The following is a statement from Make Wall Street Pay Illinois on the passage of SB 397.
Make Wall Street Pay Illinois is deeply disappointed in the State Senate’s action today and we call on Governor Pat Quinn to veto this fundamentally flawed piece of legislation. SB 397 is a corporate welfare bill that sends Illinois’ budget priorities in the exact wrong direction.
To add insult to injury, CME Group and other large corporations demonstrated that they have the power to convene the entire state legislature. The only reason the General Assembly met yesterday and today was to pass this tax break. Do such massive corporate interests have more power than Speaker Mike Madigan, Senator John Cullerton or Governor Pat Quinn? The laid-off teachers, fire-fighters and social service providers deserve urgent attention but do not call the legislature when things did not go their way in the legislature.
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With two months to go, the race for Cook County Circuit Clerk is an odd mix of wonky discussion on how to run a judicial bureaucracy -- and hyberbolic charges and counter-charges by 12-year incumbent Dorothy Brown and challenger Rick Munoz, who has been Chicago's 22nd Ward alderman since 1993. 
Occupy Chicago participants formed a breadline Friday afternoon
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breaks to large corporations. The Illinois General Assembly is expected
to vote on Senate bill 405 next week, a measure that would provide
massive tax cuts totaling more than $100 million for the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Options Exchange
(CBOE). The bill comes in a time of economic turmoil with the state
facing an $8 billion budget deficit in the upcoming year, 
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