Sen. Robert Martwick and City Hall lobbyist Derek Blaida appear before the Senate Executive Committee to discuss SB2497.

Illinois legislators advanced a bill Wednesday that would create an elected school board for Chicago, approving the measure in an 11-5 vote.

Sen. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago) sponsored SB2497, which requires elections for a 21-member Chicago Board of Education, with 20 members representing education districts in Chicago plus one citywide president of the body. Currently, the Chicago Board of Education is composed of seven members appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

News in brief: Johnson & Johnson vaccine halted; Welch, Pritzker staffers test positive; Pritzker announces postpartum Medicaid extension 

Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope testified before the House Ethics and Elections Committee on Tuesday.

Illinois’ legislative inspector general on Tuesday called for lawmakers to pass legislation that would allow her to initiate an investigation and issue subpoenas on her own.

Carol Pope, who has served as the legislative inspector general since 2018, told members of the House Ethics and Election Committee such changes were necessary because the current system “really stifles the independence of my office."

Sens. Michael Hastings (top) and Celina Villanueva (bottom) discuss SB 577.

Illinois charter school advocates and a Chicago Public Schools lobbyist told a largely skeptical Illinois Senate Education Committee on Tuesday that a pending bill supporting charter school employees’ ability to unionize would infringe on the First Amendment rights of charter school administrators and leadership.

Nonetheless, the bill advanced out of the committee in an 11-3 vote.

News in brief: Johnson & Johnson vaccine halted; Welch, Pritzker staffers test positive; Pritzker announces postpartum Medicaid extension

News in brief: Republicans looking for Pritzker’s input during redistricting; Department of Corrections reopening facilities to visitors  

The LaSalle Veterans’ Home was the center of a deadly COVID-19 outbreak that began in November 2020.

The family of a 90-year-old Korean War veteran who died in November after he contracted COVID-19 at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home is seeking $2 million from the state, according to a lawsuit filed last week.

Attorneys working on behalf of the family of Richard Cieski Sr., who died in November, announced the suit Monday, alleging administrators of the veterans’ home were negligent by failing to protect the veteran.

News in brief: Republicans looking for Pritzker’s input during redistricting; Department of Corrections reopening facilities to visitors

President of the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association Kristina Zahorik faced criticism from Rep. Ryan Spain (R-Peoria) on Friday when she testified in a House redistricting hearing.

Republican and Democratic lawmakers have used very different messages and approaches throughout the first four weeks of redistricting hearings.

Republicans have seized on witnesses’ concerns about using alternate Census data, touted legislation to take redistricting out of lawmakers’ hands and called for the majority to slow down the process.

Common Cause Illinois executive director Jay Young and Rep. La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) discuss the effort to end prison gerrymandering on the latest episode of The CloutCast.

In January, when Illinois lawmakers approved a comprehensive measure to overhaul criminal justice and policing, the legislation contained a provision that would effectively end so-called “prison gerrymandering.”

Today, prisoners across the country are counted by the U.S. Census as residents of legislative districts where the prisons are located, rather than at a person’s last known address. Critics of the process say it artificially inflates the population of counties with prisons, where inmates cannot vote, while giving those areas more federal money. At the same time, counties with a significant portion of residents who are sent to prison but don’t have a facility are at a disadvantage.