Mark Janus was told that he had to pay union dues to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31 if he wanted to work for Illinois. His job as a state child support collection specialist had great benefits and salary as a result of the union’s collective bargaining efforts.

Since 1977 that was the law of the land, no free ride for non-union folks enjoying the fruits of the union’s efforts. Across 22 states that was the rule for 5.5 million government workers.

Until Wednesday.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision was hot off the presses Wednesday when a passel of press releases from union officials and Democratic officeholders started pouring in.

The tsunami represented an “outrage” Olympics of sorts, each commenter grasping for words that came closest to a primal scream.

The Illinois State Board of Education on Wednesday announced the appointment of a monitor to work with Chicago Public Schools officials to make a number of changes to the district’s special education program.

Laura Boedeker, who has worked for CPS as its in-house counsel, as a social-emotional learning specialist and as a senior diverse learner support leader, will serve as the liaison for special education between the board and the district, State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith said in a statement Wednesday.

An Illinois Commerce Commission judge is expected to decide “within weeks” whether to recommend pulling Lincoln Towing Service’s state license over alleged violations.

Attorneys for Lincoln and the ICC delivered closing arguments Wednesday before Administrative Law Judge Latrice Kirkland-Montaque, the culmination of a lengthy and contentious hearing process to determine the Chicago towing firm’s fitness to maintain its license.

The Cook County medical examiner’s office, which routinely hasn’t abided by a requirement that it send an investigator to the scene of every suspicious death, no longer will be required to do so.

The Cook County Board agreed Wednesday to change the requirement in a county ordinance that says a medical examiner’s “representative shall go to the location of the body” and begin an “investigation with an examination of the scene.”