What’s Happening in Illinois
State lawmakers have passed and Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed into law significant progressive reforms
Illinois made national headlines this year, and not for corruption or another governor going to prison. (Since the 1960s, four former Illinois governors, three Democrats and one Republican, have been incarcerated.) Instead, the headlines reflected groundbreaking steps the state has taken toward addressing systemic racism.
In March, the Chicago suburb of Evanston became the first locality in the United States to vote to pay reparations to Black residents. Evanston’s city council authorized a first allocation of $400,000 from the city’s reparations fund, slated to go to sixteen Black families for housing repairs or a downpayment on a new home.
The fund was established in November 2019, when the council voted to set aside the first $10 million collected in taxes from recreational cannabis dispensaries to financially address the city’s discriminatory policies toward Black residents, including the disproportionate number of marijuana arrests.
Recreational cannabis was legalized in the state in June 2019. Called the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, it was seen as having the strongest social equity measures in the nation.
