Illinois Review

Executive Summary of Illinois Conceal Carry Bill

The following is the Executive Summary of the Concealed Carry Bill that looks like it will be presented to the House - possibly tomorrow:

SB 2193 (Forby/Phelps): House Concealed Carry Proposal

• Statewide shall-issue licensing standard;
• Strictly preempts authority of local governments to regulate firearms;
• No special "endorsement" or permit required for licensee to carry in Chicago or Cook County;
  • Grants licensee broad right to carry in a vehicle, including within a vehicle in the parking lot of a prohibited area;
• License to be issued by State Police;
• $150 Fee;
• 5-year license;
• 16 hours of training (Including Live Fire Exercise)

Up to 8 hours of training completed in another state can be counted toward this requirement.
Renewal application requires 3 hours of training, plus re-qualification on the firing range.

Carrying prohibited on public transportation, in State and local government buildings, and in other areas defined in this legislation;

• Effective immediately; Applications to be available within 180 days;
• Allows law enforcement to object to an application on Basis of “clear and present danger to self or others, or threat to public safety,” which triggers review by Concealed Carry Licensing Board (created by this legislation);
• Denial of application by ISP is subject to administrative review, pursuant to the Illinois Administrative Review Law; final administrative decision is subject to judicial review;
• Denial of application by Concealed Carry Licensing Board is subject to judicial review;
• Application to be processed within 90 days (unless subject to review by Concealed Carry Licensing Board).

The time for processing a license application subject to the maximum amount of scrutiny allowed under the provisions of this bill would be approximately 180 days.

While applicants are not required to submit fingerprints, the State Police would be allowed an additional 30 days to process the application if the applicant does not submit a set of fingerprints.

CPS school closings: district spares some schools, but problems still persist

By Josh Dwyer -

The big news from the Chicago Public Schools school board meeting is that Ericson, Garvey, Jackson and Manierre schools will remain open.

Still, 50 other schools are on the chopping block. Forty-eight schools will close in June. Canter Elementary will get a one-year reprieve and Attucks Elementary will close at the end of the 2014-2015 school year.

These actions followed a contentious eight-month process, where CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union have each made a number of missteps.

Shark fin, lion meat, and foie gras: Illinois Law makers Hard at Work

By Mark Weyermuller -

This week at the City Club of Chicago, Governor Pat Quinn said he would be working night and day on pension reform. The story is different in Springfield with the Illinois Legislature. At the the beginning of 2013, Illinois banned the sale of shark fin, a delicacy at many Chinese Restaurants. Currently, the Illinois House is considering banning "Lion Meat", another delicacy served at a few high end restaurants.

In Chicago, a few years ago the city council banned Foie gras, yet another delicacy only to reverse their decision. What will be next, banning frog legs, lobster tails, and turtle soup?

Failed “Amazon.com tax” heads to Illinois Supreme Court

Illinois Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Wednesday when an attorney representing the state argued the constitutionality of a two-year-old state law designed to force certain Internet retailers to collect sales taxes.

Before the law was passed, companies such as Sears and Wal-Mart collected the state sales tax on their Internet transactions with Illinois customers. They did this because they had stores in Illinois, which constitutes a legal presence, or nexus, in the state.

But companies such as Amazon didn’t have to collect the tax because they did not have a physical presence in Illinois.

In order to draw more tax revenue and end an advantage some Internet retailers have over others, legislators in Illinois redefined the term “physical presence” to include marketing affiliates based in Illinois – typically coupon or deal websites whose operators earn commissions for driving shopping traffic to an online retailer. ...More HERE

Chicago's Penny Pritzker: Obama's Worst Insult to His Left-Wing Base

By Joel Pollak -

In a crowded field, Chicago billionaire, bundler, sub-prime banker and union buster Penny Pritzker is clearly the worst nominee that President Barack Obama has chosen for his second term cabinet.

Though the position for which she has been nominated, Secretary of Commerce, often goes to a presidential crony or political insider, Pritzker would exceed all her predecessors and peers with her shocking record of cronyism and failure.

Pritzker ran Superior Bank into the ground by dealing in sub-prime mortgages. As Breitbart News noted recently, the bank's depositors lost $6000, on average, and the taxpayers got fleeced--but the investors got paid out first. Pritzker recently served on the board of the Chicago Public Schools during a period of abject educational failure, and earned a bad reputation with labor unions both there and at her family's Hyatt hotel chain. ...More HERE

Illinois' Stanek testifies before Congress to ban abortions after 20 weeks

WASHINGTON DC - Thursday, prolife leader Jill Stanek of Mokena, Illinois testified (see photo right) before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on H.R. 1797, the "District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" that would enact a national ban on aborting babies after 20 weeks. Her testimony was as follows:

When I testified before this committee in 2000 and 2001, it was to tell of my experience as a registered nurse in the Labor and Delivery Department at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where I discovered babies were being aborted alive and shelved to die in the department’s soiled utility closet.

Among other familiar faces I see today is Congressman Nadler, who was a member of the committee then. He said he was “appalled” by the incidents I described and found them “heart-wrenching.”

Indeed, I was traumatized and changed forever by my experience of holding a little abortion survivor for 45 minutes until he died, a 21/22-week-old baby who had been aborted because he had Down syndrome.

Since then, other appalling stories of abortion survivors being either abandoned or killed have trickled out.

FEC harassed conservative groups in 1990s, IRS in 2010s

WASHINGTON DC - Religious groups were harrassed by the IRS starting in 2009, but national conservative groups such as Concerned Women for America and Christian Coalition were put through interrogation, depositions, investigations and auditing as early as the 1990s, an important report this week in the Weekly Standard shows.

The story shows a link between the two cultures within the Federal Election Commission in the 1990s and the Intenal Revenue Service is the 2010s of long-term, expensive and expansive initimidation could have something to do with the person that pleaded the Fifth Amendment before Congress Wednesday - IRS official Lois Lerner:

Perhaps no other IRS official is more intimately associated with the tax agency's growing scandal than Lois Lerner, director of the IRS’s Exempt Organizations Division. Since admitting the IRS harassed hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups for over two years, Lerner has been criticized for a number of untruths—including the revelation that she apparently lied about planting a question at an American Bar Association conference where she first publicly acknowledged IRS misconduct.

Does The Homosexual Lobby Really Want What They Are Demanding?

By Dave Smith and Andrew Willis -

To say that same-sex “marriage” is a hot topic is an understatement. It’s huge. News headlines have been filled with the latest state or country that has legalized homosexuality-based “marriage,” the politician who has just “evolved” on the issue, or emotional stories about homosexual couples. From the countless stories in the media one would expect that vast numbers of homosexuals feel they are being deprived of something they desperately need: the rights and benefits that the government accords to married heterosexual couples.

Why then do we not see vast numbers of homosexuals taking advantage of each new law that their high-powered lobby secures for them? 

On June 1, 2011, civil unions went into effect granting same-sex couples all the legal benefits of marriage without expressly calling it marriage. Illinois Family Institute surveyed all 102 Illinois County Clerks by phone to gather data on the actual number of civil unions in our state.  What we found surprised even us.  The following population data is taken from the U.S. Census Bureau (2012):

(Click HERE for a PDF version of this chart.)

WH log shows IRS union leader met with Obama before targeting Tea Party

WASHINGTON DC - As questions regarding the IRS' pressure on conservative, TEA Party and pro-life groups continues to be a topic on Capitol Hill, one primary question is: Who knew it and when did they know it? 

One hint may come from the White House's log itself. As reported earlier here on Illinois Review, on March 31st, 2010, the National Treasury Employees Union head Colleen Kelley visited the White House around noon.

 The American Spectator reports the White House log says:

In White House language, “POTUS” stands for “President of the United States.”

The very next day after her White House meeting with the President, according to the Treasury Department’s Inspector General’s Report, IRS employees — the same employees who belong to the NTEU — set to work in earnest targeting the Tea Party and conservative groups around America. The IG report wrote it up this way:

The news ... illustrated

65% say IRS harassment of conservative groups came from DC

Most voters think the Internal Revenue Service’s decision to target conservative groups was made in Washington, D.C. and that it wasn’t the only government agency going after these groups.

Just 20% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the IRS’ explanation thus far that low-level employees at its Cincinnati office made the decision to target the conservative groups. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% think the orders came from Washington, with 26% who think the decision was made by someone at IRS headquarters and 39% who believe someone who works at the White House made the call. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure. 

Oberweis speed limit bill goes to the Governor

SPRINGFIELD – Legislation sponsored by State Sen. Jim Oberweis (R-Sugar Grove) to bring Illinois’ speed limit in line with most of the rest of the country is one step from becoming law.

Senate Bill 2356 increases the maximum speed limit to 70 mph on all interstates and toll highways. Passed by the House of Representatives on May 22 and by the Senate on April 23, the legislation now moves to the Governor’s desk and will become law with his signature.

“The progression of this legislation is a good example of what can be accomplished when lawmakers work together in a bipartisan manner for the good of our state,” Oberweis said. “It was sponsored by lawmakers from both political parties who represent all regions of our state, and now it is up to the Governor to give this measure the serious consideration it deserves.”

Kelly considers run against Durbin

Republican activist Bill Kelly (photo right) sent a letter (HERE) to supporters the other day asking their input on whether he should run for U.S. Senate against Dick Durbin.

Kelly wrote that he preferred not to make the run, but current political realities and scandals in Washington have forced him to consider it. He then asked for feedback.

What do you think?

Proft: SEIU Illinois State Council Executive Director: “I do the brainwashing.”

By Dan Proft -

Social media provides the means to have conversations with people you may otherwise have never met, as well as with people you wish you would have otherwise never met.

I place SEIU Illinois State Council Executive Director Jerry Morrison in both categories.

On the one hand, Mr. Morrison is life imitating Roman Moroni from the film Johnny Dangerously, a profane lout who, paraphrasing, abuses everything he encounters including the English language.

Mr. Morrison and his friends at SEIU make sport out of pushing around disabled children. A few short years ago, it was Mr. Morrison who attempted to intervene between the parents of disabled children and their children by forcing public sector unionization on private home health care workers (thankfully he failed).

On the other hand, the recklessness with which Mr. Morrison empties his bile ducts can occasionally produce an important, if fleeting, moment of candor.

Thorner: The Rich Daley story

By Nancy Thorner -

On Thursday, May 16, The Heartland Institute held another in its continuing noontime Heartland Author Series events, this one featuring Keith Koenman and  his book:  First Son: The Biography of Richard M. Daley.  The Heartland  Institute is a 29-year old national nonprofit organization based in Chicago.  Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.  Joe Bast is President and CEO of the Heartland Institute.

Richard M. Daley is the longest-serving and most powerful major in Chicago's history.  CHECK  After 22 years Daley not only left behind a transformed city but also  a complicated legacy that is still being evaluated.  In First Son "Koeneman chronicles the sometimes Shakespearean, sometimes Machiavellian life of an American political legend.

Jeanne Ives Talks Chicago Tea Party

By Mark Weyermuller -

Last week, the Chicago Tea Party held their meeting at Blackie's Tavern with New Illinois State Representative Jeanne Ives as the headliner. She is working hard in Springfield on a variety of conservative issues with special focus on pension reform. The Tea Party has had a resurgence as of late especially with the new allegations concerning the Internal Revenue Service.  Ives was a big hit with this room full of conservatives and believers in the constitution.

Photo by Mark Weyermuller

Illinois Senate Passes Sex Ed Bill

The Illinois Senate voted 37 to 21 to pass HB 2675 - the sex ed bill - after a one-hour heated debate. See the roll call HERE.

Several senators spoke in opposition to the bill, including State Senators Dale Righter (R-Mattoon), David Luechtefeld (R-Okawville), Kyle McCarter (R-Vandalia), Jim Oberweis (R-North Aurora), Sue Rezin (R-Morris), Mike Connelly (R-Wheaton), Chapin Rose (R-Champaign), and Republican Minority Leader Christine Radongno (R-Lemont). Democratic Senators Gary Forby (Benton) and Bill Haine (Alton) joined all 19 Senate Republicans who voted against this proposal.

IRS employees union generous to lots of Illinois Democrats, 1 Republican

WASHINGTON - April 1, 2010, the day after the president of the quite publicly anti-Tea Party labor union — the union for IRS employees — met with President Obama, the manager of the IRS Determinations Unit Program agreed to open a “Sensitive Case report on the Tea party cases,” as stated by the agency Inspector General's report now being considered in congressional hearings.

The National Treasury Employees Union is the 150,000 member union that represents IRS employees along with 30 other separate government agencies. The union President Colleen Kelley - that met with President Obama March 31, 2010, herself is a 14-year IRS veteran agent. The union’s PAC endorsed President Obama in both 2008 and 2012, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrat candidates.

According to Open Secrets.org, in the past three congressional cycles, the NTEU has been especially generous to Democrat congressional candidates and incumbents from Illinois. 

ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion bill wrong for Illinois

By Jonathan Ingram - 

Senate Bill 26 passed out of the House Human Services Committee and will head to House for consideration. But the Medicaid expansion this bill proposes is not right for Illinois.

First, Illinois is under no obligation to expand Medicaid eligibility. Federal law permits, but does not require, states to expand eligibility levels for Medicaid. Across the nation, state lawmakers are taking a very cautious approach and are not rushing into this decision. A majority of states, led by both Democratic and Republican governors, have now either rejected the Medicaid expansion or are leaning that way. In fact, of Illinois' neighbors, only Kentucky has announced its intent to expand Medicaid eligibility.

Fracking Bill Passes House Committee

SPRINGFIELD – Yesterday, the House Executive Committee unanimously approved a bipartisan fracking bill that will regulate high-volume oil and gas drilling in Illinois. Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly referred to as ‘fracking,’ is the extraction of natural gas and oil from the earth to release the natural gas through horizontal drilling. State Representative Joe Sosnowski (R-Belvidere), a member of the committee, says the plan is welcome news for Illinois.

“This is a good bill that will offer a low cost source of energy that will benefit small businesses and families alike,” says Sosnowski. “With this legislation, Illinois will lead the United States toward energy independence in a safe, productive way while creating thousands of jobs.”

A Crisis of Authority: The deeper meaning of the Obama scandals

By James Taranto - 

Democracy is in peril: That is an emerging theme of the liberal left's response to the Obama scandals. The argument misses the point, no doubt deliberately. What we are witnessing now is not a crisis of democracy but a crisis of authority. The administrative state, in thrall to a decadent cultural elite, has lost the consent of the governed.

"After a week of scandal obsession during which the nation's capital and the media virtually ignored the problems most voters care about--jobs, incomes, growth, opportunity, education--it's worth asking if there is something especially flawed about our democracy," declares the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne.

He goes through a partisan litany of complaints--"a radicalization of conservative politics, over-the-top mistrust of President Obama on the right, high-tech gerrymandering in the House and a Senate snarled by non-constitutional super-majority requirements"--but makes no mention of the abuses of power by the Internal Revenue Service and the Justice Department. He does hint at Benghazi, in his concluding paragraph, but only to pooh-pooh it:

Roskam Introduces Bill to Repeal Obamacare’s ‘Bay State Boondoggle’

WASHINGTON – Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL) has introduced H.R. 2053, The Medicare Hospital Wage Index Equity Act of 2013, which would repeal a portion of the Obamacare law commonly referred to as the ‘Bay State Boondoggle,’ that would result in Illinois hospitals losing more than $60 million in Medicare payments.

A provision in the health care law, sponsored by then-Massachusetts Senator John Kerry requires Medicare reimbursements to come from a national pool of money instead of a set amount for each state. Reimbursement rates for Massachusetts have skyrocketed because of one small Nantucket hospital with high reimbursement rates that set the minimum payment for the entire state. With Massachusetts expected to receive $256 million this year, Illinois hospitals have already lost more than $60 million.

Scott Stantis: Gosnell Mercy

Rauner crows about his fundraising and social media

Possible GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner released some numbers today that have his team crowing.

According to Rauner, Since April 1, he has raised more than $470,000, bringing his total fundraising haul since announcing the formation of the Exploratory Committee on March 5 to more than $1.75 million. In addition, his Facebook page has reached 11,000 "likes".

“For any Republican to stand a chance against the Quinns, the Madigans, and the powerful labor union bosses who control Springfield, they will need to be very well funded,” Rauner said. “At the same time, winning will require committed and passionate support at the grassroots level, which now requires a world-class digital operation. We are laying that foundation now and I am extremely encouraged by the support we are receiving.”

Cornyn, Kirk Move to Ban All Iranian Government Exports

WASHINGTON D.C. – As the Government of Iran continues to defy United Nations Security Council orders to halt its nuclear enrichment activities, sponsor terrorism, disregard human rights by targeting Iranian dissidents worldwide and partner with North Korea on missile and nuclear technology, U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) introduced today the Iran Export Embargo Act to impose sanctions on the Government of Iran.

The Iran Export Embargo Act would expand existing U.S. sanctions law by prohibiting the purchase or transfer of goods and services from any entity owned or controlled by the Government of Iran and banning all transactions on behalf of such entities for the purpose of exports from Iran. The bill would block all assets of entities deemed to be Government of Iran and also prohibit any insurance or reinsurance for such entities. A copy of the bill can be found here.