The U.S. House approved the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill along party lines this afternoon, making it an all but done deal with President Biden expected to quickly ink the legislation he championed.
While Republicans and Democrats continued debating, via news release, whether the spending package is bloated or a lifesaver, a study from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center shows 70% of Americans support the relief bill while roughly one-third say it’s too costly.
U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Chicago Democrat, said he believes the most important part of the measure is the child tax credit which he sees as a way of lifting families out of poverty. Low-income and certain middle-income resident eligible for the tax credit would see monthly checks coming in to help them make ends meet, Garcia said.
The Associated Press explains the child tax credit, under the American Rescue Plan, “temporarily raises the child tax credit, now at a maximum of $2,000, to as much as $3,600 per child annually.
“The plan also expands the credit so it’s fully available to the poorest families, instead of restricting it based on the parents’ tax liability. And it will be paid out in monthly installments, to offer families struggling during the pandemic a more consistent lifeline.” Read the story here.
A high-profile exit this week from News Nation, WGN America’s answer to CNN, Fox News and MSNBC that aimed for center-lane reporting without the liberal or conservative commentary, has folks buzzing about its future. My Tribune colleague Robert Channick has the story about Jennifer Lyons stepping down as vice president of news at the operation.
It comes months after News Nation’s launch, amid a pandemic, a polarizing presidential election, low ratings and growing criticism that its coverage is drifting to the right, Channick notes.
A day after U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth announced she’s running for a second term, some high-profile Democratic lawmakers will gather virtually tonight for a fundraiser. Special guests include Illinois’ senior Sen. Dick Durbin, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, along with former Democratic presidential contenders: New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
And a week after she discussed at a news conference having faced sexual harassment early on in her career, Mayor Lori Lightfoot talked today in broad brushes about how she shut it down. Her comments come as more women have accused New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of harassment.
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Illinois in line for $7.5 billion in federal aid from COVID-19 relief package Biden expected to sign this week, the Tribune’s Dan Petrella and Gregory Pratt report. Chicago would get about $2 billion, but Mayor Lightfoot said today she wants to get the money first — along with the rules about what it can be used for — before talking about spending it. She warns that it won’t be some kind of “slush fund” to be used however the city wants. Read Petrella and Pratt’s story here.
Congressman Garcia said the child tax credit provisions in the COVID-19 legislation are “probably the most significant component of the package, in my opinion, because it will help so many families out of poverty,” congressman Garcia told The Spin ahead of casting a “Yes” vote on the entire spending package.
How the child tax credit works under the American Rescue Act via The Associated Press:
*Families would receive up to $3,600 annually for each child under age 6 and as much as $3,000 for those up to 17. The credit starts to phase out for individual parents earning more than $75,000 and couples making $150,000.
*Expands the tax credit to millions of families currently making too little to qualify for the full benefits.
*Families that qualify would in turn receive monthly installments.
Partisan views: “Republicans charge the move amounts to an expansion of the welfare state that will disincentivize parents from seeking work,” The Associated Press reports. But Democrats argue it offers families struggling during the pandemic a more consistent lifeline and a chance to address the income inequality made worse amid the economic fallout from the pandemic.
“The checks that will come on a monthly basis, once people file for them,” Garcia said. “This is going to help a lot of my working-class families across the district. So, I’m really, really grateful for that. I think it’s going to be, nationally, a game changer because … it’s going to alleviate a lot of the financial stress that families are feeling.”
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger on why he was a “no” vote: “I voted against H.R.1319 because it does not do enough to help people suffering from the pandemic, and yet it still manages to spend way too much money — money that our children will have to account for down the road,” the Channahon Republican said in a statement. He also didn’t like that the Democratic-controlled Congress and White House pushed through the measure without GOP buy-in.
That said, “I fully support getting assistance to Americans to help keep food on their tables and to help those who are struggling,” Kinzinger added. “I fully support continued funding for emergency essentials like vaccines, COVID testing, PPE, school reopening resources, unemployment insurance, and research.”
More COVID-19 news: Second-dose confusion lingers over first two days of United Center vaccinations, but changes expected to come Thursday, the Tribune’s Alice Yin reports.
“Mayor Lori Lightfoot opened the door Wednesday to a more traditional summer in Chicago, saying the city is doing well in its fight against the coronavirus while highlighting the relative safety of outdoor activities,” the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt and John Byrne report.
Chairman Tom Ricketts says he’s ‘pumped’ about the Chicago Cubs’ 2021 chances while speaking on the ‘complicated’ process of playing during the pandemic, the Tribune’s Paul Sullivan writes.
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Senate confirms Chicago-area native Merrick Garland as next US attorney general
Chicago-born and Lincolwood-raised Merrick Garland was confirmed by the U.S. Senate today as the next U.S. attorney general.
It’s an about-face from five years ago when Republicans snubbed the federal appeals court judge for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Garland’s legal career, most recently as a federal appeals court judge, included an earlier stint at the Department of Justice where he lead the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, who later would be executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Read more here.
From the Tribune’s Alice Yin: “When groundbreaking on the Obama Presidential Center — tentatively set for August — begins, 35% of the construction workers on the project will be residents of South and West side neighborhoods such as Austin, Lawndale, Englewood, Woodlawn, South Shore and Washington Park, Obama Foundation chief engagement officer Mike Strautmanis said in an interview.
“That commitment was because former President Barack Obama wants the legacy that will be enshrined in his presidential center in Jackson Park to honor the city that he credits with the genesis of his swift rise in politics.” Read the story here.
The Obama Foundation has faced pushback from activists who have lobbied hard for a wide-ranging Community Benefits Agreement including the preservation of affordable housing in the neighborhood around the Presidential center. Last summer, Lightfoot and activists supported by South Side Ald. Jeanette Taylor reached an affordable housing deal in Woodlawn community amid concerns the center will trigger gentrification.
A new report released by the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls, co-chaired by U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of south suburban Matteson, is really a series of essays from Black women in business and politics who meld data and analysis about Black women and girls who find themselves on the losing side of the wealth and health care gap and how to fix that, the Daily Southtown’s Francine Knowles writes. Read her column here.
Kelly, who just made history after peers elected her to be the first African American woman to be Illinois Democratic Party chair, “focused on health care disparities in her essay,” Knowles writes. Kelly “highlighted the nearly three-year shorter life expectancy among Black women, 78.5 years, compared to 81.3 years for white women.”
Read about the legislation she’s hoping will close that gap here.
“Dorri McWhorter, CEO of YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, in her essay highlighted the causes of economic instability faced by many Black women,” Knowles writes. “Among them, Black women earn 61 cents for every $1 earned by white men. Recent data also show a 36% wage gap between Black women college graduates and their white male counterparts, said McWhorter.
“Meanwhile, Black women who seek to build a more secure financial future by pursuing a college degree often end up saddled with more student loan debt than their white peers, and many working Black women are spending up to 42% of their income on child care, which makes it difficult to save money to buy a home and build wealth, noted McWhorter.”
Possible solutions: “To address these issues, student loan forgiveness programs should be expanded to take into account the wage gap and dependent care costs, and Pell and other federal grant programs must be expanded, she said. As for addressing the wage gap, the adoption of laws prohibiting prospective employers from asking salary history could be a game changer, McWhorter said.”
Related: Crain’s Dennis Rodkin updates readers on a relatively new state program paying off student loan debts of low-income young adults interested in buying a home.
To date, 11 people have closed on homes via the SmartBuy program, as it is known, and another 100 are in the pipeline, Rodkin reports. The Illinois Housing Development Agency, which is administering the program, has a goal of helping 500-1,000 young adults purchase homes, Javier Gumulcio, IHDA’s director of homeownership, tells Rodkin.
Late last year, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced the $25 million program, paid for with money from state capital funds. More details here.
From the Tribune’s Megan Crepeau: “The director of a prominent statewide criminal justice reform project is Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle’s selection to be the county’s next public defender, records show.”
Sharone Mitchell Jr.’s proposed appointment must be confirmed by the Cook County board. Mitchell “was a longtime assistant public defender before departing for the Illinois Justice Project, a nonprofit that successfully pushed for a recent comprehensive justice reform bill, among other advocacy priorities,” Crepeau reports.
The Cook County public defender’s office, whose attorneys represent the indigent in criminal cases, is currently led by Amy Campanelli, a Preckwinkle appointee six years ago. Campanelli threw her hat in the ring for a second term, but this time around she didn’t make the search committee’s finalist list sent to Preckwinkle, the Sun-Times’ Rachel Hinton reports.
After her appointment in 2015, Campanelli “cut a much more public figure than many of her predecessors,” Crepeau writes, adding: “She and others sued the city of Chicago last summer over allegations that they routinely denied suspects access to phones.”
But Campanelli “found herself on the other end of a lawsuit in 2017, when female assistant public defenders — her own staffers — sued her, alleging she and Sheriff Tom Dart had not done enough to curb an epidemic of male detainees from exposing themselves, masturbating and threatening attorneys in courtroom lockups and the county jail,” Crepeau notes.
Cook County commissioners approved a $14 million payout to settle the suit.
With Campanelli out, the Sun-Times’ Hinton talked to Preckwinkle about the turnover among Cook County agency and department heads over the past 16 months. Exits include Cook County Public Health chief Dr. Terry Mason, Cook County Health CEO Dr. Jay Shannon and Ekerete Akpan, chief financial officer for the county health care system.
“I think that’s ridiculous,” Preckwinkle said when asked about the ousters and the seeming revolving door. Read the full story here.
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Calendar item: Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx along with leaders of the Chicago anti-violence organization GoodKids MadCity will be panelists in a virtual town hall tomorrow night titled “Decriminalizing Black Youth.” The hourlong event, which starts at 6 p.m. Thursday, will be moderated by Chicago-area native Drew Sidora, a cast member on the reality TV series “Real Housewives of Atlanta.” Click here to watch.
Mayor Lightfoot once again took a pass today when asked whether Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo should lose his job over sexual harassment allegations.
Asked to share more about the harassment she said she faced at one point during her career, the mayor said she shut her harasser down “and it stopped.”
“Look, I was pretty young in my career, and I was in a situation where I was one of very few females, and I was being harassed on a regular basis by someone in full view of others. That’s how brazen this individual was. And, you know, when you’re young, in a workplace, particularly when you’re new, you want to try to get along with folks,” Lightfoot said. “But it got to a point where it (was) just downright offensive, and it was inhibiting my ability to do my job. This individual clearly was trying to demoralize me in the workplace. And I think you know me well enough to know I stick up for myself. And so, I dealt with it, and it stopped.”
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