(SPRINGFIELD) Democrats in the Illinois State Senate have advanced a measure that would prohibit statewide companies from requiring employees to attend work-related meetings about religion or politics. Under the plan, it would be illegal for a business to discipline, fire, or otherwise penalize a worker who declines to attend an employee-sponsored meeting about political or religious matters. Employees who believe their workplaces violated the law would be able to file a complaint with the Illinois Department of Labor.
(SPRINGFIELD) Medical cannabis has been legal for years in Illinois and now there’s a push to legalize psychedelic mushrooms for medical purposes. A Joliet lawmaker has introduced Senate Bill 3695, which would legalize psilocybin, sometimes call “magic mushrooms,” for medical therapies and treatment for people suffering from a variety of disorders, including PTSD, depression, and anxiety. However, the CURE Act (Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens Act) would keep psychedelic mushrooms illegal for recreational purposes. Oregon voters passed a 2020 ballot measure making it the first state in the nation to both decriminalize mushrooms and legalize their supervised use for residents there.
(SPRINGFIELD) As Governor J.B. Pritzker continues to push his goal of having more zero emission vehicles on Illinois roads, one group says the country is rushing too fast to ban the sales of new gas vehicles. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers says state and federal governments are fast tracking policies to limit consumer choice and end the availability of new gas cars and trucks. While Governor Pritzker says he is opposed to Illinois adopting emission standards like California, with a proposal in Springfield to do so, his goal is to have at least one million vehicles on Illinois roads by the year 2030.
(CHICAGO) The Chicago Bears may be close to revealing a plan for a new domed lakefront stadium in the Windy City, featuring hundreds of millions of dollars of private financing. According to Crain’s Chicago Business, the team will propose infrastructure improvements that would likely add hundreds of millions of dollars of costs to the city’s taxpayer bills to support the construction of a new stadium. One of the hurdles could be the advocacy group Friends of the Parks, which has stopped previous lakefront development from happening.