Week 1 of Friday Night Forecast ends in a tiebreaker, with J edging Sara after both posted perfect 5-0 prediction records.
Photo: Sentinel/Clark Brooks
Unity senior Nick Jessee reacts after just missing a fumble recovery in the Rockets' playoff semifinal against Monticello. The two teams square off without Jessee this Friday for the Friday Night Forecast's Game-of-the-Week at Monticello. URBANA - The results are in for our first Friday Night Forecast!
Sara and J, who asked not to have their full name published, both went a perfect 5-0 in Week 1 predictions. That forced the contest to a tiebreaker, with J edging out the win by coming closest to the total score in the Game of the Week.
This week's results:
Rank
Player
Record
Notes
1
J
5-0
Week 1 Winner (tiebreaker)
2
Sara
5-0
Perfect record, fell on tiebreaker
3
Brooks Look
4-1
Strong start, just missed perfect
4
Denise
4-1
One game shy of the leaders
5
Alan
3-2
Winning record
Next Friday's Illini Prairie games:
Central Catholic vs Illinois Valley Central
Prairie Central @ Pontiac
Monticello vs Unity
Rantoul @ Mattoon
St. Joseph-Ogden vs Paxton-Buckley-Loda
FINAL: St. Joseph-Ogden 44, Prairie Central 7Alan: St. Joseph-Ogden .::. 28-7 Denise: St. Joseph-Ogden .::. 28-21 J: St. Joseph-Ogden .::. 35-7 Sara: St. Joseph-Ogden .::. 48-21
Brooks Look: St. Joseph-Ogden 35, Prairie Central 16
IVC vs Monticello
FINAL: Monticello 21, IVC 6Alan: Illinois Valley Central .::. 35-32 Denise: Monticello .::. 21-14 J: Monticello .::. 21-14 Sara: Monticello .::. 32-27
Brooks Look: Monticello 42, IVC 21
Ready to join in? Next week, the Friday Night Forecast rolls on, and it’s your chance to bring the sunshine—or stir up a little gridiron thunder. Will you be a clear-sky champion or get caught in a hailstorm of wrong picks? Drop back by to enter your picks for the Week 2 Illini Prairie football games.
ST. JOSEPH - Spartan quarterback Kodey McKinney runs by Paxton-Buckley-Loda middle linebacker Dameion Olivero during their 2024 regular season finale. The Panthers return to Dick Duval Field searching for the first victory of the season and retribution for last season's 42-14 loss to St. Joseph-Ogden in their Week 2 game on Friday.
Submit your picks for this week's forecast and see how your calls stack up against other Illini Prairie Conference football fans. Drop back by OurSentinel.com Friday morning to see which teams are predicted to win as they work to qualify for this year's state football playoffs.
Illinois leaders Bill Daley and Ray LaHood relaunch an effort to end partisan gerrymandering in state legislative maps.
Photo: Capitol News Illinois/Andrew Adams
Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood joined former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley on the latest episode of the Capitol Cast podcast to discuss their renewed “fair maps” push.
SPRINGFIELD - Two veteran federal officials from Illinois are relaunching an effort to amend the Illinois Constitution and end partisan gerrymandering in state legislative districts.
Bill Daley, a Democrat from Chicago who served as secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton, and Ray LaHood, a former Republican member of Congress from Peoria who served as transportation secretary under President Barack Obama, hope they can succeed where a similar effort in 2016 failed.
The two spoke with Capitol News Illinois for an episode of the Capitol Cast podcast. The interview is also available on CNI’s YouTube channel.
“We had a very, rather complicated, process that we put forward to the voters, if it had gotten on the ballot,” Daley said of the 2016 campaign, which he actively supported. “What we learned from that, and looking at the Supreme Court decision and looking at prior cases, (was) that we should simplify and not be as complicated as we became in 2016. We have a plan that's simple. We feel very confident that the courts will approve this.”
The 2016 effort
In 2016, supporters of the “Fair Maps” initiative gathered enough signatures to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to establish an 11-member commission to redraw legislative maps after each decennial census. Seven of those members would have been chosen by a panel appointed by the auditor general, while the other four would have been appointed by legislative leaders.
But before the proposal got on the ballot, opponents of the measure – including allies of then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan – filed a court challenge and the Illinois Supreme Court struck it down on technical grounds.
The court ruled that under the Illinois Constitution, citizen-initiated amendments must be limited to dealing with “structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV” of the constitution, which deals with the legislature. By assigning new duties to the auditor general, the court said, the proposed amendment went beyond what is allowed in a citizen-initiated amendment and, therefore, was unconstitutional.
That case was filed by a group called People’s Map whose chairman, John Hooker, was an executive at the utility giant Commonwealth Edison. In July, Hooker was sentenced to 1 ½ years in prison and ordered to pay a $500,000 fine after being convicted as part of the “ComEd Four” for his role in bribing Madigan with jobs and contracts for his political allies in exchange for legislation favorable to the utility.
‘Picking your voters’
Daley and LaHood said the problem that existed in 2016 still exists today. That is, legislative maps are drawn in a way that protects the majority party.
Currently, that’s the Democratic Party, which holds 61% of the seats in the Illinois House and 68% of the seats in the state Senate, despite the fact that Democrats, on average, have won only about 55% of the vote in recent statewide elections.
“When the Republicans had the majority, they did the same thing that Democrats did,” Daley said. “Whether they did it as well or not, that can be debated. But this idea of picking your voters to maintain control, whichever party it is.”
The new proposal calls for establishing a 12-member “Legislative Redistricting Commission,” whose members would be appointed by the top Democrat and Republican in each legislative chamber. Each leader would appoint one member of the General Assembly and two members who are not lawmakers.
The commission would be barred from using voters’ party registration or voting history data when drawing maps. Districts also would be required to be compact, contiguous and drawn along existing county and municipal lines where possible.
Congress not affected
The proposal would not, however, change the method of drawing congressional district maps, a topic that has made national news in recent weeks when the Texas Legislature held a special session to redraw that state’s congressional maps to create five more Republican-leaning districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
These maps are reflective of where people live and having their friends and neighbors as their representatives
Daley and LaHood said the proposal is limited to state legislative redistricting because citizen-initiated amendments are limited to structural and procedural subjects contained in Article IV of the state constitution. Congressional redistricting is a power conferred on state legislatures from the U.S. Constitution.
Neither Daley nor LaHood would predict whether changing the mapmaking process would alter the makeup of the General Assembly significantly or change the kinds of legislation that passes through it. But LaHood — pointing to states like Iowa and California, which have adopted independent mapmaking commissions — said drawing fair maps is important for individuals and communities.
“They're not splitting up neighborhoods, they're not splitting up communities, they're not splitting up counties,” he said. “These maps are reflective of where people live and having their friends and neighbors as their representatives … and so I think in states where they have citizens drawing the maps and keeping friends and neighbors together, the voters are pretty happy.”
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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