Trying to set himself apart from his predecessor, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch is shutting down one of the chief campaign funds Mike Madigan relied on for decades to preserve his House majority and top leadership spot.

In its place, Welch is establishing the Democrats for the Illinois House committee — funds from the Democratic Majority campaign fund will be transferred over to that new House committee.

Illinois lawmakers on March 17 began the once-in-a-decade task of redrawing the lines that make up congressional and state legislative districts. This year, however, the process is unlike recent remaps, for a variety of reasons—some that are outside local officials’ control, others that are squarely in their wheelhouse.

In the outside-our-control category is the COVID-sparked delay of the census data that mapmakers typically rely on, and as Crain’s political reporter A.D. Quig pointed out in her coverage of the mapmaking kickoff, that means it’s still unclear whether Illinois will lose one or two seats in Congress, on top of the looming question of how lawmakers will balance the drop in Illinois’ Black population against the rise in Latino population—not to mention how, or whether, the Democrats who control the Statehouse, the Senate and the governor’s mansion will yet again wield the remap as a weapon against their Republican counterparts to hold onto power.

On Thursday Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced a new transitional phase to “bridge” the state from the current COVID-19 restrictions under phase 4 to a full reopening on the state in phase 5.

The bridge phase includes new guidance on gathering and capacity limits in a effort to provide a clearer picture for many of the state’s economic industries going into the summer while COVID-19 numbers remain down and vaccinations expand.

When he first ran for the Chicago City Council, Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th) failed to report he had ownership stakes in two Uptown apartment complexes that since have been sold for $85.5 million — despite financial disclosure laws requiring him to do so, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found.

And then, eight months after selling one of the properties, he voted to approve development plans there without disclosing his connection, the Sun-Times found.

As housing prices continue to go up in Illinois, rental prices are heading in the other direction.

The state is seeing one of the biggest declines in rental prices in the country. According to an analysis by QuoteWizard, the average cost of an apartment in the state has decreased 6.2% over the last two years, which ranks fifth in the country for rental cost decrease.