Emanuel “Chris” Welch

Funding for public transportation has become a top priority for some lawmakers over the past two years as transit agencies in Chicago area have sounded alarm bells on a looming financial crisis.

Illinois Republicans say they are still as united about the upcoming election as they were at their national convention in Milwaukee last month, despite surge of enthusiasm for the Democrats’ new presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Calls of “Justice for Sonya” rang through the sanctuary of a church on Chicago’s West Side on Tuesday at a rally hosted in response to the death of Sonya Massey on July 6. 

An Illinois lawmaker from Glen Ellyn who heads a child welfare committee said the state must strengthen its laws and policies to protect homeschooled children facing inadequate education, abuse and neglect.

Members of a would-be union representing staffers in House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s office filed suit against their boss on Friday, asking a Cook County judge to force recognition of the union.

In a scathing statement, the Illinois Legislative Staff Association accused Welch of passing the bill “to deflect rising criticism” and feigning solidarity in public while privately colluding with Democratic Senate President Don Harmon to ensure the bill “went no further.”

With only a few exceptions, incumbent officeholders in Illinois cruised to easy victories in primary elections Tuesday that were marked by historically low voter turnout.

Democrats in the Illinois House on Wednesday approved a measure to allow certain legislative staffers to unionize, following in the recent footsteps of lawmakers in California and Oregon.

House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, has filed legislation that would, for the first time in Illinois, authorize legislative staff to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

Efforts to form a union by staff in House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s office could provide an early and unexpected test of the new Workers’ Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution.