UPDATE: Highlights from Montee’s news conference on the General Assembly audit:

On the House copying contract: Montee said that her auditors believed that there might have been some connection between the vendor who got the no-bid, multi-million-dollar contract for House copying,…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinois lawmakers tonight have begun patching together a budget for the fiscal year that started two weeks ago. The new spending plan doesn’t contain the tax increase that Gov. Pat Quinn has sought.

As a result, even supporters of the…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois House just passed a measure that is a depressing sign of the times to those of us who are still holding out in the newspaper profession.

The bill, SB291, changes Illinois law that currently requires that…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The union that represents most Illinois state workers is demonstrating outside dozens of state lawmakers’ offices (including a handful in the Metro East) in hopes of pressuring them into supporting Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed income tax hike when…

UPDATE, 6:12 pm — The bill just failed on a 42-74-2 vote. Here is the roll call.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois House is debating Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed income tax hike right now.

His plan (SB2252) would raise the state’s current 3…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Illinois House Democrats tonight offered a “sort-of” state budget that would have provided about half the funding needed to run state government for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Then they pulled it back before anyone…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – With about 36 hours left before the Illinois General Assembly’s constitutional deadline for passing a new state budget, lawmakers still haven’t started their final debate on it. They haven’t come to agreement on Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois House has passed a resolution calling for the state Department of Transportation to study whether cable barriers can be installed at the Martin Luther King and William McKinley bridges to address high accident rates there.

The…

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Republicans in the Illinois House just now tried to capitalize on the fact that Democratic U.S. Sen. Roland Burris of Illinois is once again bouncing around in the national news. They’ve filed a resolution calling for Burris’…

[ UPDATE, THURSDAY MAY 28 11:15 a.m. -- The House just gave final approval to both these bills. The driving-while-texting ban was approved on a 92-25 vote, and the ban on using cellphones in schools zones passed 96-21. It now…