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Rocky Wirtz, left, and Neil Bluhm. [Submitted]
Ten years ago, Illinois was poised to pass a $31 billion capital plan funded in part by a projected $162 million annually in taxes on candy, sweetened beverages, hygiene products, beer, wine and liquor and a projected $300 million in annual tax revenue from video gaming terminals once the industry was fully up and running.
Lawmakers voted on the most contentious part of the funding sources, including those alcohol taxes, on June 30, 2009 during a special session after the regular spring legislative session had adjourned in May.
The taxes were set to go into effect on Sept. 1 of that year, but in the week leading up to the effective date, Chicago Blackhawks owner Rocky Wirtz, the head of the company now known as Breakthru Beverage Illinois, filed suit against the state in Cook County Court. -
After weeks of fighting between billionaire Rivers Casino owner Neil Bluhm and the CEOs of the fantasy sports and sports betting tech companies FanDuel and DraftKings that threatened one of Gov. JB Pritzker’s top priorities, negotiators say an omnibus gaming bill will be heard in committee Thursday morning — a bill that includes a deal favorable for Bluhm.
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Republicans on Tuesday said they will likely provide “a handful” of votes to legalize marijuana now that a new amendment to SB 7 establishes a different path to expunge the records of those convicted of cannabis-related offenses — the governor’s pardon power.
A week ago Republican leaders told The Daily Line no member of their caucus would vote for to the long-running effort to legalize marijuana.
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Despite weeks of negotiations, business groups still oppose Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s data modernization bill, SB 1379, amid concerns that it would eventually force commercial, industrial and manufacturing property owners to shoulder the lion’s share of the property tax burden.
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MAY 28, 2019
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People with the Bet on Main Street Coalition rallied at the Illinois State Capitol on May 8, in Springfield, Illinois. The group opposes a tax increase on video gambling. Organizers claimed attendees were small bar and restaurant owners, but records and interviews show that employees of the state’s largest video gambling companies were among the crowd. (Whitney Curtis, special to ProPublica Illinois)
This story is a collaboration between ProPublica Illinois and WBEZ Chicago, co-published with the Chicago Sun-Times and The Daily Line. ProPublica Illinois is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism with moral force. Sign up for our newsletter to get weekly updates written by our journalists.
With the Illinois General Assembly poised to consider a tax hike on video gambling, some key lawmakers and their family members have developed previously undisclosed financial connections to the industry, meaning the fate of any proposal could lie in part on votes of legislators with a stake in the outcome. -
A measure to make Illinois the second state to ban BPA-lined receipts is set for a final vote by the Illinois House.
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With five days left to go until spring legislative session’s scheduled adjournment Friday, lawmakers are working behind the scenes to find a creative way to save the state money on a capital plan to win the votes of suburban members whose districts intersect Interstate 80.
The biggest beer drinker in any Springfield, Homer Simpson, to lobbied against new taxes on beer. [Mark Denzler/Illinois Manufacturers' Association]
State Reps. Larry Walsh (D-Elwood) and Margo McDermed (R-Mokena) are taking up the mantle for “managed lanes,” a type of tolling in which drivers would pay an extra fee in order to use a dedicated lane, thus getting drivers to their destinations faster at a cost.
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After weeks of delays and false starts, State Sen. Mike Hastings (D-Orland Park) on Thursday shepherded SB 1407 through the Senate, sending the House a bill that would require firms to pay their workers the equivalent of the local prevailing wage paid to union laborers.
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There are plenty of cities around Illinois that have long jockeyed for a casino after the first nine were built in the early 1990s, and the 10th was established in Des Plaines a decade ago. But perhaps no city’s struggle for a casino is more representative of the years of pent-up angst at play during the final weeks of spring legislative session than Rockford.
Rockford native son Rick Nielsen, guitarist for Cheap Trick, lobby for a casino in his hometown. [Facebook/ State Sen. Steve Stadelman]
The city drafted Rockford’s very own Rick Nielsen, guitarist for Cheap Trick, to spend a day in Springfield lobbying for a Rockford casino in between selfies with fans. It’s also got a robust lobbying effort hammering home the message that the time for a casino is now — especially with a threat from across the Illinois border.
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Fantasy sports companies FanDuel and DraftKings may sue the state of Illinois if lawmakers pass and Gov. JB Pritzker signs a version of a sports betting bill bans the firms now focused on sports betting from operating in the state under a provision pushed by Rivers Casino chairman Neil Bluhm.
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