Scott T. Holland

According to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, out-of-staters spent more than $1 million per day on recreational marijuana in 2024, accounting for 22.35% of annual sales.

He won a second term in 2022 capturing almost 55% of the vote, helping pace a Democratic sweep of statewide offices where the average victory margin was about 520,000.

This also is a story about procedure, because SB 328 is a textbook example for understanding the concepts of “shell bill,” “gut and replace” and the “enrolled bill doctrine.”

Make better choices and avoid these problems, right? That’s a lot easier to say from outside the courthouse.

The issues here are specifically related to abortion and immigration, but privacy advocates could provide a detailed list of reasons anyone who drives in Illinois should be concerned about what the government knows and how well that information is protected.

When it comes to political violence, sadly, numb is normal, Scott Holland writes

Will Tier 2 pension changes be the defining political fight of 2025?

There’s no practical restitution for the damages inflicted on Illinois by Mike Madigan, Scott Holland writes. Absent fully dismantled levers of power, this sentence isn’t the final chapter on Statehouse corruption

Paying attention to IDFPR can be quite instructive in terms of what’s happening in a community and understanding the ways in which Springfield attempts (and sometimes fails) to operate.

I’m reasonably sure there’s no suggestion box at the Statehouse, but surely voters have dozens of other ideas for ways to improve Springfield’s efficiency.

Ultimately both sets, whether macro or micro, require substantial dot connecting to yield policy recommendations.

The methods we’ve selected have some noticeable shortcomings, and if the process impedes progress, then it might be time to reevaluate the rules of engagement.

A multi-sport complex at Proviso West High School in Hillside may be a great community investment. But it’s not more important than life safety issues elsewhere, and the GOP won’t let House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch shirk the spotlight.

"A candidate’s past margin of victory says nothing about the relative weight of mail-in ballots received after Election Day – and thus the strategic importance of extended poll-watching operations."

Perhaps if the Virginia Burgesses knew they could profit from gambling, sports books wouldn’t have operated under the table for hundreds of years.

Under the Senate’s plan, the Regional Transportation Authority would become the Northern Illinois Transit Authority, a better name than before provided you can get past all the territory in the northern part of the state that would still be on the outside looking in.

There’s no way to fully satisfy either camp, underscoring the importance of making sure government functions adequately for enough voters to strike a balance.

Public voting from mid-January to Valentine’s Day revealed an overwhelming preference for the status quo, with about 43% of almost 385,000 votes opting against any change whatsoever. The current flag fared better than the combined total of the next five choices.

Bringing lawmakers back to Springfield at what might otherwise be a dormant stretch isn’t – or at least shouldn’t be – much cause for concern.

But to hear Harper tell it, the issue isn’t so much inability to reach compromise as unwillingness to negotiate.

"These milestones are a testament to the dedication and commitment of CMS, which has embraced efficiency, innovation and collaboration to improve past hiring challenges."

The current party line is no pursuit of state funding for stadium construction, but even if the Bears don’t directly request money to deal with infrastructure, a development at the proposed scale would force the hands of many government entities.

It’d take the rest of the month to tell superintendents’ stories: falling ceilings, boilers repurposed from World War II ships, infested walls from schools built when Al Capone was still an elementary student in Brooklyn.

Most baseball fans don’t care how someone earns HOF induction. Many taxpayers aren’t attuned to the intricacies of which government gets their money.

House Bill 1085 attempts to tackle some of those challenges by amending the Illinois Insurance Code to impose new obligations on private policies subject to state regulation.

Article IV, Section 8, of the Illinois Constitution stipulates: 'A bill shall be read by title on three different days in each house. A bill and each amendment thereto shall be reproduced and placed on the desk of each member before final passage.'

Every parking fee proposal incites negative feedback. While the DNR isn’t the worst-run state agency, it would unquestionably be in better shape with additional revenue.

'The increase is likely due to a surge in final tax payments stemming from higher capital gains and interest earnings as a result of strong market conditions and investment returns during tax year 2024.'

Year over year it becomes clearer that those who thrive in the classroom do so because of passion.

Justice DeArmond: 'The FOID Act presumes no one has the right to keep and bear arms, unless and until the right holder proves otherwise. This is the definition of unconstitutional.'

For such a prominent politician, former Gov. George Ryan’s personal biography is clearly of another time.

Former state Sen. Kirk Dillard has been RTA chairman since 2014. To whatever extent local choices contributed to the current crisis, he can shoulder responsibility.

Implying a measured decrease in students is sufficient to reveal a failing elementary or high school district ignores other factors that might be at play.

We’re still left with a scenario where lawmakers built something without knowing if it could be staffed and supported.

Those unfamiliar with an affected family likely give little regular thought to how much these challenges dominate every aspect of daily life.

I regularly encourage readers to become informed voters and the media should play a role so voters don’t have to track down individual candidates at home just to get a question answered.

Paper pushers could go mad trying to figure out how much of each cafeteria pizza can trace its origins to the Land of Lincoln. To be fair, Rep. Harper isn’t suggesting anyone solve such an equation.

It’s very easy to argue that young children facing accusations that would warrant detention are far more likely to have their lives set on a new course if kept out of institutional punitive settings.

In Gideon, Justice Hugo Black described the “noble ideal (of) fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law.”

Voters often feel isolated from Washington, D.C., and Springfield. Math and distance make it inevitable. Being cut off from local officials is a choice, one we need not make.

The working theory seems to be protecting earnest homeschoolers from red tape intended to entangle those who simply pull their kids from class and ignore them, or worse, but that raises two concerns.

Rigid belief in the infallibility of police, prosecutors, judges, juries and sentencing laws from the last millennium allows the inference that everyone serving a life sentence fully deserved that punishment and is nominally human but otherwise irredeemable.

Government is an ongoing process and sometimes the governor’s signature is only a blip in the long timeline of impact.

What is the wisdom of the rule wherein a candidate can give enough money to their own committee to make it legal for others to give millions more?

The idea just a few thousand dollars could shift a senator’s focus from the best interests of constituents to the personal bottom line is the exact thing that undercuts faith in all elected officials.

Aimless consolidation is no cure, but no agency has made a strong case for just pouring new money into the current systems.

The idea is for students who opt in to get one notification of admission offers to every Illinois public college, then have the ability to accept and enroll through the same portal.

The question remains unanswered in Springfield: Whose interests are served when felonies become misdemeanors as long as the government gets assets in the deal?

The report is well-timed as Springfield considers many changes aimed at meeting the state’s workforce needs.

Obviously, these mothers could connect over tragic circumstances. Without diminishing those emotions, they have caught my attention for their citizen advocacy.