Illinois General Assembly

The session was originally scheduled to start this week with three meeting days, but leaders announced last week they will meet only one day this week and likely will cancel all in-person meetings the following week, Jan. 11-13.

The minimum wage will increase to $12 an hour, FOID card renewals will be streamlined and public colleges and universities won’t be able to require standardized tests for admission.

The new law promises significant changes for communities in the state, but it will take a few years before residents start to see them where they live.

The panel announced during a status hearing Friday that it will go ahead with in-person oral arguments, even though two sets of plaintiffs had said earlier in the week that the case could be decided solely on the briefs and written testimony that have already been filed.

The community of 32,000, one of the only growing cities in the Metro East, is split between two congressional districts. Some say this drastically hurts its representation.

The proposals were submitted as a part of the lawsuits challenging the state's new legislative district maps and would create more majority Latino and Black districts.

The number of downstate representatives is about the only thing that’s staying the same. The new boundary lines will likely swing the 13th District back to the Democrats.

The final draft pits two incumbent Democrats in Chicago against each other and creates a downstate district that leans democratic.

The new district boundaries also create a second district in the Chicago area that the state’s growing Latino population could capture.

National Democrats are pushing the party in Illinois to produce a congressional map that guarantees as many Democratic-leaning districts as possible.