Three female lawmakers in the Illinois House are calling for an independent investigation of House Speaker Michael Madigan’s office. The Thursday announcement follows allegations of harassment made Wednesday by a statehouse employee against Madigan’s chief of staff Tim Mapes who resigned his post hours after the claims became public.

AG Madigan - Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is once again joining a group of attorney general to urge action on a hot-button federal issue. With 13 others, Madigan has issued a letter to the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, urging it to leave open its public database of consumer complaints. The bureau recently called for public comment on its move to change access to the database used by millions.

Only one bill aimed at stopping sexual harassment is waiting on the desk of Gov. Bruce Rauner more than a week after the Illinois General Assembly concluded its spring session and adjourned.

A slate of bills approved by the legislature remain in a holding pattern. Once a bill has cleared both chambers, the governor has 60 days to act on it. While final parliamentary procedures are being completed, here’s a list of the bills now waiting in the wings with the clock ticking.

Madigan calls for dismissal- Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s lawyers are calling on a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit filed by former campaign worker Alaina Hampton. Hampton alleges that while working under Madigan, she was sexually harassed by Madigan aide Kevin Quinn and when she tried to stop the harassment she was iced out of a job in Madigan’s political organization. The Associated Press reports that in a Tuesday filing, Madigan’s lawyers say she was wasn’t working for the Illinois Democratic Party at the time of the harassment, and no “employment relationship existed.” [Associated Press]

Illinois political watchers had a head-turning moment as the total campaign funds raised for the 2018 gubernatorial race skyrocketed past the $200 million mark on Saturday.

Ad-buys hit - Bunker Hill Democratic Sen. Andy Manar launched a television campaign this week with a series of ad-buys in Senate District 48 totalling $55,616. The spots will run until the end of July, with the purchase coming just as the senator reported $95,300 in contributions from the Illinois Democratic Heartland Committee, according to reports filed with Illinois State Board of Elections.

Thanking state lawmakers of both parties for a cooperative process this year, Gov. Bruce Rauner signed the state’s $38.5 billion annual budget Monday in Chicago.

9 a.m. - Bolingbrook - The Health Facilities & Services Review Board will hold its day-long monthly meeting at the Bolingbrook Golf Club on 2001 Rodeo Drive until 4 p.m. The panel will consider 12 proposed projects, among them at least seven dialysis and kidney-care centers. [Agenda]

 The following measures have cleared both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly last week and are headed to the desk of Gov. Bruce Rauner for consideration.

Gun Shop 2.0 - A Wednesday release from Senate Democrats celebrated the passage of the resurrected and reworked Gun Dealer Licensing Bill, SB337, from Oak Park Democratic Sen. Don Harmon. But on Thursday, Senate President John Cullerton filed a motion to reconsider the 35-20 vote for concurrence. The motion leaves the bill still technically parked in the Senate, temporarily on hold. It also stops the clock on the 60-day window of time during which the governor is normally required to act.

The Illinois House approved the annual state budget Thursday in a largely bipartisan vote. The legislation has been sent to the desk of Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is expected to sign the measure soon.

Lang - Deputy House Majority Leader Lou Lang (D-Skokie) resigned his leadership posts Thursday amid a swirl of allegations — bribery, blackmail, intimidation and sexual harassment — by medical cannabis advocate Maryann Loncar.

Some 46 years since its first appearance before the General Assembly, Illinois has become the 37th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Following the House’s passage of the measure Wednesday, the country is now one state away from guaranteeing equal rights for all women.

In the midst of a torrent of monumental bills and a late-night budget passage through the Illinois General Assembly, two important proposals backed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel dove into the home stretch of the legislative process  Wednesday, nearing the governor’s desk. Another bill has emerged from Senate President John Cullerton which aims to replace a controversial Emanuel bill whose opponents say would raise the rate of youth lock-up.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bill increasing penalties for juveniles arrested on carjacking charges passed the Illinois House Monday 85-29. On Tuesday, as the measure was poised for final concurrence, the bill’s chief House and Senate sponsors were unable to provide evidence that teenagers are behind the carjacking spike.

SB2339, from Senate Assistant Majority Leader Sen. Antonio Muñoz (D-Chicago) and Rep. Jaime Andrade (D-Chicago), would give judges in juvenile court wide authority to detain minors at length until trial if they are arrested on carjacking charges.

The measure also throws up a statutory roadblock for juvenile advocates. The bill holds “the burden of demonstrating the lack of immediate and urgent necessity shall be on any party that is opposing detention.” Judges are also given authority to order and evaluate psychological testing of the minor, transfer the minor to a state shelter, and order them into counseling — all before a trial.

[Jacked: Report says only 3 juveniles were repeat carjackers when released last year, but Illinois poised to pass law keeping more youth in lock-up]

Facing criticism from juvenile justice organizations over the most controversial provisions of the measure, Muñoz filed SA1 and SA2 to the bill.

Additions in SA1 are not age-specific and do not address carjacking. They instead create new requirements for the collection of DNA samples when a person is arrested on charges relating to sexual assault. In SA2, Muñoz adds new language defining how law enforcement and prosecutors would infer the person in a stolen vehicle knows it’s stolen: Officials would consider whether there are “surrounding facts and circumstances that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the vehicle or essential part is stolen or converted.”

Neither of Muñoz’ amendments change any of the bill’s original language concerning juvenile pre-trial detention (laid out in Section 5-408 of the current law).

Asked Tuesday whether he had any hard numbers showing teens were behind the rise in carjackings, Muñoz deferred to communications staff. Diana Martinez, of the senate president’s communications department said in an email the numbers came from a Chicago Sun-Times report.

“The juvenile portion of SB 2339 was included at the request of Sen. (Bill) Cunningham in response to numbers showing an increase in juveniles committing these types of crimes. There is also a concern that too many juveniles are being released in 24 hours, which may not deter them from committing the crime,” she wrote.

The February article from the Chicago Sun-Times’ Frank Main reports that of the nearly 1,000 carjackings recorded in Chicago last year, police arrested 11 more youths than adults. In total, police caught and arrested 31 adults and 42 juveniles in connection with carjacking crimes.

Of just 29 instances of juvenile catch-and-release arrests, only three were re-arrested on carjacking charges.

When this was pointed out and Martinez was asked which numbers Cunningham possessed “showing an increase in juveniles committing these types of crimes,” Martinez quoted a portion of Main’s article which does not specify carjacking, but broadly counts all gun-related juvenile arrests.

“About 700 juveniles were arrested in Chicago in connection with all types of gun-related crimes during the first seven months of 2017. Those crimes ranged from murder to armed robbery to carjacking to unlawful possession of a firearm. Of those 700 juveniles, 42 percent were arrested again. Of those arrests, half were for offenses involving guns,” she quoted.

Andrade faced similar pushback on the measure from House colleagues. He said he filed HA1 to remove the portion of the bill which dealt with juveniles.

On the House floor Monday, Andrade asked members to “Please remember Amendment 1 removed the detention for possession of a stolen motor vehicle. I know people have mentioned that but they’ve removed the detention for possession of a stolen motor vehicle. That is not in the bill in its current state.”

But Andrade’s amendment keeps the same juvenile detention practices for all the other charges in the bill, leaving the language largely unchanged. While “possession of stolen motor vehicle” was removed from the list of charges triggering youth lock-up, there is still a list, and the list still places “the burden of demonstrating the lack of immediate and urgent necessity... on any party that is opposing detention.”

When asked Tuesday whether witnesses or proponents had provided lawmakers any data to prove that juveniles were the cause of rising carjackings, Andrade said he had only been given general police interaction data which was not specific to juveniles, nor specific to carjackings.

Asked for the origin of the general police encounter numbers, Andrade suggested Cook County law enforcement and prosecutors may be able to provide the information but said “I don’t know where they came from.”

Meanwhile, the City of Chicago’s own public safety data on carjackings shows 937 incidents recorded in 2017. 375 of those did not involve a weapon. Only 70 arrests were made. That’s a clearance rate of about 7.5 percent. With such a low number of overall arrests for carjackings split between juveniles and adults, it is difficult to determine which age group is leading the trend.

Andrade’s own district has seen a large share of the roughly 1,000 carjackings from the past year. He was prepared to introduce his own legislation to tackle the issue when he learned of Emanuel’s effort.

“I actually went to them. They already had the idea of introducing it and I actually saw the mayor at some event,” Andrade said. “So when I saw, I said ‘Listen, I’m going to be introducing legislation.’ He said ‘We have legislation too.’ And so they said ‘Would you carry our legislation?’ So that’s how that happened.”

House Democratic Conference Chairman Jay Hoffman, of Chicago, voted to support the measure. Asked Tuesday whether he had received any data pointing to juveniles as the source of the crime, he said he had only been given a fact sheet on the measure. The bill’s primary sponsors were not able to supply The Daily Line with that fact sheet or confirm its existence.

GOP Rep. Steve Andersson, of Geneva, opposed the measure during its Monday passage through the House.

“We are changing the nature of criminal law and how we prosecute people with this bill. There has been a philosophy about the law and, especially about criminal law, since time immemorial. And that is that we would rather see 10 guilty people go free than imprison one innocent man. This bill dumps that on its head,” Andersson said.

“When you do that with minors, now we’re going to put them in jail at least for 40 hours, possibly longer. Every study anywhere has shown that the more often we incarcerate our youth, the more likely they’re going to become a part of that system. So we’re exposing them to the very virus we want to avoid.”

Asked Tuesday whether proponents of the measure had offered him any data indicating youth offenders were driving the increase in carjackings, Andersson said he had not been offered any.

Stephanie Kollmann, policy director of the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, said carjacking rates are rising all over the country — not just in Chicago — for a variety of reasons.

“What is really frustrating is there is no public data about what the city is claiming is an uptick,” Kollmann said of the juvenile-driven crime claims. “It’s a really troubling response to what seems to be a problem that law enforcement itself does not have a community development handle on, at least in terms of their public communications on why this is happening, why this is suddenly an issue.”

“It absolutely will negatively impact juvenile justice and safety,” Kollmann said. “I think it is going to result in constitutional class-action litigation.”

The Senate Criminal Law Committee cleared the House amendment 10-0 on a motion to concur. The Senate is expected to take up final concurrence Wednesday, before the bill may be sent to Gov. Bruce Rauner for action.

Emanuel’s trio - Three of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s highest-priority bills have encountered snags so far, with just one — a bill addressing carjackings — anticipated to clear its final hurdle and head to the governor’s desk.

• A massive bill which would have overhauled the state’s sports betting laws and cleared the way for a Chicago casino died Monday in the House Executive Committee on a 5-4 vote.
  
  [Chicago Sun-Times: Rahm thinks latest Chicago casino bill is a loser, City Hall adviser says]


• An Emanuel-backed bill allowing police to use drones to surveill “large crowds” without a warrant was resurrected Tuesday with a new House floor amendment after being defeated in a full House vote Friday. SB2562 was given new life with a minor change under HFA1, from Chicago Democratic Rep. John D’Amico. The amendment would increase the definition of “large” from a police-estimated 100 people to a police-estimated 1,500 people. The amendment does not address the concerns of data privacy raised by some opponents.
  
  Chicago Democratic Rep. Ann Williams filed HFA3, which bars the use of the drones for monitoring political rallies or religious gatherings. HFA3 also raises the bar on the estimated crowd size to 10,000 attendees. Williams said the move specifically reflects the desire of the sponsor to use drone monitoring for entertainment and music festival events where previous shootings have occurred such as Lollapalooza.

Tobacco 21 - The Illinois House shot down a bill Tuesday that would have banned the sale of tobacco products to consumers under 21 years of age. SB2332 failed by four votes. Oak Park Democratic Rep. Camille Lilly moved to hold the bill on postponement, keeping it alive temporarily. Reporting for CapFax, Hannah Meisel snapped a picture of the vote count. [Tweet]

Gun bills - Two bills moved ahead Tuesday, closing in on final passage. Oak Park Democratic Sen. Don Harmon’s Gun Shop Bill 2.0 cleared the House on a narrow vote. SB337 passed 65-49, and is headed back to the Senate where it is expected to receive concurrence tomorrow before heading off to Gov. Bruce Rauner. Meanwhile, Deerfield Democratic Sen. Julie Morrison carried the Red-Flag Gun Restraining Order Bill, HB2354, through Senate Judiciary Committee passage on a 9-3 vote. At the time of publication, the measure was placed on the full Senate’s calendar for consideration on May 30.


New #MeToo - NBC’s Mary Ann Ahern reports a new voice may be added to Springfield’s #MeToo movement Thursday. According to Denise Rotheimer, who spoke out against Chicago Democratic Sen. Ira Silverstein, a new female activist will come forward to name a “leading lawmaker” as a longtime abuser.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s highest legislative priorities were in limbo as the final week of the legislative session began.

Tuesday, May 29

Governor’s desk  - The following measures have cleared both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly.

 

Metro unemployment down - For the second month in a row, unemployment rates in all of Illinois’ metropolitan regions have fallen. “The unemployment rate has been below previous year levels in all metro areas for 10 of the last 11 months… In fact, three metro areas saw their lowest unemployment rate on record for April,” . Illinois Department of Employment Security Director Jeff Mays said. The data are from a newly released set produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most regional year-over-year numbers are still down, but Illinois’ overall state gain for non-farm jobs is currently 48,300. [Release]