In 2006, Cook County adopted an ordinance making it illegal to “manufacture, sell, offer or display for sale, give, lend, transfer ownership of, acquire, carry or possess” an assault weapon or large-capacity magazine in Cook County. Shortly after enactment of the ordinance, three county residents sued the county claiming that the ordinance violated various provisions of the U.S. constitution and exceeded the county’s police powers. The Illinois Supreme Court dismissed most of these claims, but…

The Illinois General Assembly recently amended the Equitable Restrooms Act to address single-occupancy restrooms. P.A. 101-0165. Effective January 1, 2020, all single-occupancy restrooms in any “place of public accommodations” and any “public building” must be identified as all-gender and marked with exterior signage that does not indicate any specific gender.   This new law applies to “public buildings,” which is not defined in this statute. It appears, however, that the new requirement will affect units of local…

HB 2124 (proposing amendments to the Open Meetings Act) became effective last Friday. That legislation amends the OMA to allow a public body to go into closed session to discuss the hiring, firing, compensation, discipline, and complaints against specific individuals who serve as independent contractors in a park, recreational, or educational setting and specific volunteers under the “personnel” exemption under the OMA.  Public bodies should remember that the PAC office of the Illinois Attorney General…

Last week, an Illinois appellate court upheld a circuit court’s ruling that an inmate was not entitled to home addresses of other individuals under FOIA in an unpublished opinion. In Serio v. Putnam Cnty. Sheriff’s Dept., Raymond Serio, an inmate of the Illinois Department of Corrections, sent two FOIA requests to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department seeking specific information regarding individuals that had been booked into custody at the Putnam County jail. He asked…

Earlier this week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an Indiana city’s ordinance requiring a residential property owner who wants to make repairs to the residence either to obtain a license or to hire a licensed contractor. Regan v. City of Hammond. Christopher Regan and the Northwest Indiana Creative Investors Association, Inc. were landlords who own and lease property in the City of Hammond. As property owners, they made periodic repairs and improvements to…

Earlier this week, the Governor signed into law two bills to amend the Freedom of Information Act. First, Public Act 101-0433 (SB1699) amends Section 2.15(e) of FOIA to redefine where law enforcement agencies may not publish booking photographs (i.e. mugshots). Before the amendment, an agency was not allowed to share on its “social media website”. With this amendment, the definition was changed to “social networking website” as it is defined in Section 10…

This week, the 7th Circuit delivered a victory for the federal government in Higgs v. United States Park Police, a case that involved balancing privacy interests against public disclosure under the federal FOIA statute. Higgs was convicted and sentenced to death for participating in kidnapping and murdering three women with his two friends in 1996 in a federal park located in Maryland. Higgs, while on death row, insisted for several years that the federal government…