A federal judge on Thursday declined to block Illinois’ new “medical aid in dying” law from going into effect this weekend, clearing the way for terminally ill adults to legally seek life-ending medication from physicians. The End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, or EOLA, which Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law in December after […]
Hannah Meisel
Hannah has been covering Illinois government and politics since 2014, and since then has worked for a variety of outlets from NPR affiliate stations to a startup newsletter. She’s a graduate of both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U of I’s Springfield campus, where she received an M.A. through the Public Affairs Reporting program and got her start reporting in the Capitol
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Illinois to receive up to $768M in Meta settlement over teen social media addiction
Illinois will receive up to $768 million from a multi-state $17.1 billion settlement with social media giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram — the culmination of a three-year legal battle brought by state attorneys general. Nearly three dozen AGs, including Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, sued Meta in 2023 over teen social media addiction, […]
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Illinois sues to block Trump’s National Guard deployment to Chicago
Illinois and Chicago filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block the Trump administration’s planned deployment of National Guard troops to the state — a move Gov. JB Pritzker called an “invasion.” Trump pushed forward with the plan to activate hundreds of National Guard soldiers, including some from Texas, despite monthslong opposition from state and local […]
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Tom DeVore temporarily loses law license over inappropriate client relationship
The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered former Illinois attorney general Republican nominee Tom DeVore’s law license suspended for 60 days, following a yearslong public feud involving his client-turned-girlfriend and the state’s attorney discipline board. The court’s order affirms a recommendation this spring by the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which found “clear and convincing evidence” that DeVore’s […]
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Jim Edgar, Illinois’ 1990s-era moderate GOP governor, dies at 79
Jim Edgar, Illinois’ 38th governor who served from 1991 to 1999, died Sunday after disclosing an aggressive cancer diagnosis earlier this year. He was 79. Though he’d been out of power for 26 years — more time than the two decades he spent in office as an elected official — the former governor was still active […]
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Ex-Speaker Madigan sentenced to 7 ½ years in prison for bribery, corruption
The number of years former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan spent in Springfield has often been used as shorthand to explain his outsized impact on state government and politics. His political career spanned 50 years in the General Assembly, 23 years chairing the Democratic Party of Illinois, and 36 years as House speaker — the […]
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Madigan guilty of bribery conspiracy as jury returns partial verdict
Former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the longest-serving legislative leader in U.S. history, has joined the list of Illinois political figures who’ve been convicted on public corruption charges after a federal jury Wednesday found him guilty on 10 of 23 counts. But the jury, which deliberated for roughly 65 hours over two weeks following […]
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SCOTUS ruling could upend federal corruption cases for Madigan, allies
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 26 narrowed the scope of a federal bribery law prosecutors have relied on in their cases against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and several of his allies convicted of bribing him. A jury last spring found those allies – former lobbyists and executives for electric utility Commonwealth Edison […]
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No vote taken on Pritzker’s prison plan
For the last two decades, each time a governor has moved to close a large state-run facility like a prison or mental health center, a legislative oversight panel has voted on the plan. That changed on June 14 – at least for now – when only three lawmakers made it to Springfield for the Commission […]
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Changes proposed to state’s biometric privacy law
It’s been more than a year since the Illinois Supreme Court “respectfully suggest(ed)” state lawmakers clarify a law that’s led to several multi-million-dollar settlements with tech companies over the collection of Illinoisans’ biometric data. On April 11, a bipartisan majority in the Illinois Senate did just that, approving the first major change to Illinois’ Biometric […]
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Springfield’s economy gets a wake-up call
In the five months since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S., Springfield’s economy has suffered in roughly the same ways as most other cities in Illinois and the nation. Owners of beloved mainstay restaurants – one of the industries hit hardest by the pandemic – have called it quits, and retail has been forced to […]
