Gov. J.B. Pritzker faced fresh criticism Tuesday over a rule change that allows misdemeanor charges for Illinois businesses that reopen before they are allowed.

At his daily briefing on Tuesday, Pritzker was asked about accusations from Republican lawmakers that he was circumventing the legislative process.

In a predictable but still distressing report, Moody’s Investors Service says Chicago’s and Illinois’ already weak public pension systems face greater fiscal risks from today’s COVID-19 calamity than they did during the subprime mortgage recession of 2007-09.

The key risk: Governments that have lost tax revenue because of COVID will be tempted to slash their contributions. But if they do so, funds in worse shape than they were a decade ago will be dinged even more, risking insolvency in some cases.

The state’s COVID-19 response and operating budget will unsurprisingly be on the top of the agenda for lawmakers when they return for a socially distanced session this week, according to an email distributed to Illinois House members Tuesday.

The House will meet Wednesday through Friday at the Bank of Springfield Center in downtown Springfield, while the Senate will convene at the Capitol in its regular chamber.

Although Gov. J.B. Pritzker has downplayed an emergency rule that could mean misdemeanor charges for any person who violates the governor’s stay-at-home order by operating a business, Republicans remain opposed the rule.

Pritzker on Monday said the rule was meant to be a less punitive way to get businesses to comply than revoking licenses or seeking business closures.

A Sangamon County judge has denied the owner of RC Outfitters an injunction that would block Gov. JB Pritzker’s stay-at-home order.

The move means Adam White, the store’s owner, has failed in his bid to block enforcement of the governor’s order that shuttered his business. He had reopened his business in defiance of that order not long after he filed the lawsuit on May 1 in Peoria County.

Republicans in the Illinois House said Tuesday they will attempt to block an emergency rule from the Illinois Department of Public Health that makes it a crime for any business to violate Gov. JB Pritzker’s stay-at-home order.

IDPH submitted the rule to the secretary of state’s office Friday. It essentially codifies portions of Pritzker’s stay-at-home order into an administrative rule. Under existing state law, known as the Department of Public Health Act, violation of an IDPH order is a class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to 364 days in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both.

Record unemployment insurance claims have thrown state unemployment insurance systems into financial distress. Three million American workers filed for unemployment insurance in the week ending May 9, according to the Department of Labor, bringing the total number of initial claims up to 36 million American workers over 8 weeks. Real-time unemployment estimates range from 12.5 percent to 42.9 percent across the states.

There are nine state unemployment trust funds that have already applied to borrow money from the United States Treasury to backfill their unemployment funds, indicating that the funds are on the brink of insolvency. States are challenged with the short-term problem of insolvent unemployment trust funds and the long-term problem of years of lingering joblessness. The solution to both problems is rapid re-employment and job formation after the pandemic recession ends. Policymakers need to prepare their states to grow again.

A day after Gov. JB Prizker said he planned on staying with his vision for the state of Illinois to begin to reopen amid the coronavirus crisis, local crafters of an alternative plan say they aren’t giving up hope.

Rather, Peoria County Board Chairman Andrew Rand and Peoria’s mayor Jim Ardis both say they will continue to press for the region to move along as quickly as it can to reopen after more than two months of shutdown to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

While Illinois remains under a stay-at-home order, its neighbors have reopened for business and some Illinoisans are traveling to other states to spend their money.

Under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s five-phase reopening plan, bars and restaurants will not be allowed to reopen until late June at the earliest.

Stark County has followed neighboring Marshall County in emphasizing that it “has not endorsed” a recently announced sub-regional plan to reopen businesses faster than state guidelines would allow in response to the coronavirus pandemic – even though some officials have been chafing at those standards.

Like Marshall County leaders last week, Stark County Board Chairman Al Curry pointed out Tuesday that neither the board nor other county officials had known anything about the proposal to restore an 11-county “Heart of Illinois” area at an accelerated pace until the plan was announced last Wednesday at a press conference led by Peoria-area leaders.

A judge on Tuesday found McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks in “friendly contempt” for refusing to identify a dark money source that funded a series of allegedly defamatory campaign mailers in 2018.

Kane County Judge Mark Busch gave the order during a Zoom court call Tuesday morning, on the heels of a related Illinois Second District Appellate Court ruling. McHenry County Clerk and Recorder Joe Tirio has spent more than a year trying to identify the fund operators in an attempt to sue them for defamation.