The Spin: Illinois House advances abortion rights measure as other states approve limits

May 28-- May 28--With the state swimming in an ocean of red ink, Gov. J.B. Pritzker notched a partial victory over the long holiday weekend by getting his proposal to create a graduated income tax on the 2020 ballot. There's still a lot of work to do on that front, and it's uncertain where Illinois voters will land on the issue.

Walking into the job this year, the Democratic first-term governor saw his tax code overhaul as one of three big new revenue generators. There are three days left in the spring legislative session, so we'll see if his two other top proposals -- to legalize recreational marijuana and sports betting -- will get the green light.

Meanwhile, an abortion-rights bill that removes measures involving spousal consent, waiting periods, criminal penalties for physicians who perform the procedure and other restrictions, cleared the Illinois House this afternoon and now heads to the Senate.

A little more than a week into her job, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday talked about seeing the city in a new light over a Memorial Day weekend that was once again marred by gun violence.

Welcome to The Spin.

After income tax vote, will state lawmakers OK weed, sports betting by Friday deadline?

Pritzker is pushing to legalize recreational marijuana and sports betting, hoping that the licensing fees will help close a budget hole next fiscal year, which begins July 1. But with three days left in the spring session, it's not clear -- even with a Democratic majority in the House and Senate -- that the legislature will approve those plans.

Those two measures along with his push to move to a graduated income tax, which aims to put a heavier tax burden on wealthier residents, were part of his "think big" agenda. As the Tribune's Rick Pearson, Jamie Munks and Dan Petrella note, "the outcome figures to have a significant impact not only on the state but on the governor's political future." They take a sharp look at what it all means. Read it here.

Four things to know about the graduated income tax:

Now it's up to the voters: With the Senate already giving the measure the nod, "the Illinois House on Monday agreed to ask voters to change the 1970 state constitution by authorizing a graduated-rate tax based on the size of income and repealing the currently mandated flat-rate income tax." Read the full story here.

But not for another year: "The proposed amendment won't go before voters for ratification until the general election in November 2020. It would require approval from 60% of those voting on the issue, or a majority of those voting in the election, to be adopted." And the state wouldn't start seeing the money until 2021 at the earliest.

It's a political victory for Pritzker: The governor, who took office in January, "campaigned for election on the concept of taxing wealthier incomes at a higher rate as part of an overall plan to deal with Illinois' ailing finances," the Tribune reported. Pritzker hailed the vote as "a giant leap forward for the middle class."

The battle will continue: "The action by the Democratic-led House, joining with a Senate vote May 1 that was approved by all 40 Democrats in the chamber, sets the stage for a lengthy and contentious battle between advocates and opponents of a graduated-rate tax system," Pearson, Munks and Petrella note.

Quotable: Rep. Avery Bourne, a Republican from downstate Raymond, at one point said: "There simply aren't enough rich people in this state to pay for the insatiable appetite of spending that we see here in Springfield."

Property taxes? With the state and city of Chicago dealing with a pension crisis and other budget woes, and a long "to do list" ranging from infrastructure to improving neighborhoods, plenty of property owners think it's not a question of if but when real estate taxes will go up. That said, Pritzker issued a news release Monday saying that he and several lawmakers created a "Property Tax Relief Task Force, designed to make recommendations that would give homeowners across the state property tax relief." Stay tuned.

This just in: The Illinois House OK'd a sweeping abortion rights bill after an emotional floor debate this afternoon:Now Pritzker is urging the Senate to act fast and OK it. Read Tribune reporter Jamie Munks' story here.

State lawmakers poised to pass changes following Chicago Public Schools sex abuse scandal: The bill addresses several of the failures highlighted in "Betrayed," a Chicago Tribune investigation that uncovered the 500-plus times police investigated a case of sexual assault or abuse of a child inside a Chicago public school in the last decade. Read Jennifer Smith Richards and David Jackson's story here.

Lightfoot on the ripple effects of crime and violence

Speaking to a downtown luncheon of elected and civic leaders at the City Club, Lightfoot didn't mince words about how the city's best efforts couldn't curb the violence: "This weekend, despite our coordinated efforts, despite all our agencies showing up and delivering programming and resources and just a presence -- 43 people were shot in our city. And five died," she said. According to the Tribune count, at least 43 people were shot, seven fatally, over the weekend. You can read that story here.

Lightfoot was in the neighborhoods with police -- even responding with officers to one shooting. But here's what else she says she took in: "I was struck, this weekend, traveling around the South and West sides, how desolate it sometimes felt for blocks and blocks. How hard it was to simply find a place to sit down and have lunch, or grab a cup of coffee. In other neighborhoods, the energy was electric.

"The legacies of racial discrimination and race- and class-based inequality are tied to the culture of corruption that has favored the clouted and the wealthy. And those legacies, intertwined, lie at the root of every problem my administration faces today," she said, listing violence, income and housing segregation and good-paying jobs among them. "All of these pieces are the result of deliberate policy choices made in decades past by people in power in this town."

Regarding her relationship with Chicago police after hiring a former U.S. Marshal to lead her security detail: "Well, I hope that my relationship with CPD is good," noting that she has friends on the job. She then talked about the sometimes-fraught state of police-community relations. "But we have challenges ... we have to get to a place in the city where our young officers understand that respectful, constitutional engagement with the community is their most powerful tool."

She said increased training along with "trauma care" is important for officers, lamenting the recent spate of suicides on the police force. "We have to do better by our young officers, just as we have to do better by our young people and those communities that are under siege."

Hints at security issues: "A lot of ink has been spilled" over her tapping James Smith to lead her security detail, Lightfoot told the crowd, but he's instrumental in keeping her and her family safe, and she hinted that he's fended off threats. "He has protected me personally from things that have happened along the way," Lightfoot told the crowd.

Reversing Chicago's population loss: "I think we have to give people a reason to stay, we have to deal with the violence, we need to make sure that young families when they're thinking about staying in Chicago or leaving they have a great neighborhood school they know their child can get into," she said, adding that other factors, including property taxes, are driving people out of the city and that issue, along with all of those other things, need to be dealt with.

Lightfoot lays out 100 day ethics agenda: During her City Club speech, she also said that "change is necessary" to clean up government. You can read that story here.

Lightfoot's first City Council meeting tomorrow will be a political test

Tomorrow will be Lightfoot's first City Council meeting as mayor, which will be the first opportunity for the public to get a sense of how the executive and legislative branches will or won't work together.

The Tribune's John Byrne and Gregory Pratt explain what's at stake: "After weeks of Lightfoot hyping her campaign pledge to reform City Hall, and of some aldermen complaining both about her ideas for shaking things up and her bedside manner, she will ask them to vote for her plan to overhaul the City Council. Central to that effort is her plan to award council committee chairmanships -- and the jobs and prestige that come with them -- to 18 members." Read their full story here.

A question of power, Part I: Ald. Raymond Lopez, 15th, who's emerged as one of Lightfoot's loudest critics and an ally of embattled Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, calls Lightfoot's move to dictate council organization hypocritical, Byrne and Pratt report. "Candidate Lori Lightfoot said, 'I don't want a rubber-stamp council,' but no sooner she wins, out come the ink pads for everyone to be her rubber stamp," Lopez said.

A question of power, Part II: "The success or failure of this first move to put her imprint on the council will give an indication how things will go for the next several years," Byrne and Pratt wrote. "Will a sizable opposition form or will she join predecessors Rahm Emanuel and Richard M. Daley in locking down a comfortable majority for her initiatives?"

What Lightfoot says it means to residents: "I think the people in this city, they don't want me to focus on the nonsense," she said in an interview with WGCI-FM. "They want me to get s--- done."

Emanuel's newest gig: The Chicago-based anti-violence project for young men in Chicago Public Schools is expanding, and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is playing a big role in that. He's been named founding executive chair of the National BAM -- the acronym for the "Becoming A Man" program -- Advisory Council. The program, for boys in grades 7 to 12, uses sports and mentoring to help students resolve conflicts, keep away from violence and stay in school. The organization issued a news release, and you can read it here.

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger rips President Trump over supporting Kim, blasting Biden

U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who hails from Channahon, took to Twitter to blast President Donald Trump over the weekend for praising North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

It all started with the president's own tweet on Saturday: "North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that's sending me a signal?"

That's a reference to reports of Kim going after the former vice president and Democratic presidential hopeful, whose high polling numbers suggests at least for now he could be the nominee to square off with Republican Trump in the 2020 race.

Kinzinger, an Iraq War veteran who serves in the Air National Guard, responded to Trump's tweet on Sunday: "It's Memorial Day Weekend and you're taking a shot at Biden while praising a dictator. This is just plain wrong."

To date, the Illinois congressman has carefully criticized Trump but also supported the president after returning in February from an Air National Guard deployment to the U.S.-Mexico border. Kinzinger said then that he wouldn't vote to block Trump's national emergency declaration to build a wall along the United States' southern boundary.

Trump EPA backs away from smog breaks for Foxconn, Indiana steel mills

"When the Trump administration exempted parts of the Chicago area last year from federal limits on lung-damaging smog, it delivered a huge financial break to steel mills, chemical plants and other industries that are some of the region's biggest polluters," the Tribune's Michael Hawthorne writes.

"In a few densely worded paragraphs buried at the end of a 63-page document, attorneys for the EPA and Justice Department asked a federal appeals court this month for what, in legal terms, amounts to a do-over. Administration officials aren't admitting they did anything wrong, the lawyers contend. But they can see EPA data showing the region's smog problems are getting worse, not better, and that polluters in four counties singled out by (Trump's former EPA Administrator Scott) Pruitt for special treatment are contributing to chronically dirty air breathed by millions of people." Read the full story here.

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