A federal judge in New York issued a preliminary order Tuesday blocking the Trump administration from cutting off states’ access to hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic relief funds for public schools, including more than $77 million for Illinois.

U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos, of the Southern District of New York, issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of an order that Education Secretary Linda McMahon issued on Friday, March 28. That order reversed earlier decisions to grant the states additional time to spend funds they had been allocated.

The effect of McMahon’s order was to immediately cut off access to funds that states said they had already committed to spend but not yet made the actual expenditures.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joined a coalition of 17 states in suing the federal government to block McMahon’s order.

“The Trump administration’s shortsighted and illegal decision to attempt to rescind already-appropriated education funding would hurt vulnerable students the most and could wreak havoc on the budgets of school districts throughout Illinois and the nation,” Raoul said in a statement Tuesday.

The lawsuit over pandemic-related education money is one of more than a dozen multistate suits Raoul has joined, in combination with other Democratic state attorneys general, challenging actions Trump has taken since being sworn in for a second term Jan. 20.

In 2020 and 2021, Congress passed several relief and economic stimulus packages totaling trillions of dollars to help individuals, businesses and state and local governments deal with the financial consequences of the pandemic. For schools, that included costs associated with preparing for the safe return to in-person learning, addressing the learning loss students suffered during the extended period of school closures, and addressing some of the unique needs of homeless children that were exacerbated by the pandemic.

According to the complaint, Illinois was awarded just over $5 billion in “education stabilization” funds under the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA, which was enacted in March 2021. Of that, $77.2 million remained obligated but not yet spent as of the end of March 2025.

Those funds had been earmarked for such things as teacher mentoring, statewide instructional coaching, new principal mentoring, trauma response initiatives, the creation of social-emotional learning hubs and contracts for technology infrastructure upgrades, according to the complaint.

Under ARPA, those funds were intended to cover expenses incurred through Sept. 30, 2023. Subsequent legislation gave states an additional year, to Sept. 30, 2024, to “obligate” their funds. And under agency regulations, they had another 120 days beyond that to draw down the funds, although they were also given the option of requesting further extensions.

In January 2025, Illinois requested, and later received, permission to extend its deadline for drawing down the remainder of its funds to March 28, 2026. Other states involved in the lawsuit also received extensions.

But on Friday, March 28, 2025, the Department of Education issued a memo rescinding those extensions, effectively cutting off the states’ access to any unspent funds.

“Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” McMahon said in a memo to state education agency heads.

The injunction means the Department of Education cannot enforce the order, at least while the case is still being litigated or until the court issues a different order.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker issued an executive order Wednesday that bars state agencies from collecting and disclosing data about autism to the federal government unless it’s medically or legally necessary.

The order was in response to a move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier Wednesday to research and create a national autism database.

In a statement, Pritzker called the project a “threat” to the rights of disabled individuals. The order stated that the project raises privacy concerns about the collection and use of data, as well as potential “discriminatory profiling or surveillance of individuals with disabilities.”

“Every Illinoisan deserves dignity, privacy, and the freedom to live without fear of surveillance or discrimination,” Pritzker said. “As Donald Trump and DOGE threaten these freedoms, we are taking steps to ensure that our state remains a leader in protecting the rights of individuals with autism and all people with disabilities.”

Executive Order 2025-02 also requires state agencies to follow strict privacy and data protection requirements when they do disclose such data, including making personal information anonymous where it’s practicable and only disclosing the minimum amount of personal information that’s legally necessary.

The move was prompted by an HHS announcement of a research project on Wednesday. The project will allow the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to have access to data and medical records of Medicare and Medicaid enrollees diagnosed with autism in an effort to research autism, Newsweek reported.

It also directly responded to remarks made last month by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who called autism an “epidemic” and said that President Trump has tasked him with finding a cause for the “epidemic.”

“Autism is a neurological difference—not a disease or an epidemic,” Pritzker’s order read. “People with disabilities, including individuals with autism, are too often stigmatized and underestimated, and public policy should never diminish the diverse strengths and potential of this community.”

This is not the first time Kennedy has touched on his beliefs about autism. During an interview in 2023, he confirmed that he believes that vaccines cause autism, a theory the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a wide body of research have long since debunked.

Read more: How RFK Jr.’s health proposals could affect Illinois

Executive orders aren’t often enacted by the Illinois governor, as last year he only signed three. This is the second order he has signed this year and is his latest action against the Trump Administration since his trade mission to Mexico this spring.

Read more: Pritzker hopes trade mission to Mexico sparks new investment despite tariffs

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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SPRINGFIELD — The General Assembly’s independent forecasting commission has improved revenue projections for the upcoming fiscal year despite growing economic volatility.

That’s good news for state lawmakers who are in the final weeks of crafting the fiscal year 2026 budget set to take effect July 1. But the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability’s upward revision to its revenue forecast remains significantly more conservative than what Gov. JB Pritzker’s office projected when he proposed a budget in February.

COGFA’s latest update now projects $54.5 billion in revenue in FY26 – $266 million more than the commission’s March projection, but still $471 million below the governor’s February projection for baseline revenues.

Pritzker has also proposed changes to raise an additional $492 million in revenue in FY26, although that number is not factored into the baseline revenue comparison.

Read more: Legislative revenue estimate more than $700 million lower than Pritzker’s proposed budget

COGFA is also projecting state revenue will increase by $317 million in the current fiscal year 2025 compared to its March projection. That means the state would finish the fiscal year at the end of June with $53.9 billion of revenue – above the $53.3 billion lawmakers budgeted for and $31 million more than the governor’s office’s February forecast.

The projected revenue growth was driven by strong April income tax receipts. April revenue was up $593 million compared to April 2024 and was driven by 20% growth in income tax receipts, thanks to higher capital gains and interest earnings last year. Corporate income taxes also grew by 6.6% for the month, even though the revenue source remains down 8.2% for the fiscal year.

But there are warning signs in several areas, according to COGFA. The commission lowered expectations for federal receipts for FY25 by 8.5% and 6.3% in FY26 because the state has been using a fund outside the typical General Revenue Fund for Medicaid-related expenses. That means reimbursements from the federal government to the state are not reflected in the state’s General Revenue Fund total.

The commission also warned that the federal government could, at any time, decrease financial aid to states, creating more uncertainty.

“Those capital gains revenue increases are not sustainable so as we look at fiscal year 26, we should not expect that as we go into fiscal year 27, I think it’s going to be an even worse look,” COGFA Co-Chair Rep. C.D. Davidsmeyer, R-Murrayville, said at a news conference last week.

COGFA Revenue Manager Eric Noggle wrote broader economic uncertainty necessitates a “more cautious approach” projecting next year’s revenue numbers.

“The unknown implications of tariffs create many questions related to the duration of the tariffs, their impact on prices, and if these changes could lead to a recession,” Noggle wrote. “These complicating factors and their potential impact on tax revenues make the revenue estimate for FY 2026 very challenging.”

Recent national economic reports have indicated the U.S. added more jobs than expected in April, but the nation’s gross domestic product declined by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, marking the first quarter of economic regression since 2022. Personal consumption grew by 1.8%, showing consumers overall aren’t yet cutting back, but it was the slowest growth since spring 2022.

“It’s very concerning because Illinois tends to lag the nation in economic growth and economic stability,” Davidsmeyer said.

The decline in GDP was driven by an increase in imports, COGFA Chief Economist Ben Varner wrote, because businesses are likely “front-loading” foreign purchases before tariffs imposed by the Trump administration kick in and make overseas goods more expensive. Imports are subtracted from domestic growth to calculate GDP.

National projections are also blaring more warnings. Wells Fargo modeling projects stagflation from tariffs and an increase in inflation will cause an economic downturn, while Goldman Sachs’ early April projection pegs the likelihood of a recession at 45%.

“The U.S. economy has entered a precarious phase, with early signs of contraction and rising inflation signaling the potential onset of stagflation,” Varner wrote. “While domestic demand and business investment remain relatively strong, they are being overshadowed by external shocks — particularly the surge in imports ahead of tariff implementation. The policy-driven volatility is already weighing on forecasts and investor confidence.”

The governor’s proposed $55.2 billion FY26 budget is based on a December S&P Global forecast that projected stable economic growth and considered some of Trump’s proposed economic policies, including tariffs and tax cut extensions, Pritzker budget office director Alexis Sturm said told a legislative committee in February.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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SPRINGFIELD — A plan to overhaul the way Illinois funds public universities is running into stiff opposition from the state’s largest higher education institution, the University of Illinois System.

The plan, which has been in development for the last four years, calls for adding roughly $1.7 billion in new university funding over the next 10-15 years, but distributing that under a formula that would give priority to schools that are currently the least adequately funded.

Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford, D-Westchester, the lead sponsor of Senate Bill 13, said it is designed to bring equity and stability to the state’s higher education system.

“This bill does not just aim to increase funding,” she told a Senate committee Wednesday. “It tells us for the first time in our state’s history what students and universities need to succeed and how to adequately fund universities over time to actually meet that need. It defines what universities require to educate, support and graduate students successfully, and then it directs resources to do just that.”

But Nick Jones, executive vice president and vice president of academic affairs for the U of I System, said the proposed formula would be detrimental to the state’s flagship university and that it needs considerably more work before it can be ready for legislative approval.

“The University of Illinois system is absolutely dedicated to expanding equitable access, enhancing student success and promoting statewide economic growth,” he told the committee. “The proposed legislation penalizes institutions that provide the most support for underrepresented and rural students while failing to ensure long-term access.”

History of underfunding

The proposal is a product of a commission that lawmakers established in 2021 — the Illinois Commission on Equitable Public Education Funding. The commission grew out of the Legislative Black Caucus’ efforts that year to enact sweeping social and racial justice reforms in the wake of unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police the previous summer.

“Every university participated in the commission, and the work of the commission acknowledged that Illinois has never had a systemic approach to university funding, nor one that is rooted in student or institutional need,” Lightford said. “Instead, it has been a largely political process.”

Robin Steans, executive director of the advocacy group Advance Illinois, which took part in the commission, said Illinois went through a decadeslong period of steadily cutting its support for higher education, resulting in a system she said is so underfunded it can no longer be sustained.

Read more: Tuition, fees rising at Illinois universities as state funding lags inflation pace

As recently as 2000, she said, state funding for universities covered about 75% of their overall costs. Today, she said, state funding covers only about 35%, far below the national average of 60%.

“And the only place to go to make that up is tuition,” she said. “And so the lower we go, the more we’re pushing those costs to students, pricing them out and driving them out.”

Open interactive chart in new tab



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Source: Illinois Commission on Equitable Public University Funding

Proposed new formula

The proposed formula would operate much like the Evidence-Based Funding formula, or EBF, that lawmakers adopted in 2017 for K-12 education.

It would start with determining an “adequacy target” for each school to reflect how much they need to meet their educational missions. That would include such things as the cost of instruction and student services, operation and maintenance of physical facilities, and costs associated with meeting the school’s research and public service missions.

Like the EBF formula, that calculation also would take into account the unique attributes of each school’s student body and the higher costs associated with educating certain demographic groups, referred to in the bill as “underrepresented students.”

The formula then measures each school’s “resource profile” – the money it has available from sources such as state aid, tuition and fees, to cover the costs included in its adequacy target.

Those two calculations are used to determine each school’s “adequacy percentage,” which reflects the degree to which a school is underfunded, and its “adequacy gap,” the dollar figure reflecting the difference between its adequacy target and available resources.

According to preliminary calculations made public Wednesday, Western Illinois University in Macomb would rank as the most underfunded public university in Illinois on a percentage basis, with current resources meeting only 45.7% of its adequacy target. But because WIU is relatively small, its total “adequacy gap” would be just $104.3 million, ranking seventh among individual campuses.

In terms of total dollars, the University of Illinois Chicago would have the largest adequacy gap of any  campus, at nearly $475.5 million.

Meanwhile, the state’s flagship university, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, would rank as the best-funded university in the state, at 88.6% of adequacy. But because of its size – with total enrollment in the fall 2024 semester of more than 56,000 – its total adequacy gap would rank fifth among all campuses, at $137.4 million.

U of I opposition

“Although we support several of the key aspirational goals of the bill, we do not agree with the methodology proposed to achieve those goals,” Jones, of the U of I System, told the committee. “Nor do we agree that this will provide what the University of Illinois needs to succeed.”

Jones noted the U of I System as a whole – including the Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield campuses – enroll more than half of all public university students in Illinois, including 45% of all those who qualify for Pell grants, the federal need-based financial aid program for higher education. And yet, under the proposed formula, he said the U of I System would receive only 28% of any new funding provided in the first year of the program.

In addition, he said the proposal also includes a formula for allocating any potential funding cuts that could happen in future years, one that would protect schools that are least adequately funded while requiring those closest to their adequacy target to bear the brunt of the cuts. Under that formula,  the U of I System would absorb 74% of any future funding cuts.

“The University of Illinois system would support adopting a tiered, mission-aligned approach that better recognizes the distinct missions of the universities and equitably funds institutions based on their specific needs and contributions to student success and the state’s economic priorities,” Jones said. “This approach would ensure that funding supports student outcomes holds institutions accountable for results and drives true equitable distribution of the state’s investment in higher education.”

The Senate committee took no action on the bill Wednesday. An identical bill, House Bill 1581, is pending in the House. It is sponsored by Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, and is cosponsored by House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, and Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, who chairs the House higher education budget committee.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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CHICAGO — Michelle Nolasco, a 20-year-old DePaul University student from Orland Park, Illinois, held a sign that read: “I was supposed to be at school … Instead, I am here, fighting for mi familia y mi gente,” meaning “my family and my people.”

“I feel like being in class is not as important as being here,” Nolasco, a child of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, said Thursday. She was among thousands who gathered in Union Park to mark May Day with speeches and signs before marching through downtown to Grant Park later in the afternoon, where speakers — including Mayor Brandon Johnson — addressed the rally.

May Day — also known as International Workers’ Day — is a global holiday commemorating the labor rights movement, in which Chicago played a pivotal role.

Across the nation and the world, hundreds of thousands demonstrated Thursday to champion workers’ rights as well as to denounce the Trump administration’s widespread crackdowns on immigration, its economic policies and disruptive global tariffs.

Immigration has become a major focus of May Day rallies in the U.S. since 2006, when roughly one million people — nearly half a million in Chicago alone — marched as part of a nationwide movement against tough, proposed, federal anti-immigration reforms. The legislation, called the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act, would have criminalized living in the U.S. without legal permission, making it a felony.

Nearly 20 years after those first rallies, the crowd in Chicago erupted Thursday into chants of  “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” Some said the struggle was all too familiar.

“I was one of the main conveners of the 2006 mega march on March 10 and then on May 1 of 2006, and having to fight against it all over again is obviously a deja vu,” said Omar Lopez, 80, a member of the Central Committee of the Consejo de Resistencia en Defensa del Inmigrante, the body that made the initial call for people to take to the streets.

Since President Donald Trump was sworn into office in January, his administration has launched immigration raids across the country, urged others to self-deport, canceled foreign students’ visas, and even deported legal residents without due process. “We will close the border. We will stop the invasion of illegals into our country,” Trump said during his campaign.

From April 21-26, federal and local authorities arrested 1,120 Floridians in an effort dubbed “Operation Tidal Wave,” according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Earlier that month, the administration sent over 200 migrants to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador in a wave of arbitrary arrests and deportations that 20 United Nations human rights experts deemed “contrary to international law.”

“This is a life-and-death question for the labor movement and for the whole working class, not just for those that are immigrants: It has to do with the unity of the working class and our ability to fight for our own interests,” said David Rosenfeld, a Chicago-based railroad worker who is a member of the Socialist Workers Party and the SMART Transportation Division. “That’s why I’m particularly proud of my union, the SMART Transportation union, which has been standing up for our member, Kilmar Abrego García.”

García, a first-year apprentice with the union with no criminal convictions who was living in Maryland, was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador — despite a 2019 court order shielding him from being sent there due to the risk of persecution by local gangs that had terrorized his family. The Trump administration called the deportation “an administrative error” but contended García was a member of the MS-13 gang, an allegation a federal judge questioned and the man’s wife and lawyer denied. Officials later added domestic abuse to the list of allegations, actions his wife acknowledged but explained, adding that “Kilmar is a loving partner and father.”

A federal judge, an appeals court and the Supreme Court have all ordered the government to facilitate García’s return to the country, but the administration has argued in court that it had no means of doing so.

Although immigration became a focus of the event, it was not the only one.

“We have groups that have other grievances against what’s coming out of Washington, and they’re also using this as a vehicle to express their grievances,” Lopez said. “Now, we see a broader coalition than we did in 2006.”

Some organizations were planning to organize their own May Day events but decided to follow the lead of the Central Committee.

“We were going to put on a May Day march that was specifically geared towards women and fem-identifying workers,” said Jill Manrique, an executive director at Chicago Jobs With Justice. “But when we found out that this was happening, we joined up—we didn’t want to split solidarity.”

According to Lopez, this year’s coalition included 175 organizations—from unions to faith-based groups—from across Illinois, including DuPage and McHenry counties and cities like Elgin, Rockford and Aurora. Unlike the recent “Hands Off!” campaign that spanned more than 30 cities throughout the state, the May Day rallies were held only in Chicago and Evanston. Still, many from outside the city joined the Union Park event.

One protester who would give only his first name for fear of retribution, Ashton — a young trans man from Ottawa, Illinois — drove a couple of hours to the event.

“It’s absolutely insane that we need to do this,” he said. “I keep seeing people saying, you know, if a child needs to be an activist, we’ve already failed them, and this is absolutely freaking true.”

Some organizations arranged transportation to bring people from outside the city.

“The eight buses that our organization is bringing are coming mainly from the Southwest suburbs like Bolingbrook, Plainfield, Romeoville, Joliet, Naperville and Lockport,” said Margarita Morelos, a co-founder of Casa Aguascalientes Chicago, a non-profit working to empower the Hispanic community. “But other organizations are having buses coming from other places, like the North Side and the West Side of Chicago.”

The diversity of the organizations, locations and people represented in the rally was reflected in the thousands of handmade signs, which addressed a variety of issues, ranging from LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights to the rights of health care and education workers, as well as U.S. foreign policy toward Israel and Russia.

“The basic message is that we are resisting, we are defending every community and every sector of society,” said Jorge Mujica, another member of the Central Committee of the Consejo de Resistencia en Defensa del Inmigrante. “This is not only about immigrant workers, this is about students, this is about colleges and universities, this is about the health care system. It’s about everything that is under attack by the Washington administration.”

Faith Humphrey Hill, a Chicago-based fiber artist, said she struggled with choosing only one issue to focus on when weaving her sign.

“I almost knitted a really long tapestry, like a long scarf that just drags on forever, because I don’t know how to sum up everything that upsets me,” she said. “Women’s rights is obviously close to home, but I also have a trans child, and so his (Trump’s) attack on trans people really upsets me.

“My kid exists,” she added. “He’s trying to erase them, but no, they’re a human, and they exist.”

Sonya Dymova is an undergraduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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President Donald Trump marked the 100^th day of his second term on Tuesday as Gov. JB Pritzker has spent the week calling on Americans to pressure congressional Republicans to oppose Trump’s agenda and highlighting how Trump’s policies affect Illinois.

“I’m deeply concerned about what the next 100 days, and frankly, the next 1,000 days will be like,” Pritzker said Tuesday night during a virtual town hall.

Pritzker appeared on the progressive MeidasTouch podcast’s live town hall alongside three other Democratic governors: Kathy Hochul, of New York, Maura Healey, of Massachusetts, and Tim Walz, of Minnesota — the unsuccessful 2024 vice presidential nominee.

Throughout the town hall, the second-term Illinois governor continued calling for Americans to make their voices heard against what he perceives as a destructive Trump administration.

“I believe that we all ought to be mobilizing,” Pritzker told a Florida resident. “It’s the best way for us to get across what we really believe is that, you know, show up at your Republican congressman’s office and let them know: Quit shutting down veteran services, quit taking away Social Security and Medicaid.”

But for Democrats to be successful in future election cycles, the party must deliver results on voters’ priorities, Pritzker said. In addition to explaining a “simple message” about the party’s values to voters, Democrats should also embrace alternative media interviews to reach new voters, he said, pointing to a string of podcasts Walz appeared on during last year’s vice-presidential campaign.

“He was everywhere,” Pritzker said. “We’ve got to do that, all of us, and make sure that the Democratic message of standing up for working families is heard everywhere and directly to people who are online.”

Pritzker’s live podcast appearance Tuesday came two days after he delivered blistering criticism of unnamed people in his party for using podcasts and media interviews to chastise other Democrats.

“What I find ironic about the current conversation surrounding our party is that the voices flocking to podcasts and cable news shows to admonish fellow Democrats for not caring enough about the struggles of working families are the same ones who, when it comes to relieving the struggles of real people, have been timid, not bold,” Pritzker told a fundraiser for the New Hampshire Democratic Party on Sunday.

Read more: Pritzker balances messaging as some Dems encourage party to avoid LGBTQ issues

New Hampshire has typically held the first presidential primary election, usually following the Iowa caucus.

Pritzker, who also appeared Monday on MSNBC, has been working himself into the national spotlight for months since Trump took over the White House in January. Appearances on trendy podcasts and prime time cable TV shows have become a regular part of the governor’s schedule.

Read more: Pritzker positions himself are forefront of Trump opposition by invoking Nazis’ rise to power | Pritzker emerging as one of Trump’s most vocal critics

Pritzker received national attention after he warned of similarities between Nazi Germany and the Trump administration in his February State of the State address. His remarks in New Hampshire on Sunday drew more attention as headlines in publications including The New York Times declared the speech “stokes 2028 talks.”

Pritzker downplayed any links between the speech and his personal ambitions, saying he’s only trying to send a message to the party about what the platform for 2026 should be while defending Illinois against the Trump administration’s policies.

“I was surprised that so many people covered that,” Pritzker told reporters in Chicago on Monday.

The speech also struck a nerve with Republicans as Pritzker suggested Democrats “will never join so many Republicans in the special place in hell reserved for quislings and cowards.”

“Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption,” Pritzker said Sunday. “But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.”

Pritzker first called on Democrats to become “street fighters” and engage in mass protest at a Human Rights Campaign dinner in March in Los Angelas.

The Illinois Republican Party cried foul in a news release titled “Pritzker calls for violence against Republicans.”

“His comments if nothing else could be construed as inciting violence,” Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said.

Pritzker scoffed at Miller’s criticism, saying he didn’t listen to the speech.

“Peaceful protest is what I’m talking about. It’s about standing up, speaking out,” Pritzker told reporters. “Again, using your megaphone, your microphone, whatever you’ve got. And the peace that I’m talking about is making sure that they know at all times that the American public opposes the policies of Congressional Republicans and of the White House.”

Outside public appearances this week, Pritzker’s political organization also announced it was beginning a new video series highlighting Illinoisians who have been hurt by cuts to the federal government under Trump. And to mark Trump’s 100^th day in office, the governor’s office released a list of 100 ways “Trump and Republicans are hurting Illinois.”

Responding to a Chicago voter’s concerns about affordable housing during Tuesday night’s town hall, Pritzker rattled off legislation and state spending increases approved under his administration as a way he’s trying to help. But he also argued it’s ultimately going to be challenging to address such concerns with Trump as president.

“Donald Trump is making everything harder,” Pritzker said. “Housing, rent, being able to borrow money to buy your first home, or any home, and that’s something that we’re all going to have to live with until we’re able to overturn the Congress.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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McHENRY — John Gerend, a Vietnam War veteran from Lake Villa, Illinois, was exposed to Agent Orange while on duty. Suffering from diseases associated with exposure to the toxic chemical, he said he still considers himself fortunate.

“I’ve had some issues with it — diabetes, some heart issues and so on — but there are many more that have suffered a lot more than I have and need the care a lot more than I do,” said Gerend, 77. “It’s very upsetting to think that the people who have served their country and have lost limbs or mental health might now lose the benefits, all the support, both for mental health and physical health, and the doctors and medications available.”

“I am mad about what’s going on. I’m angry,” he added.

A retired U.S. Army first lieutenant, Gerend was among the 200 people who gathered outside the McHenry Veterans Affairs clinic Sunday to protest the Trump administration’s plans to slash the agency’s workforce, sparking fears among veterans over the prospect of worsening care and growing unemployment.

Across Illinois, protests have been gaining strength since the proposed cuts were revealed. They range from veterans protesting last month at the Capitol in Springfield to demonstrations by nurses and staff at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago, who are concerned about the dangers to proper care and risk for veterans.

In an internal memo to senior agency leaders on March 4, VA chief of staff Christopher Syrek said the agency’s initial goal was “to return to our 2019-end strength numbers of 399,957 employees.” VA Secretary Doug Collins later confirmed the department’s target is to fire roughly 80,000 employees later this year, but he insisted the agency would strive for more efficiency while not cutting benefits and care to the 9 million veterans it serves. According to the Pew Research Center, a quarter of the workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs are themselves veterans.

The move comes after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, fueled by the passing of legislation like the 2022 Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics, PACT, Act, expanding medical benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxins from burn pits of trash on military bases.

“I’m getting later in my years, so it’s gonna affect some younger folks possibly more than me, so I’m more afraid for them than I am for myself,” said Gerend, who has used VA services for 12 years.

VA workers in distress

The VA attempted to lay off at least 2,400 probationary employees in February. According to the department,  those in “mission-critical” positions — including Veterans Crisis Line responders — were not affected. Yet, several crisis line staffers received a notice, according to union leaders.

Some of the department’s Illinois workers were axed, too, and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth said the ensuing “chaos” had left the VA less efficient with longer wait times and more backlogs in service.

“I was almost finished with my two-year-long probationary period when I received an email saying I was terminated because of my performance effective that day, (Feb. 24),” said one Illinois-based VA employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I had outstanding performance reviews, but the fact that they labeled it as a performance-based solution meant that I couldn’t get unemployment (benefits).”

The employee was rehired in March after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the fired probationary employees at several departments, including the VA.

In April, however, the Supreme Court halted the federal judge’s ruling, allowing the federal government to keep thousands of probationary federal employees it attempted to fire off the payroll while lower courts weigh whether the downsizing efforts are legal.

“Everybody is nervous and on edge,” the employee said. “Their jobs are not secure. Nobody’s jobs are secure.”

With the threat of more cuts looming, some Illinois facilities have already started laying people off, causing health care workers more distress.

Heather Fallon, a VA nurse in the Chicago area, said one of her colleagues returned to the facility as a patient after learning that their job “was being eliminated.”

“The person had a conversation with family over dinner about how they are going to pay for their daughter’s college,” she recalled. “The patient ended up developing some pain related to the stress, coming to the emergency department and being admitted because of the health problems that were precipitated by the stress that that person was under.”

“That really affected our staff quite a lot,” Fallon added.

Some fear that the upcoming mass layoffs, especially in smaller towns across rural Illinois, are going to negatively impact populations at large.

“Danville is a small town. It consists of about 29,000 people, and if we lose 400 good-paying government jobs, that will devastate our economy here,” said Mickensy Ellis-White, a veteran of the Iraq War from Vermilion County and chair of the Vermilion County Democratic Party. “Where are those people going to go to get new jobs? That’s going to negatively affect all of us.”

The level of care diminishes

Even before the cuts were announced by the Trump administration, it had been difficult for health facilities within the VA system to maintain enough staff and resources, like beds, available. According to the 2024 VA Office of Inspector General report, 86% of all Veteran Health Administration medical facilities reported severe staffing shortages of medical officers, whereas 82% reported severe shortages of nurses.

The mass slashes to the department’s workforce will only worsen the preexisting lack of personnel, according to Fallon, who said she knows of several nurses who have already submitted job applications to other places in the private sector as the threat of the layoffs looms. “A friend of mine at the St. Louis VA had her care appointment canceled because they didn’t have a provider, and that’s a direct result of the cuts,” said Jessica Motsinger, a disabled U.S. Navy veteran living 12 miles east of St Louis in the Metro East. “It really is devastating, and if it hasn’t really affected somebody, it will very shortly.”

This is not an isolated incident.

“We had a patient yesterday who needed services that we didn’t have open beds at our facility. The solution was that they were going to send him to a different facility, more than an hour away, and he was very upset about that,” Fallon said. “He wasn’t able to go home to get his belongings, and he didn’t feel like his belongings were safe where they were, and his family wouldn’t be able to visit him there, so he would be very isolated.”

According to the official data, 247,140 Illinoisians were enrolled in the VA health care system in fiscal year 2023, and the state’s veteran medical facilities provided services to 162,366 unique patients. Although the impacts of the layoffs are likely to extend throughout the state, the cuts would hit northeastern Illinois the hardest, the counties with the highest percentage of veteran population.

Many veterans are fearful of what is to come — but also angry.

“They think that, since we use the word ‘disabled,’ somehow we’re receiving benefits that we’re not entitled to,” Motsinger said. “But people don’t get this just because we somehow scammed somebody or paid something, we’ve totally earned this. We raised our hand; we offered to sacrifice our lives.”

“I’m sorry America decided to have war for over 20 years. Now you have veterans, an entire generation that you owe us to care for us, not asking for anything other than what we’ve earned,” she said.

Sonya Dymova is an undergraduate student in journalism with Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, and a fellow in its Medill Illinois News Bureau working in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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The Illinois Department of Public Health confirmed Wednesday afternoon the first case of measles in the state.

The measles diagnosis involving an adult in far southern Illinois was confirmed through laboratory testing, according to a press release sent out by IDPH.

This is the only IDPH-confirmed case in the state.

“This is not considered an outbreak at this time. IDPH will update the public should there be any notable developments,” the release stated.

IDPH is working to identify potential locations of exposure, including the clinic in southern Illinois where the patient sought care, to see whether any other patients were exposed. Health workers were wearing masks and “are considered immune,” the release said.

There have been no reported cases of measles since an outbreak in Chicago in early 2024 that resulted in 67 cases.

The Centers for Disease Control reports 800 confirmed cases in 25 jurisdictions: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. Those numbers were updated last week, according to the CDC website.

IDPH has been monitoring an outbreak in New Mexico and Texas that has resulted in three deaths, including two children.

“The first reported cases of measles in Illinois in 2025 is a reminder to our Illinois residents that this disease can be prevented with up-to-date vaccinations,” IDPH Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said. “With hundreds of cases being reported nationally, we have been working closely with our local public health and health care partners to prepare for any potential meals cases in Illinois.”

Two doses of measles/mumps/rubella vaccine are 97% effective in preventing measles, Vohra said.

Measles symptoms may take from seven to 21 days to emerge and include rash, high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. Anyone exposed and not immune to measles should notify their local health department if they become symptomatic.

Those with measles symptoms should contact their health care provider by phone or email before going to their office, urgent care or hospital emergency room so special arrangements can be made to prevent further transmission.

IDPH unveiled a Measles Outbreak Simulator Dashboard to allow the public to find out the vaccination rate of schools so they can determine the risk of a child being exposed to measles if a case is introduced in their school.

Vaccination rates have dropped since the COVID-19 pandemic. The current secretary of the federal Health and Human Services Department, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been on record as being opposed to vaccines, which health officials fear has influenced some parents to not have their children vaccinated.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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SPRINGFIELD — Insurance companies are reducing the scope of coverage for some community foster agencies in Illinois, leading to higher costs, diminished coverage and fewer options for agencies who say a continuance of the trend could lead to closures.

If the situation worsens, some foster agencies warn they will have to shut down, sending children in their facilities back under the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, an agency advocates say doesn’t have the capacity to handle an influx of foster children.

In Illinois, DCFS contracts with community-based foster agencies in order to house and provide services for children in state care. The department reported that the state had about 20,000 foster children in 2024, with more than 4,000 of them in the care of community-based foster or group homes.

These agencies are licensed by DCFS and must have many types of insurance to operate, including liability insurance, which protects them against claims resulting in injuries or damage to property.

If a person sues DCFS and seeks damages, the highest amount they can receive in damages is capped at $2 million – which the state recently extended to foster parents. Lawsuits against community-based agencies, however, do not have a cap. And in recent years, many agencies have faced lawsuits resulting in large payouts or settlements.

In 2018, the father of a 2-year-old boy who died after Lutheran Social Services of Illinois placed him back in the care of his mother sued the foster agency, seeking $45 million in damages.

LSSI placed Lavandis Hudson back in his mother’s care in late 2010. Around six months later, he was rushed to the hospital with severe injuries, where he ultimately died.

The Chicago Tribune reported that a medical examiner ruled Hudson’s death “a homicide caused by multiple blunt-force injuries resulting from child abuse.” Hudson’s mother was charged with first-degree murder in 2012 but has not yet faced trial.

A jury awarded $45 million in damages, although the payout was ultimately about half that due to a deal struck by both parties late in the trial, according to the Tribune.

Other similar lawsuits against foster agencies have resulted in large payouts across the country, even in instances where agencies have denied wrongdoing and claimed negative outcomes were beyond their control. In turn, insurance companies that provide liability coverage for the agencies are taking monetary hit after hit – and raising premium prices or reducing their offerings in response.

The insurers say the risk is too high to continue to insure foster agencies. After a case in California was settled in December for $15 million, Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California, the main liability insurance provider in the state, announced it would not renew any agency plans and pulled out of California entirely.

Now, that organization is sounding alarm bells as it begins to scale back coverage in other states, including Illinois.

Andrea Durbin, CEO of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth, said in an interview that the crisis is a “very complicated issue.”

“I think people who have been harmed should have opportunities to recover from that harm,” she said. “The complexity of it is, how do you make sure that people get the kind of restitution that they’re entitled to without also completely undermining the community-based infrastructure that serves kids and families today?”

Reduction of coverage

In an interview with Capitol News Illinois, Pamela Davis, the founder, president and CEO of Nonprofits Insurance Alliance, or NIA, said the organization had never previously done a mass nonrenewal like the one in California. She said insurance companies are struggling to distinguish low-risk foster agencies from high-risk ones, since agencies who are doing a “good job” and those who are doing a “bad job” are getting sued the same.

In Illinois, NIA scaled back its coverage by placing $1 million limits on the coverage that protects agencies against claims for physical or sexual abuse, known as Improper Sexual Conduct and Physical Abuse, or ISCPA, coverage. This means that if a foster agency is sued for sexual or physical abuse, NIA will only cover up to $1 million of the settlement – even as many lawsuits are being settled for much more.

Usually, insurance companies offer umbrella coverage beyond the company’s limit. But NIA is also no longer providing umbrella coverage for ISCPA coverage or social services professionals coverage, which protects the agencies’ social workers if they’re sued for misconduct.

The company has also significantly increased the cost of ISCPA coverage, the effects of which were felt by The Center for Youth and Family Solutions – an Illinois provider of child welfare, behavioral health and youth services – which is insured by NIA.

The Center is one of the largest foster agencies in the state, serving more than 1,200 foster children across 37 counties in Illinois. Its CEO, Patrick Phelan, said the total cost for the agency’s professional liability insurance in 2019 was a little more than $45,000. When his agency renewed its insurance earlier this year with NIA, the cost was more than $1 million.

“These costs are going up to the point where, at over $1 million, I could hire 22 family support workers,” Phelan said. “I could go out and hire 22 more people if I was back at my 2019 rates. The impact of this on families is becoming just incredible.”

Phelan said he had to lay off staff and cut additional services in order to pay the insurance bill.

“There are minimums in our contracts that we have to staff positions at, and we’ve always been staffed far higher than the ratios that are demanded by the state contracts,” Phelan said. “But we’re getting closer to being back towards the actual levels. We’re just ultimately worried that the services we provide to our kids and families are going to suffer.”

As costs have increased, Phelan said the agency experienced a decrease in coverage.

“There’s really only two insurers left in Illinois who are offering coverage and neither of them will write a new policy,” Phelan said. “So, if our insurer decides they’re not going to renew us next March, we don’t have the opportunity to go out in the traditional market and find any other insurance. There’s just this huge risk of not being insured going forward.”

Durbin said some agencies simply can’t afford this increase, and since traditional carriers are also not taking any new clients, foster agencies aren’t able to drop their coverage in search of lower rates elsewhere.

“Whether it’s affordable or not is almost completely out of the question at this point because there’s fewer and fewer insurers who are willing to even be in the marketplace,” Durbin said.

In a statement provided to Capitol News Illinois, DCFS called the crisis a “national issue”, saying that “while DCFS is aware of some providers who have received notices of non-renewal for their current insurance, DCFS is not aware of any providers who have been unable to subsequently obtain liability insurance, albeit at a higher cost before their current policy ends.”

Durbin said although it’s “technically correct” to say that no agencies have been unable to find insurance, she’s aware of four that have been dropped by traditional insurance carriers like NIA. She said these agencies were then forced to get insurance through excess and surplus lines, which is a market that sells insurance to cover things traditional insurance companies have deemed high-risk and won’t cover.

“It’s much more expensive for less coverage and just a lower quality kind of insurance product and so it’s a different risk pool,” she said. “So instead of going with the sort of traditional insurers, now you’re in this very high-risk market that’s much more expensive.”

Potential legislation

Illinois lawmakers have filed legislation aiming to curb this crisis, although it hasn’t gained traction this session. Senate Bill 1696, sponsored by Sen. Laura Fine, D-Glenview, and House Bill 3138, sponsored by Rep. Suzanne Ness, D-Crystal Lake, have been described by advocates as “short-term” solutions.

The bills would give agencies immunity from civil liability for two years unless the agency engages in “willful and wanton conduct,” defined as deliberate intention to cause harm, or unintentional harm due to “utter indifference to or conscious disregard” for a child’s safety. The bills would also create a task force to develop and recommend a permanent solution to lawmakers by the end of 2026.

Joseph Monahan – a trained social worker, founder of a Chicago law firm and a member of the Board of Directors at Preferra, a liability insurance company for over 100,000 behavioral health professionals – called the proposal a “start.”

He said some lawyers and advocates take issue with the legislation’s proposed immunity for agencies because they believe it would stop children who have been harmed from receiving “adequate compensation.” One solution some have offered, he said, is to move lawsuits against foster agencies under the jurisdiction of the Illinois Court of Claims, which he said would simply be a more “arduous process” for foster children to have to navigate.

Monahan also took issue with the bill’s proposal of a task force, saying the problem is well documented and arguing for more direct action.

Phelan said although advocates have a good grasp on the issue, he believes bringing everyone to the table to brainstorm a solution via a task force is worthwhile.

A national issue

Davis, the CEO of Nonprofits Insurance Alliance, said the company is also scaling back coverage in Pennsylvania and Florida while Monahan said agencies and advocates in New York and Nebraska are also raising concerns. That’s why advocates are calling for a federal solution.

Durbin said her organization has met with advocates in Illinois, other states, and Congress in an attempt to organize advocates on a national level.

Phelan said U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., visited The Center’s headquarters in Peoria recently to tour the facility. But Phelan said “the number one topic” on his agenda was to discuss the crisis.

“We were sharing these challenges with him, really hoping that we can help and trying to get some interaction on a federal solution to the problem,” Phelan said.

Although advocates agree that children who are harmed should receive compensation for their experiences, they say the fact that foster agencies don’t have damage caps puts a “target on their back” that some lawyers take advantage of.

“A lot of the opposition is coming from the Trial Lawyers Association, who have recognized us as a source of organizations that can be litigated against,” Phelan said. “And they’re not seeing that, I think, our demise will ultimately leave them with nobody to sue.”

Illinois Trial Lawyers Association President Sara Salger said she “doesn’t know” if there’s been an uptick in the cases of abuse, but that the recent cases with large damage payouts have resulted from “awful cases” of foster children being abused.

“These are the most vulnerable group of people, so to put the solution on the backs of kids who have been abused or raped or, worst case scenario murdered, cannot be the solution,” she said. “It’s an insurance problem and it should have an insurance solution.”

She said she doesn’t agree that the solution to the issue is to indemnify foster agencies.

“There’s just been some awful cases that have resulted in these larger verdicts, but in those situations, the solution shouldn’t be not to hold people accountable for the harm they’re doing to foster children,” Salger said.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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Longtime U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, announced he will retire after his term ends in January 2027.

“I truly love the job of being United States Senator, but in my heart, I know it’s time to pass the torch,” Durbin said in a social media video.

Durbin’s retirement will end a 44-year congressional career. The East St. Louis native who has lived in Springfield for the last five decades was first elected to the U.S. House in 1982.

Durbin, 80, won election to the U.S. Senate in 1996 to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Paul Simon, to whom Durbin served as legal counsel in the early 1970s when Simon was the state’s lieutenant governor. Durbin has since risen through the ranks of the Senate, chairing the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and now serving as the No. 2 ranking Democrat in the Senate as minority whip.

“The people of Illinois have honored me with this responsibility longer than anyone elected to the Senate in our state’s history. I’m truly grateful,” Durbin said in the video.

Durbin had kept decisions about his political future a closely guarded secret, telling reporters as recently as last week that he had not made any decisions about his future.

Durbin said at a news conference in downstate Taylorville last month that “whether I’m still physically able, mentally able to deal with the issues,” were the top factors guiding his decision. At the time, he suggested he was. Durbin would be 88 years old at the end of another six-year term.

Even as he privately weighed his political future, Durbin maintained a vigorous travel schedule throughout the state to highlight impacts of President Donald Trump’s policies on the state of Illinois.

“The threats to our democracy and way of life are very real, and I can assure you, I’ll do everything in my power to fight for Illinois and the future of our country every day of my remaining time in the Senate,” Durbin said.

Under Durbin’s leadership, the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed 235 federal judges, including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. As ranking minority member on the committee, he was also a leading voice opposing three Supreme Court justices nominated during the first Trump administration.

Durbin also carries a long list of legislative accomplishments. As a member of the House, he led legislation signed into law in 1988 banning smoking on some commercial flights. From that point on, Durbin was a leading voice behind legislation regulating smoking in the U.S.

In recent years, Durbin used his position as Judiciary Committee chair to push for legislation to lower prescription drug costs and regulate pharmacy benefit managers, as well as plans to crack down on fees charged by credit card companies.

As the Democratic whip in the Senate since 2005, Durbin played a role in shepherding major bills supported by Democrats through the chamber.

He has also staked out more controversial positions during his career. During his first term in the House, Durbin supported anti-abortion legislation but reversed his position in support of the practice for the remainder of his career. He was also one of just a handful of senators who originally opposed the war in Iraq.

More recently, in March, Durbin voted for a spending plan to keep the government open through September, which angered many Democrats who thought Senate Democrats should force a government shutdown as a roadblock to Trump’s agenda.

Read more: Durbin, Pritzker put pressure on Republicans to oppose cuts to key programs

Durbin was also instrumental in advancing the political careers of several Illinois Democrats, including pushing another Illinois senator, Barack Obama, to run for president.

“Dick Durbin has always fought the good fight on behalf of working families, and his integrity shines through in everything he does,” Obama said in a statement. “It’s also true that I would not have been a United States Senator – and certainly would not have been President – had it not been for Dick’s support.”

With Durbin stepping aside in 2027, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Hoffman Estates Democrat, will become Illinois’ senior senator. In a statement, Duckworth recalled the first time she met Durbin just weeks after the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting in Iraq was shot down, resulting in amputation of both her legs.

“It is only because of Dick’s empathy, patience, support and mentorship that I am in the United States Senate today,” Duckworth said in a statement. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to get to work alongside a leader who embodies what it means to be a true public servant.”

Who will fill Durbin’s seat

His retirement is expected to set off a flurry of moves by some of the state’s top Democrats who are widely believed to be interested in the seat, including Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Lauren Underwood and Robin Kelly.

“We are also fortunate to have a strong Democratic bench ready to serve,” Durbin said. “We need them now more than ever.”

Stratton has worked to boost her political profile in recent months, including by creating a federal political action committee that could serve as a fundraising springboard for a Senate campaign. Krishnamoorthi, Underwood and Kelly have also been working to boost their profile throughout the state with town halls and other events outside their Chicago area districts.

A poll conducted last month by 314 Action Fund – a national Democratic organization that supports candidates with a science or medical background – showed Underwood and Krishnamoorthi would both receive at least 30% of the vote in a hypothetical Democratic primary including Kelly and Stratton.

Read more: Raoul rules out bid for U.S. Senate

Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement that Durbin has been “a consistent leader and reliable champion” for Illinois. Pritzker and Durbin occasionally found themselves in a power struggle in the state Democratic Party in recent years during votes for party leadership. In 2022, Durbin supported Kelly for party chair, while Pritzker supported Rep. Lisa Herandez, D-Cicero, who ultimately prevailed in ousting Kelly, who had been elected to succeed former party chair Michael Madigan over Pritzker’s preferred candidate less than two years earlier.

Read more: Democratic Party chair bows out in re-election bid, paving way for state Rep. Lisa Hernandez

“The people of Illinois should take great pride having a leader like Dick Durbin represent us in the U.S. Senate,” Pritzker said. “I have been proud to be his partner and am even more proud to call him my friend. He will leave some extraordinary shoes to fill – and has given us all an example of courage and righteousness for the work ahead.”

At an unrelated news conference in Decatur Wednesday, Pritzker declined to say if he was interested in the seat himself or if there’s a candidate he’s planning to endorse.

Who will emerge on the Republican side as a viable candidate is less clear.

“Illinois families have a long-overdue chance to turn the page and elect a leader who will fight for lower taxes, less government spending, true support for Israel and our national and economic security,” Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi said in a statement.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. 

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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