two basic forms of gerrymandering, which are generally accomplished in one of two ways. I'll break down the methods used first:

PACKING is when a specific bloc of voters are crammed into one district. This can be done either to dilute the voting power of that bloc by ensuring they only hold influence in one district, or to ensure representation of an interest group. This was the intention of Illinois's 4th congressional district, long infamously nicknamed "the earmuffs" because of its shape, which united two otherwise-unconnected Latine communities in Chicago, following a court order to ensure a majority-Latine district in the Chicago area.

Black voters in Alabama were also packed into a single district, in a map that was just struck down by the Supreme Court as a racial gerrymander and violation of the Voting Rights Act. More on this in a bit.

CRACKING explicitly seeks to dilute the power of a particular voting bloc, by shattering it among several different districts such that the bloc becomes a minority in each, and is unable to influence election results, which inevitably favor the preferred majority in each district. In Republican-governed states, this is often employed as a tactic to break the voting power of urban areas, which tend to be more diverse and liberal. For a specific example, look to Texas' capital Austin, one of the state's most progressive cities, which is split between six districts, only two of which are Democratic, and some of which are represented by some of the most conservative members of Congress.

Gerrymandering can also be done via "hijacking," drawing district borders such that two incumbents have to fight over one seat, or by "kidnapping," in which the home of one district's incumbent is redrawn into another, but those are less prevalent.

Now, as stated, there are generally two reasons for gerrymandering: racial and partisan. In the United States, the lines between these are often blurry, because specific racial and ethnic groups tend to lean towards one party or another (i.e. Black voters in general tend to favor voting Democratic, while Vietnamese voters are more likely to favor Republican candidates). Regardless, racial gerrymandering is explicitly unlawful as affirmed in the 1995 Supreme Court case Miller v. Johnson (exceptions have been applied, such as the Illinois example above, where the intent is to ensure representation of an underrepresented group), whereas the legality of partisan gerrymandering is more of a state-by-state affair.

Gerrymandering is not merely a Republican tool of voter suppression - and given that it is only applicable to elections involving single-member districts with maps drawn on a partisan basis, it's not even the principal method of voter suppression they use. Democrats also employ gerrymandering - it's simply a natural feature of a system that uses these kinds of districts! For example, going back to Illinois, the current 13th district cuts a swath through rural downstate Illinois to create a majority Democratic district and dilute the voting power of rural Republicans.

I hope this post has given you a better understanding of what gerrymandering is and what it is not - remember that when discussing voter suppression, we also should be talking about things like voter ID laws, voter roll purges, barriers to registration, the barring of convicts from voting, etc. There's a lot more to voter suppression than just gerrymandering.

#politics #law

[robertreich]

The Republican Party’s Worst Nightmare

Republicans have been trying to crush unions for decades, but American workers are fighting back with a vengeance.

Many GOP leaders wink and nod while talking about “making America great again,” as if the country was more prosperous when they were in charge.

Rubbish.

Yes, there was a time when the American economy worked better for workers than it does now, but not because Republicans played any part in making it that way. And certainly not because of the bigotry, misogyny, and racism they’ve been peddling to pit workers against each other to distract them from how much wealth is being siphoned off to the top.

In fact, Republicans have been waging a relentless war against what had been one of the biggest drivers of prosperity for the working class — labor unions.

Now, it’s important to note that this prosperity wasn’t shared equally with women or people of color, but a big reason much of the workforce was better off decades ago than today is because of the power of labor unions to organize and fight for the rights and dignity of workers.

Republicans have fought labor unions tooth and nail. They’ve enacted deceptively named "right-to-work" laws, which are all about weakening unions rather than giving workers more rights. And they've voted against bills allowing workers to form unions with simple up or down majorities at the workplace.  

This is the great irony of the MAGA movement. And it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. If Republicans really cared about American greatness, they would support unions — one of the major tools at our disposal to actually combat inequality and lift up the working class.

Fortunately — despite Republican efforts — labor unions are on the rise once more. And so are pro-labor Democratic politicians.

These Democrats won big in the 2022 midterms — especially in the rust belt. They captured the governorships of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, and also Michigan — where they flipped both chambers of the state legislature. The last time Democrats had full control of Michigan’s state government was in the 1980s.

And look at the impressive victory of John Fetterman — the new U.S. senator from Pennsylvania. He defeated a wealthy Republican snake oil salesman and flipped a senate seat, while running on an unabashedly pro-worker platform aiming to increase the federal minimum wage, end corporate price gouging, and make it easier for workers to organize unions at their workplaces.

It wasn’t just pro-worker politicians who won big during the midterms, but worker friendly ballot measures as well — almost universally opposed by Republicans.

Illinois voted to enshrine collective bargaining rights into its constitution, effectively banning right to work laws from ever being passed in the state.

Washington D.C. voted overwhelmingly to eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers.

Voters in Nebraska and Nevada chose to increase their state minimum wage.

Forced prison labor was outlawed in Vermont, Alabama, Tennessee, and Oregon.

Republicans, along with their rich and powerful patrons, have always feared that working people would recognize their collective power, both through unions and at the ballot box. So the wealthy are doing everything they can to hold working people down.

But the midterm elections and the resurgent worker power movement should give us hope that a more just and equitable United States will be built with union labor.

It’s not just about making America great — it’s about making America better. Not just a bigger economy but a fairer economy. Not just more wealth for the wealthy, but better and more secure lives for all.

#youtube #videos #video #unions #labor #John Fetterman #GOP #Republicans #politics

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

The Illinois Legislature passed a bill this week which would require school districts to establish all-day kindergarten, and it is now headed to the Governor’s desk to become law.

House Bill 2396 passed the House in March and the Senate last week.

“Full-day kindergarten has shown to boost academic gains and prepare children for the social and emotional demands of early elementary,” State Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) said, according to The Center Square. “This can provide students and their families with sufficient support and opportunities in their early education career.”

The bill was submitted by Rep. Mary Beth Canty (D-Arlington Heights), who said the goal of the measure is to strengthen reading comprehension and social skills.

Nearly 80% of schools in the state already offer full-day kindergarten classes, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

The law would phase in over two years, so schools can seek tax increases for the transition.

#us politics #news #my state line #2023 #House Bill 2396 #Illinois #kindergarten #education reform #education system #Illinois Legislature #Kimberly Lightford #The Center Square #Mary Beth Canty #Illinois State Board of Education #WTVO #wqrf

[tomorrowusa]

The Illinois legislature passed an assault weapons ban earlier this year. On Friday the Illinois Supreme Court upheld that ban.

The Illinois Supreme Court has rejected a challenge to the state’s ban on assault weapons, meaning that law will stay in effect statewide. In a 4-3 decision issued Friday morning, the high court overturned a lower court’s ruling, stating the ban is constitutional and does not “deny equal protection nor constitute special legislation.” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he was “pleased” with the ruling Friday and called it a win for “advocates, survivors, and families alike because it preserves this nation-leading legislation to combat gun violence and save countless lives.” “This is a commonsense gun reform law to keep mass-killing machines off of our streets and out of our schools, malls, parks, and places of worship,” he said in a statement. “Illinoisans deserve to feel safe in every corner of our state—whether they are attending a Fourth of July Parade or heading to work—and that’s precisely what the Protect Illinois Communities Act accomplishes.”

The law is not retroactive and those who legally bought such guns before the law went into effect can keep them. The differentiation between existing ownership and new ownership was the basis for the suit which SCOIL ruled on.

“To the extent plaintiffs allege they already possess restricted items, plaintiffs may retain them but may not acquire more, which matches the restrictions placed on those who are grandfathered under the Act,” the court wrote in its ruling. “The statutes treat plaintiffs who already possess assault weapons and LCMs the same as the grandfathered individuals.”

There will probably be other attempts to overturn the Illinois law. The Illinois assault weapons ban may very well end up before the US Supreme Court. A SCOTUS ruling against the Illinois law in an election year could set off a firestorm similar to what happened after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision last year.

The assault weapons law would not have been possible without a Democratic trifecta in Illinois.

After decades of treating state government like a poor cousin, Democrats in many states have taken a renewed interest in that level of governance. Michigan Democrats gained a trifecta in Michigan for the first time in over 35 years with the 2022 elections and passed a remarkable series of reforms in 100 days.

So good things happen when people get more involved in state politics. As I like to remind people, the first step is to find out who represents you in your state legislature. This site makes it easy to find that out...

Find Your Legislators Look your legislators up by address or use your current location.

#illinois #assault weapons #assault weapons ban #illinois legislature #illinois law #illinois supreme court #j.b. pritzker #gun violence #democratic trifecta #state government #election 2023 #election 2024

[jennifermnhi]

UAW members at Chicago ford assembly plant could go on strike NBC Chicago [Video]

#IllinoisAssemblyNews #ILLegislation #ILLegislature #IllinoisAssembly #Illinois Assembly News #IL Legislation #IL Legislature #Illinois Assembly

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"The Progressives’ design for the penitentiary did alter the system of incarceration. Their ideas on normalization, classification, education, labor, and discipline had an important effect upon prison administration. But in this field, perhaps above all others, innovation must not be confused with reform. Once again, rhetoric and reality diverged substantially. Progressive programs were adopted more readily in some states than in others, more often in industrialized and urban areas, less often in southern, border, and mountain regions. Nowhere, however, were they adopted consistently. One finds a part of the program in one prison, another part in a second or in a third. Change was piecemeal, not consistent, and procedures were almost nowhere implemented to the degree that reformers wished. One should think not of a Progressive prison, but of prisons with more or less Progressive features.

The change that would have first struck a visitor to a twentieth-century institution who was familiar with traditional practices, was the new style of prisoners’ dress. The day of the stripes passed, outlandish designs gave way to more ordinary dress. It was a small shift, but officials enthusiastically linked it to a new orientation for incarceration. In 1896 the warden of Illinois’s Joliet prison commented that inmates “should be treated in a manner that would tend to cultivate in them, spirit of self-respect, manhood and self-denial. . . , We are certainly making rapid headway, as is shown by the recently adopted Parole Law and the abolishment of prison stripes.” In 1906, the directors of the New Hampshire prison, eager to follow the dictates of the “science of criminology” and “the laws of modern prisons,” complained that “the old unsightly black and red convict suit is still used. . . . This prison garb is degrading to the prisoner and in modern prisons is no longer worn.” The uniform should be grey: “Modern prisons have almost without exception adopted this color.” The next year they proudly announced that the legislature had approved an appropriation of $700 to cover the costs of the turnover. By the mid-1930’s the Attorney General’s survey of prison conditions reported that only four states (all southern) still used striped uniforms. The rest had abandoned “the ridiculous costumes of earlier days.”

To the same ends, most penitentiaries abolished the lock step and the rules of silence. Sing-Sing, which had invented that curious shuffle, substituted a simple march. Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary, world famous for creating and enforcing the silent system, now allowed prisoners to talk in dining rooms, in shops, and in the yard. Odd variations on these practices also ended. “It had been the custom for years,” noted the New Hampshire prison directors, “not to allow prisoners to look in any direction except downward,” so that “when a man is released from prison he will carry with him as a result of this rule a furtive and hang-dog expression.” In keeping with the new ethos, they abolished the regulation.

Concomitantly, prisons allowed inmates “freedom of the yard,” to mingle, converse, and exercise for an hour or two daily. Some institutions built baseball fields and basketbaIl courts and organized prison teams. “An important phase in the care of the prisoner,” declared the warden of California’s Folsom prison, “is the provisions made for proper recreation. Without something to look forward to, the men would become disheartened. . . . Baseball is the chief means of recreation and it is extremely popular.” The new premium on exercise and recreation was the penitentiary’s counterpart to the Progressive playground movement and settlement house athletic clubs.

This same orientation led prisons to introduce movies. Sing Sing showed films two nights a week, others settled for once a week, and the warden or the chaplain usually made the choice. Folsom’s warden, for example, like to keep them light: “Good wholesome comedy with its laugh provoking qualities seems to be the most beneficial.” Radio soon appeared as well. The prisons generally established a central system, providing inmates with earphones in their cells to listen to the programs that the administration selected. The Virginia State Penitentiary allowed inmates to use their own sets, with the result that, as a visitor remarked “the institution looks like a large cob-web with hundreds of antennas, leads and groundwires strung about the roofs and around the cell block.”

Given a commitment to sociability, prisons liberalized rules of correspondence and visits. Sing-Sing placed no restrictions on the number of letters, San Quentin allowed one a day, the New Jersey penitentiary at Trenton permitted six a month. Visitors could now come to most prisons twice a month and some institutions, like Sing-Sing, allowed visits five times a month. Newspapers and magazines also enjoyed freer circulation. As New Hampshire’s warden observed in 1916: “The new privileges include newspapers, that the men may keep up with the events of the day, more frequent writing of letters and receiving of letters from friends, more frequent visits from relatives . . . all of which tend to contentment and the reestablishment of self-respect.’? All of this would make the prisoners’ “life as nearly normal as circumstances will permit, so that when they are finally given their liberty they will not have so great a gap to bridge between the life they have led here . . . and the life that we hope they are to lead.”

These innovations may well have eased the burden of incarceration. Under conditions of total deprivation of liberty, amenities are not to be taken lightly. But whether they could normalize the prison environment and breed self-respect among inmates is quite another matter. For all these changes, the prison community remained abnormal. Inmates simply did not look like civilians; no one would mistake a group of convicts for a gathering of ordinary citizens. The baggy grey pants and the formless grey jacket, each item marked prominently with a stenciled identification number, became the typical prison garb. And the fact that many prisons allowed the purchase of bits of clothing, such as a sweater or more commonly a cap, hardly gave inmates a better appearance. The new dress substituted one kind of uniform for another. Stripes gave way to numbers.

So too, prisoners undoubtedly welcomed the right to march or walk as opposed to shuffle, and the right to talk to each other without fear of penalty. But freedom of the yard was limited to an hour or two a day and it was usually spent in “aimless milling about.” Recreational facilities were generally primitive, and organized athletic programs included only a handful of men. More disturbing, prisoners still spent the bulk of non-working time in their cells. Even liberal prisons locked their men in by 5:30 in the afternoon and kept them shut up until the next morning. Administrators continued to censor mail, reading materials, movies, and radio programs; their favorite prohibitions involved all matter dealing with sex or communism. Inmates preferred eating together to eating alone in a cell. But wardens, concerned about the possibility of riots with so many inmates congregated together, often added a catwalk above the mess hall and put armed guards on patrol.

Prisoners may well have welcomed liberalized visiting regulations, but the encounters took place under trying conditions. Some prisons permitted an initial embrace, more prohibited all physical contact. The rooms were dingy and gloomy. Most institutions had the prisoner and his visitor talk across a table, generally separated by a glass or wire mesh. The more security-minded went to greater pains. At Trenton, for example, bullet-proof glass divided inmate from visitor; they talked through a perforated metal opening in the glass. Almost everywhere guards sat at the ends of the tables and conversations had to be carried on in a normal voice; anyone caught whispering would be returned to his cell. The whole experience was undoubtedly more frustrating than satisfying.

The one reform that might have fundamentally altered the internal organization of the prison, Osborne’s Mutual Welfare League, was not implemented to any degree at all. The League persisted for a few years at Sing-Sing, but a riot in 1929 gave guards and other critics the occasion to eliminate it. One couId argue that inmate self-rule under Osborne was little more than a skillful exercise in manipulation, allowing Osborne to cloak his own authority in a more benevolent guise. It is unnecessary, however, to dwell on so fine a point. Wardens were simply not prepared to give over any degree of power to inmates. After all, how could men who had already abused their freedom on the outside be trusted to exercise it on the inside? Administrators also feared, not unreasonably, that inmate rule would empower inmate gangs to abuse fellow prisoners. In brief, the concept of a Mutual Welfare League made little impact on prison systems throughout this period.

If prisons could not approximate a normal community, they fared no better in attempting to approximate a therapeutic community. Again, reform programs frequently did alter inherited practices but they inevitably fell far short of fulfilling expectations. Prisons did not warrant the label of hospital or school.

Starting in the 1910’s and even more commonly through the 1920's, state penitentiaries established a period of isolation and classification for entering inmates. New prisoners were confined to a separate building or cell block (or occasionally, to one institution in a complex of state institutions); they remained there for a two- to four-week period, took tests and underwent interviews, and then were placed in the general prison population. In the Attorney General’s Survey of Release Procedures: Prisons forty-five institutions in a sample of sixty followed such practices. Eastern State Penitentiary, for example, isolated newcomers for thirty days under the supervision of a classification committee made up of two deputy wardens, the parole officer, a physician, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, the educational director, the social service director, and two chaplains. The federal government’s new prison at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, opened in 1932 and, eager to employ the most modern principles, also followed this routine. All new prisoners were on “quarantine status,” and over the course of a month each received a medical examination, psychometric tests to measure his intelligence, and an interview with the Supervisor of Education. The Supervisor then decided on a program, subject to the approval of its Classification Board. All of this was to insure “that an integrated program . . . may lead to the most effective adjustment, both within the Institution and after discharge.”

It was within the framework of these procedures that psychiatrists and psychologists took up posts inside the prisons for the first time. The change can be dated precisely. By 1926, sixty-seven institutions employed psychiatrists: thirty-five of them made their appointments between 1920 and 1926. Of forty-five institutions having psychologists, twenty-seven hired them between 1920 and 1926. The innovation was quite popular among prison officials. “The only rational method of caring for prisoners,” one Connecticut administrator declared, “is by classifying and treating them according to scientific knowledge . . . [that] can only be obtained by the employment of the psychologist, the psychiatrist, and the physician.” In fact, one New York official believed it “very unfair to the inmate as well as to the institution to try and manage an institution of this type without the aid of a psychiatrist.”

Over this same period several states also implemented greater institutional specialization. Most noteworthy was their frequent isolation of the criminal insane from the general population. In 1904, only five states maintained prisons for the criminally insane; by 1930, twenty-four did. At the same time, reformatories for young first offenders, those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five or sixteen and thirty, became increasingly popular. In 1904, eleven states operated such facilities; in 1930, eighteen did. Several states which constructed new prisons between 1900 and 1935 attempted to give each facility a specific assignment. No state pursued this policy more diligently than New York. It added Great Meadow (Comstock), and Attica to its chain of institutions, the first two to service minor offenders, the latter, for the toughest cases. New York‘s only rival was Pennsylvania. By the early 1930’s it ran a prison farm on a minimum security basis; it had a new Eastern State Penitentiary at Grateford and the older Western State Penitentiary at Pittsburgh for medium security; and it made the parent of all prisons, the Eastern State Penitentiary at Philadelphia, the maximum security institution. Some states with two penitentiaries which traditionally had served different geographic regions, now tried to distinguish them by class of criminals. In California, for instance, San Quentin was to hold the more hopeful cases, Folsom the hard core.

But invariably, these would-be therapeutic innovations had little effect on prison routines. They never managed to penetrate the system in any depth. Only a distinct minority of institutions attempted to implement such programs and even their efforts produced thin results. Change never moved beyond the superficial."

- David J. Rothman, Conscience and Convenience: The Asylum and Its Alternatives in Progressive America. Revised Edition. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 2002 (1980), p. 128-134

#penal reform #progressive penology #progressive politics #rehabilitation #penal modernism #american prison system #penology #prison sports #prison community #prison discipline #convict uniforms #prison routine #classification and segregation #history of crime and punishment #mutual welfare league #utopia of classification #academic quote #reading 2023 #david rothman

[beardedmrbean]

The Kansas legislature passed a bill Wednesday that would classify organized retail crime (ORC) a felony offense, joining nine other states that have passed similar laws in the last year. 

ORC refers to orchestrated groups of shoplifters who commit smash-and-grab robberies of stores or target cargo carriers.

The state’s upper chamber passed the Substitute House Bill 2144, which would split the felony charges into two tiers. A theft of merchandise valued at more than $3,000 would be classified a felony and those convicted would face between 31 and 136 months behind bars. If the amount stolen exceeds $15,000, the sentence range is between 38 and 172 months. 

'BURGLARY TOURISM' PLAGUES SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AS UNVETTED FOREIGNERS RAID LUXE HOUSES

The bill still has to be signed by Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, before it goes into effect. 

In support of the bill, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach wrote that ORC isn’t "mere shoplifting."

"These crimes typically involve stealing for personal use. It is large-scale theft of retail merchandise that represents a concerted effort to victimize a business, often with the intention of reselling the items for financial gain and often using those financial proceeds to fund additional criminal activity," he said.

A 2023 report from the National Retail Federation, the world’s largest retail association, found that organized retail crime was a primary driver of the massive amount of "shrink" retailers saw in 2022, with non-employee stealing making up 36%. 

The term "shrink" typically means theft and other forms of inventory losses, and retailers nationwide experienced $112 billion in losses in 2022. 

Texas, Virginia, Alabama, Indiana, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Oregon enacted retail theft laws last year, while California, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana and North Carolina passed ORC laws in 2022. 

"While theft has an undeniable impact on retailer margins and profitability, retailers are highly concerned about the heightened levels of violence and threat of violence associated with theft and crime," the NRF wrote on its website. 

State Senate Republicans who voted for the bill argued that ORC needs its own category since shoplifters who steal for their own use versus those who are part of a broader organized scheme are charged the same way. 

"Currently we don’t have the proper tools to prosecute that type of crime, so that’s what this bill does," state Sen. Kellie Warren, a Republican, said of the bill, The Topeka Journal reported. 

Some states hit hard by retail theft have gone so far as to create their own law enforcement task forces to address it. The NRF found that Los Angeles was one of the hardest-hit cities in California for ORC, leading the LA County Sheriff Department to create the Organized Retail Theft Crime Task Force.

Meanwhile, opponents of tough-on-crime laws such as these argue the harsher penalties are too extreme for the crimes and could prevent a person from being rehabilitated. Maine’s legislature passed a bill in the House this week that would prohibit charging people who already have two prior convictions of theft if the third theft is worth less than $500. The state’s current law permits a felony charge for the third conviction if the crimes all occur within a decade. 

#nunyas news

[kny111]

New York would create a commission to consider reparations to address the lingering, negative effects of slavery under a bill passed by the state Legislature on Thursday.

"We want to make sure we are looking at slavery and its legacies," said state Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages before the floor debate. "This is about beginning the process of healing our communities. There still is generational trauma that people are experiencing. This is just one step forward."

The state Assembly passed the bill about three hours after spirited debate on Thursday. The state Senate passed the measure hours later, and the bill will be sent to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for consideration.

New York would be following the lead of California, which became the first state to form a reparations task force in 2020. That group recommended a formal apology from the state on its legacy of racism and discriminatory policies and the creation of an agency to provide a wide range of services for Black residents. They did not recommend specific payments amounts for reparations.[1]

The New York legislation would create a commission that would examine the extent to which the federal and state governments supported the institution of slavery.[2] It would also address persistent economic, political and educational disparities experienced by Black people in the state today.

According to the New York bill, the first enslaved Africans arrived at the southern tip of Manhattan Island, then a Dutch settlement, around the 1620s and helped build the infrastructure of New York City. While the state Legislature enacted a statute that gave freedom to enslaved Africans in New York in 1817, it wasn't implemented until 10 years later.[3]

"I'm concerned we're opening a door that was closed in New York State almost 200 years ago,"[4] said Republican state Assemblymember Andy Gooddell during floor debates on the bill. Gooddell, who voted against the measure, said he supports existing efforts to bring equal opportunity to all and would like to "continue on that path rather than focus on reparations."[5]

In California, the reparations task force said in their report that the state is estimated to be responsible for more than $500 billion due to decades of over-policing, mass incarceration and redlining that kept Black families from receiving loans and living in certain neighborhoods. California's state budget last year was $308 billion.[6] Reparations in New York could also come with a hefty price tag.

The commission would be required to deliver a report one year after its first meeting. The panel's recommendations, which could potentially include monetary compensation for Black people,[7] would be non-binding. The legislature would not be required to take the recommendations up for a vote.

New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who is the first Black person to hold the position, called the legislation "historic."[8]

Heastie, the governor and the legislative leader in the state Senate would each appoint three members to the commission.[9]

Other state legislatures that have considered studying reparations include New Jersey and Vermont, but none have passed legislation yet.[10] The Chicago suburb in Evanston, Illinois, became the first city to make reparations available to Black residents through a $10 million housing project in 2021.[11]

On the federal level, a decades-old proposal to create a commission studying reparations has stalled in Congress.[12]

Some critics of reparations by states say that while the idea is well-intentioned, it can be misguided.[13]

William Darity, a professor of public policy and African and African American Studies at Duke University said even calling them reparations is "presumptuous," since it's virtually impossible for states to meet the potentially hefty payouts.[14]

He said the federal government has the financial capacity to pay true reparations and that it should be the party that is responsible.[15]

"My deeper fear with all of these piecemeal projects is that they actually will become a block against federal action because there will be a number of people who will say there's no need for a federal program," Darity said. "If you end up settling for state and local initiatives, you settle for much less than what is owed."[16] K, Blog Admin notes: [1] This is useful because it's attempting institutionalization of the divestment in needing money to solve the issue of slavery reparations and instead aims to provide a means to account for such a system by way of adhering to necessities. This seems like a legislative path to that. A formal apology is well overdue so the creation of these institutions, paired with divestment in money (which are literal enslavement notes) makes for said apology more effective and honest.

[2] Correct, slavery is handled and supported to this day at a state and federal level. Any strategies aimed at changing this enslavement system requires changes at both state and federal levels, otherwise what's the point? [3] Legislature like the one in 1817 what it did was make enslavement go covert while continuing to operate with the same engine. Which is why we need to correct any semblance of it existing by abolishing institutions that were created from slavery and repurpose ones sabotaged by past and existing pro slavery legislature. Reparations fixes itself to do just that.

[4] Read [3] because slavery's door was never shut. There's never been enough evidence, something I hope this legislature corrects, with regards to presenting when this "end of slavery" ever occurred. As far as everyone experiencing this god awful system is concerned slavery continued just fine.

[5] Slavery as a system created such a historical inequivalence for all involved that a path has never honestly been formed to claim we're all equal. How can we "continue" on something we've never even established?

[6] Translation: The enslavers who own this system over us and invested so much in slavery can't put their money where their labor is. This is our issue how? Legislature like this will help correct that.

[7] I would hope that this conversation around monetary compensation and reparations from enslavement systems involves a divestment plan from a currency note that has factual connections to and will continue to be looked at as an enslaver note to those who study slavery historically. So this might look like an institution that can help communities divest from ever even needing to use money due to their systemic connections to slavery.

[8] This legislature is needed and overdue, I wouldn't call it historic yet. People within government tend to have a low bar for what's historic and epic.

[9] Not enough people. 3 is not enough. This is a ridiculously low amount considering how easy it can be to sabotage this work as they have in the past, this increases that chance. They need more community input. Otherwise, what's the point?

[10] Further implicating these states with systemic slavery.

[11] Not enough for similar reasons that a slaver creating their own paper and telling you to live off of it is not enough to stop slavery.

[12] So the one thing that did have a semblance of working, you let it rock there, doing nothing? Seems like an institutional trend.

[13] How? Explain using evidence in the same way we abolitionists use evidence to prove slavery is not needed.

[14] Agreed, and they don't have the capacity to make their enslaver dollars mean much into the future. Money temporarily becomes pay outs which are like the apology letter you include system changes with otherwise its just enslavers recycling their image.. AGAIN.

[15] Agreed, but I hope this doesn't mean shift in focus from what needs to structurally change at a state level and what these types of legislature can do. I think federal changes should come with state strategizing as well.

[16] see [14] and [15]

#reparations #thoughts #news #policy #legislature #trans atlantic slave trade #slavery #abolish slavery #abolish police #abolishment #black lives matter #new york #nyc #new yorkers #black new yorkers