Politics

Cairo, Illinois residents hopeful for poverty reduction plan

Published

1 year ago

June 11, 2024

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This story, produced in partnership with Southern Illinois University journalism students, was supported by grant funding from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.CAIRO, Ill. — Pink and purple toys line the living room of a tiny public housing apartment in Cairo, a town at Illinois’ southernmost border. A doorway leads to the only other room: a small bedroom that Kaneesha Mallory shares with her 4-year-old daughter Bre’Chelle.It’s not an ideal living situation. The public housing authority built the high-rise for seniors, not families.But on an annual income of about $15,000, it’s all the 34-year-old single mother can afford. She receives food stamps and disability benefits but those payments haven’t kept up with the rising cost of groceries and other essentials.“It’s hard. I didn’t plan to live like this but such is life, you know?” Mallory said. “Because if I wanted to get another apartment somewhere out of housing, I would have a utility bill and the utility bill would be super freakin’ high.”Her rural town of about 1,600 people has suffered one hit after another. It’s lost most of its public housing in recent years because of health and safety concerns. Cairo’s Head Start, where Mallory’s daughter attended, closed last year, leaving fewer options for child care and early education services. The town lost its sole nursing home during the pandemic. And while Cairo celebrated the opening of a co-op grocery store last year, there’s still no place to fill up a car with gas.In 2020, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and lawmakers pledged to help people like Mallory and the communities they call home.Through passage of a law known as the Intergenerational Poverty Act, they decreed an ambitious plan: to cut deep and persistent poverty by 50 percent by 2026, lift all children from poverty by 2031 and eliminate poverty entirely in Illinois by 2036.

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and The Saluki Local Reporting LabAn empty and abandoned house sits near the St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church on April 26 in Cairo.

This law created a 25-member commission made up of private and public sector officials to study the root causes of poverty and racial disparities that plague many of Illinois’ poorest communities, including their lack of safe, affordable housing, high unemployment rates and child care shortages.But like most of the commissions and blue-ribbon panels that lawmakers create, it has no authority to fix the problems it finds. It can only make recommendations to lawmakers and the governor.Pritzker’s agenda has aligned with much of what the group has proposed, such as increasing funding for early childhood education and creating for the first time in Illinois a $50 million state-level child tax credit similar to what the federal government offers families, which was included in the state budget that passed last month. Collectively, those plans provide funding for 5,000 state-supported preschool seats next year and give qualifying families with children up to age 12 a tax credit that’s equal to 20 percent of the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit.The state, under Pritzker’s leadership, has also increased funding for low-income college students, increased the cash assistance paid to eligible families under what’s known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and expanded the number of working parents eligible for child care subsidies, among other initiatives, according to a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Human Services.But bolder and more controversial policy ideas supported by some on the commission, such as extending coverage to tipped workers under the state’s minimum wage laws and establishing a statewide guaranteed income for families who live in poverty – state aid they could spend with no strings attached – have not gained significant traction. Communities like Cairo that have suffered decades of economic decline have seen little relief.And the commission, which has seven vacancies, is a long way from meeting its goals.In fact, financial problems are worsening for many families as pandemic-era enhanced benefits sunset in the face of rising inflation.

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and The Saluki Local Reporting LabMarsha Hayes hugs Brian Tucker after he picks his monthly groceries from Arrowleaf’s mobile pantry on Feb. 7 in Cairo, Ill. “Once I see you every week, you know all the time for months the same people all the time,” Hayes said. “You get to be friends, they ask about the kids and we always check on their kids, you know, and see how they’re doing, so it’s that caring. It’s that they know you care.”

‘What’s your plan…?’Few places are immune to poverty, but rural counties in southern and central Illinois struggle the most. And perhaps nowhere experiences these challenges as deeply as Cairo.A majority Black town steeped in history at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, Cairo is the government seat of Alexander County. It’s the poorest county in Illinois and the fastest depopulating in America. Today, the county is home to about 5,000 people, down from a high of over 25,000 in 1940.Cairo Mayor Thomas Simpson said he’d never heard of the commission on poverty elimination, though it did hold a listening session in the town in March 2023.“We need to know, okay, what’s your plan to get us out of poverty,” Simpson said. ‘What (are) you gonna do for us down here in Cairo? I’m working on rebuilding Cairo, so how can we work together to make things happen.”Simpson said his community suffers from a lack of industry and small businesses. The state, he said, should take advantage of the region’s natural resources.“I mean, you look at river, rail and of course we’ve got the waterways out here. … A lot of things can happen here and we’ve got space for it,” Simpson said.There have been efforts to uplift Cairo, but they’ve fallen short.One of the latest came in August 2020, when Pritzker joined local officials to announce $40 million in state support to jump start construction of a port just west of Cairo on the Mississippi River, near the confluence. The governor billed the project as an economic lifeline for Cairo and the surrounding area.“This is more than just a port,” Pritzker said that day. “It’s also fuel for new jobs and newfound economic prosperity all across this region, a region that’s been left out and left behind for far too long.”But the project, which was supposed to be operational this year, has faced numerous delays. Local officials say planning work and environmental studies are underway, but no timeline has been given for construction to start.

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and The Saluki Local Reporting LabJayson Holland drives a bus owned by Arrowleaf that has been transformed into a mobile food pantry into the entrance of Cairo, Illinois on Feb. 7. “One of the big things is just having purpose in our day,” Holland said. “So it’s like on Wednesdays, you know, I know I’m gonna be in Cairo, I’m gonna have this good interactions with my people and like help take care of our clients down there…”

‘They can’t find a place to stay’Alongside an expansion of industry and jobs, Cairo officials say they need places for people to live at a variety of price points.“We have a crisis in southern Illinois for affordable housing, especially in areas such as Alexander County,” said state Sen. Dale Fowler, R-Harrisburg, who sits on the commission.That crisis was apparent on a Tuesday night in early April, when dozens of Cairo citizens, including Mallory, filled the blue lunch tables in the high school gymnasium for a meeting about the town’s housing needs.The conversation sounded like one that might be heard after a hurricane or large-scale fire pushed people from their homes. “We’ve had a lot of folks displaced. And of course, a lot of folks want to come home,” Simpson said at the top of the meeting. But the housing crisis here is human-made.Citing safety issues and no money for repairs after local officials misspent it, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has closed five large housing complexesin the county since 2019. That eliminated most of the subsidized apartment units that had been available only five short years ago.

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and Saluki Local Reporting LabLEFT: Steve Tarver writes answers from the community for the prompt “Besides housing, what else is needed?” on a sheet of paper taped to the wall at Cairo Junior/Senior High School on April 2. Dozens of people turned up to a housing meeting put on by Cairo and Housing Action Illinois to talk about the need for housing in Cairo and Alexander County. RIGHT: A sign reading “What have been the pressures that you, your family or others in this community have faced when it comes to housing?” is taped to the gymnasium wall.

Residents forced to move from their apartments received vouchers to help subsidize their rents in privately owned homes and apartments. But due to the severe lack of housing in the county, most have moved 30 miles or more away to mid-size communities in Illinois and neighboring Kentucky and Missouri.The town begged for help replacing some of its lost housing, but the government is no longer in the business of building public housing. Instead, state and federal programs now rely on private and nonprofit developers who use complex tax-credit deals to build housing.And though Fowler said the commission supports an expansion of affordable housing in Illinois, including for southern Illinois, these tax-credit housing models are challenging to make work in disadvantaged rural communities, as they struggle to operate at the scale needed for financial sustainability.The housing crisis in Cairo is widespread, affecting people across the income spectrum. Home prices are low compared to the statewide average, but they often need thousands of dollars in repairs.“When I moved back home eight years ago, I had to stay with my sister in the projects until I found somewhere to live,” said Lisa Thomas, a fifth-grade teacher at a nearby elementary school. “When I finally found somewhere to live, it took a lot of money to actually get my home into a livable condition. And so that’s some of the things that you’re finding, people stay with other people, because they can’t find a place to stay.”

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and The Saluki Local Reporting LabKaneesha Mallory, 34, listens to candidates for the NAACP Political Committee of Alexander-Pulaski Counties on April 25 at Cairo Junior/Senior High School. Citizens of Alexander and Pulaski counties heard from political candidates on various topics including poverty.

Looking for solutionsChristopher Merrett, director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, said that while communities must shoulder much of their own recovery work, it’s unrealistic to think they can do it without help.“It’s really hard to think beyond that day-to-day and week-to-week basis,” he said. “Hard to get that mindset that you should be thinking a year out, five years out, because you’re just so busy trying to keep a roof over your head and over your family’s head.”Merrett is not on the poverty commission but his institute is helping Cairo officials with economic development planning. It starts, he said, with changing attitudes.“There’s kind of a negative narrative about rural communities,” Merrett said. “We’re trying to help change the way people think about the community, because many communities have been in population decline for decades.”Audra Wilson, the poverty commission’s co-chair and the president and CEO of the Chicago-based Shriver Center on Poverty Law, said the group also hopes to reframe the discussion around poverty, emphasizing systemic failures and policy decisions that have let people and communities down rather than assigning blame for their circumstances.Rural areas, in particular, lack the resources they need, Wilson said, and the commission acknowledges that. But often, she added, there are programs to help that people do not know about. Part of the commission’s work is studying how to more effectively connect people to existing benefits.Indeed, there are community-based programs in Alexander County. For instance, every Wednesday, several dozen people line up single-file in a Cairo parking lot and await the arrival of a bus filled with groceries. This “mobile food pantry” service is provided by Arrowleaf, a local nonprofit.But getting the word out is hard, said Sherrie Crabb, Arrowleaf’s chief executive. “We do have some resources, but it’s just trying to find ways to educate individuals that may not use regular means of communication that you see in other areas,” Crabb said.

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and The Saluki Local Reporting LabJennifer Jones-Hall, Aaron Hall and Marsha Hayes load supplies onto the mobile food pantry bus that is departing for Cairo on Feb. 7.

‘They don’t care’As for the commission’s future, with an impending goal of cutting deep poverty in half in less than two years, it continues to meet and develop policy solutions that it plans to present to the governor and lawmakers.Wilson acknowledged that broader anti-poverty work is still needed. However, there have been some attempts at larger undertakings.For instance, the state has earmarked $13 million over three years for a guaranteed income pilot program known as the Illinois Stability Investment in Family Housing program. It’s a joint effort between the poverty commission and two additional state committees tackling homelessness and hunger.Under the pilot program, 1,125 families, selected by lottery, have received $9,500 each – one-time payments they can spend as they see fit. To qualify, individuals had to be experiencing homelessness, receiving services for housing stability and be pregnant or have at least one child living with them. It is operating in eight regions of the state – in Chicago and the surrounding areas, central Illinois and the Metro East – though families south of the St. Louis metropolitan area are not eligible.

Lylee Gibbs

Capitol News Illinois and The Saluki Local Reporting LabCars pass by the Historic Downtown Cairo sign on 8th Street on April 26 in Cairo. The street was once home to several businesses such as Cairo Chamber of Commerce, the Elks Club and Gem Theater which now all sit abandoned and empty.

The state has partnered with the Inclusive Economy Lab at the University of Chicago to design and evaluate the program. Preliminary findings are expected late next year, IDHS said.Wilson said the no-strings-attached cash assistance “has been a huge game changer.” But these programs have strong detractors and statewide implementation would face significant hurdles. Asked if the Pritzker administration supports some form of a guaranteed income program, the IDHS spokesperson said that it is committed to working with lawmakers and other policy experts to “explore all options to help lift people out of poverty.”Other big questions also remain unresolved, like how to help places like Cairo reverse decades of economic decline.If the major industries that supported the town are gone, “Where do people go? And where do they work?” Wilson said. “These are things that you have to think about in its entirety if you’re going to really be lifting families out of poverty.”Despite the challenges that Cairo faces, it’s still home for Mallory and others like her working to rebound their town. Even as others have left, Cairo is the place she wants to live – a powerful draw, rooted in deep connections.“I want her to be raised in Cairo because this is where our family (is),” Mallory said of her daughter. “My granny, my younger sister, those are my rocks, those are my heartbeats, those are my like, to get me through each and every single day.”But, she said, it feels like policymakers could do more to help her community.“Well past Springfield,” she said, echoing a common refrain around town, “they don’t care about us.”Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of print and broadcast outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

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Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

Published

1 year ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”

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Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

Published

1 year ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.

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As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

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1 year ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.

Dilpreet Raju

Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.

No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

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