January 14 Illinois History Minute

January 14th was inauguration day for three Illinois governors who didn’t get what they wanted on taxes. Republican Jim Edgar, sworn in on this day in 1991, told WILL’s David Inge he could not get state lawmakers to move the main burden of school funding from local property taxes to the state income tax. 

Both Republican Louis Emmerson and Democrat JB Pritzker, inaugurated in 1929 and 2019 respectively, wanted a progressive income tax. 

Emmerson’s version was struck down by the Illinois Supreme Court. A later court allowed a flat state income tax. But Illinois voters rejected Pritzker’s proposal to make it a progressive one.