The People's Lobby

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The People's Lobby The People's Lobby organizes support for policies and candidates who put people & planet first.

The People's Lobby (http://thepeopleslobbyusa.org) is a membership-driven organization devoted to organizing widespread support for public policies and candidates – including people from our communities – that put the needs of people and the planet before the interests of big corporations and the very rich. The People’s Lobby Education Institute (http://www.thepeopleslobbyusa.org/education-institute/) is a 501(c)(3) organization devoted to developing strong grassroots leaders that understand the root causes of injustice, build bases within their local communities, and take direct action to hold powerful decision makers accountable to putting people and the planet first.

Have you registered for our fall membership meeting on Saturday, Oct 3rd yet? Now's the time to join our plan to protect...
09/24/2026

Have you registered for our fall membership meeting on Saturday, Oct 3rd yet? Now's the time to join our plan to protect our vote this November, and build toward the transformative agenda we want to put in practice after the midterms.

Register here: https://buff.ly/mdPXoX2

We fought hard with our coalition partners to pass the NITA Act last year, because simply maintaining the status quo for...
09/21/2026

We fought hard with our coalition partners to pass the NITA Act last year, because simply maintaining the status quo for transit by avoiding devastating funding cuts wasn't enough. This month, Illinois entered a new era for transit as the Northern Illinois Transit Authority [NITA] officially began operations.

This was the biggest improvement to our transit system in 40 years. Read our piece in Truthout to learn more. https://buff.ly/x4cKdyD

Voters should pick our leaders, not the other way around. The midterms are coming up in seven weeks (!) and we at The Pe...
09/18/2026

Voters should pick our leaders, not the other way around. The midterms are coming up in seven weeks (!) and we at The People's Lobby are laying the groundwork to protect our vote. Come to our membership meeting on 10/3 to learn how you can get involved. https://buff.ly/nyEgxuN

09/18/2026

Three years ago today, Illinois made history by implementing the Pretrial Fairness Act and becoming the first state in the country to completely eliminate money bail. Since then, there has been a decrease in both the number of people jailed pretrial and the rates of violent and property crime. Prior to the Pretrial Fairness Act, Illinoisans paid more than $120 million dollars a year to access the presumption of innocence. Now that our state has stopped making people choose between paying the rent or a ransom to bring a loved one home, that money is staying in our state’s most economically vulnerable communities. Illinois has illuminated the path for a pretrial system without money, and we eagerly await other states to join us.

Despite the success of this historic civil rights legislation, the law continues to face attacks from opportunistic politicians seeking to undermine the law’s protections for accused people. As the U.S. continues to actively dismantle the commitments to racial justice it promised in the wake of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, it is more important than ever that we not only hold the line by defending the Pretrial Fairness Act, but also demand more.

The Pretrial Fairness Act and subsequent initiatives like the Pretrial Success Grants Program and the FAIR Act were not the end, but rather the beginning, of the process to transform our state’s pretrial system. We have more work to do in order to ensure that our communities fully benefit from these reforms. Far too many Illinoisans remain locked in cages while they await trial. Jurisdictions across the state have not fully implemented the law’s citation-in-lieu-of-arrest provisions, nor are they giving people who’ve been detained meaningful review hearings. And in our state’s largest court system, State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has put policies in place to circumvent the law’s protections for accused people while consistently spreading racist misinformation about the law.

Ending money bond was our target, but pretrial freedom has always been our goal. We are incredibly proud of what Illinois has been able to accomplish in the first three years of the law’s implementation, but we are not done. We are committed to continuing to struggle alongside community members, elected officials, and those court stakeholders who walk alongside us on the long, righteous road to freedom.

Read this post on our blog: https://endmoneybond.org/celebrating-three-years-of-the-pretrial-fairness-act/

¡Acompáñanos para una reunión abierta en español! Hablaremos sobre cómo puedes participar en tu comunidad y tendremos un...
09/16/2026

¡Acompáñanos para una reunión abierta en español! Hablaremos sobre cómo puedes participar en tu comunidad y tendremos un diálogo comunitario sobre qué te gustaría cambiar en tu comunidad.

Barriers to Bridges ofrecerá frutas y verduras gratis. También habrá co**ha y café.

https://buff.ly/taqefkW

"We're backing progressive champions Ben McAdams for State Senate (IL-24) and Erica Bray Parker for State Rep (IL-47)! W...
09/11/2026

"We're backing progressive champions Ben McAdams for State Senate (IL-24) and Erica Bray Parker for State Rep (IL-47)! We'll be talking to our neighbors in Wheaton, IL every Saturday until the election to elect folks who will fight for all of us to get what we need to thrive in the western suburbs. Training and snacks provided. Register on our events page. See you there!
https://buff.ly/ksiI3Zk"

09/08/2026

We are disappointed but unsurprised to see the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board supporting Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s regressive call to repeal the Pretrial Fairness Act’s human rights protections for people subjected to electronic monitoring. Like Burke’s op-ed, the Ed Board’s’s call to action relies on fear and misinformation to make its points.

The facts remain the same:
Since Illinois implemented the Pretrial Fairness Act, we have seen record drops in violent and property crime.
94% of people who returned to the community while awaiting trial in Cook County have not been charged with any new violent or person offenses while on pretrial release.

With crime down, opponents of the Pretrial Fairness Act have had to narrow their calls for rollbacks to this historic civil rights legislation. By focusing on individual cases and ignoring the success of the overwhelming majority of people on pretrial release, proponents of mass incarceration are trying to manufacture a problem for the “solution” they’ve wanted since this law took effect. This is part of a larger pattern where fear and misinformation surrounding individual cases is used to call for changes to the law benefiting hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans and their families every year. The Chicago Tribune’s own reporters identified the same dynamic in the Chicago Mayoral race where mayoral candidates are trying to distort the public’s view of public safety in Chicago in order to create fear and drum up votes for regressive policy positions.

At the root of these attacks on pretrial electronic monitoring is a much more nefarious idea: that people accused of certain offenses should be jailed without trial and regardless of the facts of the case, information is available about that person’s likelihood to succeed pretrial, or how they would be adversely impacted by pretrial jailing. This isn’t just an attack on the Pretrial Fairness Act, it’s an attack on the foundation of our criminal legal system: the right to due process and the presumption of innocence.

We must also remember that prior to the Pretrial Fairness Act, people subjected to electronic monitoring in Cook County couldn’t even take the garbage out of their homes without fear of going to jail. For people subjected to electronic monitoring, there was no way to go to a grocery store or laundromat and in many cases, it was impossible to maintain employment. The stories of Tim Williams and Lavette Mayes succinctly illustrate the harms caused by pretrial electronic monitoring and shows why the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus took action to address the human rights crises occurring on Cook County's electronic monitoring program. In fact, even after the reforms went into effect, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office considered checking the mail in the foyer of a resident’s apartment building to require movement permission or risk a violation—a reality of essential movement that is obscured by false claims about “free roaming” and “wandering.”

Illinois legislators must stand strong on defending the right to pretrial release. We must not allow opportunistic politicians to bully their way into returning to a time when countless people subjected to electronic electronic monitoring lost their jobs and housing, were prevented from accessing medical care, going to a grocery store or laundromat, or other seemingly mundane yet important locations to meet basic needs. That system didn’t make anyone safer.

Read more on our blog: https://endmoneybond.org/chicago-tribune-calls-to-repeal-human-rights-protections-for-people-on-electronic-monitoring/

Home Depot says they don't coordinate with ICE. Target says they have no agreements with ICE. Tell that to the workers w...
09/07/2026

Home Depot says they don't coordinate with ICE. Target says they have no agreements with ICE. Tell that to the workers who watched agents storm the aisles.

In Chicago, we're calling upon our elected officials to reject corporate influence in our elections, especially from companies that enable brutal immigration enforcement tactics. We’re asking Chicago elected officials and candidates to reject contributions from 12 corporations and their PACs, plus their executives, with ties to ICE and Border Patrol.

21 Chicago alders have committed to rejecting campaign cash from companies tied to Trump's deportation machine. Head to ICEOutChicago.org to see if yours has signed on.

Illinois just passed a tax on Big Tech's ad revenue — hitting Google, Meta, and Amazon where it counts. The result: hund...
09/07/2026

Illinois just passed a tax on Big Tech's ad revenue — hitting Google, Meta, and Amazon where it counts. The result: hundreds of millions every year for health care and education in our state.

This didn't happen by accident. It's the payoff of a decade-plus fight to claw back corporate revenue to working-class people. This year, the Illinois Revenue Alliance marched on Springfield on Tax Day, packed the Capitol with days of action, and stood with allies at Amazon warehouse actions, pushing lawmakers to make corporations and the ultra-rich pay what they owe.

Illinois has one of the most regressive tax codes in the country, and we're proving, year after year, that we can change that. Read more from People's Action.
https://peoplesaction.org/taking-on-the-rich-is-possible-the-peoples-lobby-one-northside-celebrate-new-big-tech-tax/

We were proud to join nurses across the country last week to say loud and clear that Palantir, an AI surveillance tech ...
09/05/2026

We were proud to join nurses across the country last week to say loud and clear that Palantir, an AI surveillance tech company used to detain, deport, and fuel terror domestically and abroad, has no place in any healthcare setting!

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Springfield, IL
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