Illinois Senate President Don Harmon decided last week to join House Speaker Chris Welch in his decision to not participate in the Democratic Party of Illinois’ new “BLUE Committee” structure.

When Governor JB Pritzker recently announced that state employees who work in congregate facilities would have to be vaccinated by October 4, the largest state employee union, AFSCME (or the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees), released a statement chiding the governor. “We strongly oppose any effort to define them as part of the problem,” the powerful union claimed on behalf of those workers. But Governor Pritzker also said that about 80 percent of new COVID-19 cases in those congregate facilities “have been due to infection among employees.”

Illinois Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope announced her resignation last week and will leave office by December 15. She cited several reasons, including her thwarted attempt to issue subpoenas without any checks or balances. “True ethics reform,” she said of the legislature, “is not a priority.”

You cannot on the one hand constantly harp about decades of Illinois credit-rating downgrades and then blithely dismiss the first bit of good Illinois rating news since George Ryan was governor. It’s okay to step away from the “Illinois is awful” screaming for a moment in the wake of last week’s upgrade of Illinois’ bond rating by Moody’s Investors Service. While not the end of our problems by any means, it signals yet another important fiscal turning-point.