expand police curfew powers goes before a key City Council committee.

Meanwhile, Mayor Johnson heads to Springfield and financial reprieve for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Here with all that and more is our spotlight.

Politics team, Heather, Sharon and Nick Blumberg.

Welcome back.

Team.

So let's start with that proposal to expand police curfew powers to limit what some are calling out of control.

Teen gatherings.

Here's a little of what Mayor Brandon Johnson and police Superintendent Larry Snelling had to say on the subject on Monday.

>> We have not seen any substantive evidence Laura, the curfew is going to change that.

What we want to do is prevent violence.

We want to prevent the young teens who are coming down to wreak havoc on the city to not form up.

>> So Heather, tomorrow, a proposal to allow police officials to impose a curfew anywhere in the city to prevent these large gatherings of teens goes before a city council committee.

What with this proposal Well, if one of these teen gathering happens, sometimes they're called teen trends.

It would give the police superintendent and other officials at City Hall the ability declare a snap curfew.

>> And give everyone 30 minutes notice to leave the area or face either curfew violations or citation.

now this would be a dramatic expansion.

The city's curfew power, which right now applies to everybody after 10:00PM.

If you're under 18 70's okay.

Next, the mayor and his hand-picked superintendent, they don't seem to see eye to eye on this issue.

Really?

Will that complicate efforts to win City Council approval?

I think we'll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow.

But as things stand right now, there is a significant amount of council support in the form of co-sponsors of this ordinance.

>> Such that it should pass handily, you know, and depending on how people end up voting on the floor may or may not have a veto proof majority there.

But, you know, you even heard snowing yesterday expressing some concern about how this would be applied, you know, saying we don't want to accidentally criminalize, you know, young people who just happened to get caught up in it and weren't part of these, you know, teen trends or teen takeovers.

You know, I think the other thing we should be watching out for is just how quickly should this pass and be, you know, become part of the city code legal challenges to this.

There are a lot of folks who are saying that this pretty dramatic expansion of power may or may not pass constitutional muster.

So I think that's going to be a key element to watch for going forward as well.

Should this, you know, proposal advance and city Council and head of one of the last time the city expanded the curfew was back in 2022, what happened then?

Well, he didn't really do much according to documents obtained from the Chicago Police Department, the ability to cite people who are between 17 and 18 for extra hour on Friday and Saturday nights was only used.

A handful of times, maybe a dozen times.

All of last summer.

>> all summer, there were only 300 curfew violations.

Rick ordered and only about 75 teens and their parents were actually cited for either repeat curfew violations or for being arrested on suspicion of committed another crime.

So the curfew ordinance is not something that Chicago police used very often and we'll have to see whether it would be effective way of sort tamping down these gatherings.

And as we talked about before, the city already has policies in place to declare an unlawful mass gathering, the new policy that went in place.

>> Ahead of the DNC in which police officials said was very successful in, you know, allowing people to gather ensuring that they stayed.

>> You know, peaceful and orderly.

And they, you know, they said after the DNC, this was a It's interesting to see, you know, perhaps why not use this policy that's already in place rather than, you know, this expansion of existing powers and these rules are subject to sort of the approval of the independent monitoring overseeing the enforcement of the consent decree and the federal judge charge of these reforms because these are areas where the Chicago Police Department has had problems.

We all remember sort of the George Floyd protests calls for social justice.

There were hundreds of complaints filed filed against Chicago police and those rules were revised to give officers.

>> Clear guidance on when to declare a gathering unlawful and how to disperse that.

the other thing that I think some older people have raised as well as issues about equity and how this is equitably enforced.

If that time she comes will be really curious to see what some of the arguments are and how that plays out.

Heather on sticking with CPD for a bit.

They unveiled the first draft policy governing traffic stops.

What would it do?

Well, it would allow Chicago police officers to continue to make traffic stops based on minor violations, such as an expired license plate sticker or broken headlight that are otherwise to sign to find evidence of other crimes.

Now, I asked police Superintendent Larry Snelling why he thought CPD should continue to have that power.

And he forcefully defended that as a way to sort of prevent dangerous drivers and keep the city safe however, the prep community Commission for Public Safety and accountability disagrees with 6 of those 7 members believes those stop should be banned because they essentially don't make the city and safer and put police officers in Chicagoans in a dangerous situation which we have seen all too frequently result in violence.

So this is going to be a big controversy.

I couldn't get Mayor Johnson to sort tell me which way he was leaning.

So this is another potential area of conflict between him.

And as you said, his handpicked police superintendent, no doubt you'll keep asking him So Nic, federal prosecutors say saying they are no longer seeking this 3.1 million dollars from former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who earlier this year, we all know was convicted of bribery and conspiracy but less than a month ago, the feds were explaining why Madigan should have to forfeit that money.

What happened?

>> Well, there's not a lot of detail in the filing from federal prosecutors.

They essentially say we stick by our case.

We stick by our arguments.

But we're dropping this as a matter of discretion, independent of any other issue.

>> We should also point out there is another issue in this case.

Madigan filed his attorneys filed a post trial motions saying he should get a new trial.

The jury didn't receive proper instruction.

They're evidentiary errors.

Federal prosecutors just today responding to Madigan's motion saying any areas that you can point to were not substantial at all did not affect the outcome of the case and should not, you know, grant mad at the judge should not take this sort of extraordinary step of overturning, you know, the jury's decision and granting a new trial.

But no longer will they be pursuing that, you know, restitution from Madigan.

So we will see where how the judge decides on those 2 outstanding motions.

So also Nick Mayor Brandon Johnson, he is in Springfield Wednesday, hoping to get some financial relief from lawmakers.

What is he asking for on the strip?

He's got a laundry list of some issues.

You notice things like bringing back a tax on prepaid cell phones or phone minutes cards.

>> But a reimbursement rates for certain services that CPS provides more money for the city shelter system.

They're looking to, you know, boost certain 9-1-1, surcharge on phone bills, which is an issue that state rep Cambon are actually is supported and has successfully run a bill on in the House.

But he's not really going after a lot of these big ticket issues.

And as we know, there are plenty.

I mean, there is the billion dollars, the states that the CPS says it's owed by the state.

There is this looming transit, fiscal cliff of 770 some million dollars.

There's the question of the Bears Stadium.

But, you know, Johnson's asks are pretty limited in scope.

And of course, he has had limited success in Springfield with, you know, Governor Pritzker earlier this year expressing frustration, saying you got to reach out and work with us more.

You're not going to build relationships this way.

And Prince was also pointed out this is very late in the game.

A lot of the budgetary issues, you know, that some of the bones of it are decided before the governor stands up and makes his budget speech in, you know, the beginning of this section in the wintertime at the beginning of the year.

So, you know, the session is barreling to a close very quickly.

So it'll probably be a big lift for a lot of lawmakers, especially those outside the Chicago area to try and push for some of these measures that Johnson seeking right eyes on Springfield and to see what, if anything, they