Andrew Sullender

The House passed a Senate bill that allows for gender-neutral language on marriage certificates and allows for “consistency in the changing of gender on a marriage certificate, which may be appropriate with a transgender couple,” said state Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago.

Acting Illinois Transportation Secretary Omer Osman said that the plan would renew the transportation sector in Illinois after “the most challenging year ever experienced in our industry.”

Illinoisans collecting unemployment insurance receive an extra $300 a week from the federal government, intended to help them through the pandemic. So far, 18 Republican governors have said they will not allow the extra benefits. Two Illinois Republicans say Pritzker shouldn’t, either.

Testifying before a House panel on Thursday, Deputy Gov. Sol Flores stuck to the administration’s contention that the state’s former veterans affairs chief was to blame, even as Flores apologized on behalf of the administration, saying “every single person involved could have done more to save your loved ones.”

Those were among the measures contained in bills passed by the state House or Senate on Wednesday, a little less than three weeks before the current legislative session is scheduled to end.

Standing outside the Democratic map room on Thursday, House Republicans blasted the majority for a redistricting process the GOP dubbed “the literal opposite of transparent.”

The Illinois attorney general’s appeal of a downstate judge’s ruling sets up a battle over whether the state can require residents to hold an ID card in order to own a firearm. First enacted in 1968, the state’s Firearm Owner Identification Act does just that. But a southern Illinois judge said that makes residents’ Second Amendment rights a “façade.”

Senate President Don Harmon vowed Friday to pass a bill creating an elected school board this year, favoring a “hybrid model” of elected and appointed members. Mayor Lori Lightfoot backs that approach, while a fully elected board is supported by state House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and other House Democrats.

But state Sen. Jason Barickman said the money does not go to those who need it the most because it prioritizes “not based on their individual circumstances but based on the ZIP code in which they live.”