Chicago 312: It's Not Just A Newsletter -- It's a Newsletter About Eileen O'Neill Burke Refusing to Investigate Federal Agents

Chicago 312 is a set of weekly field notes on Chicago politics, written for people who live here. I got knocked out by a migraine this week so it’s short 🫡 happy May Day

This week: Springfield's about to let the millionaire tax die, the Pritzker commission just said the White House told federal agents they could do whatever they wanted in Chicago and nobody would touch them, it’s finally time to raise the federal minimum wage, and I’m not even touching the Correspondent’s Dinner assassination attempt because that’s like, 4 whole days ago, an infinite number of news cycles away.

Only looking forward into the abyss!

1. 400 People Are Forcing Burke to Say on the Record That She Won't Investigate the Feds

A coalition of more than 400 people — three sitting members of Congress, a former chief federal judge, the Chicago News Guild, clergy, attorneys — has filed a petition asking a Cook County judge to install a special prosecutor to investigate the federal agents who shot people in Chicago last fall.

Reporting last week showed state’s attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke refused to publicly criticize the threatened federal deployment because she wanted to "maintain" ties with federal authorities — this includes Border Patrol agent Charles Exum shooting Marimar Martinez five times in Brighton Park on October 4, and ICE agents killing Silverio Villegas González in Franklin Park on September 12.

Coalition attorney Locke Bowman asked the court: if she wouldn't criticize the invasion of Cook County before it happened, why would anyone trust her to prosecute the people who committed crimes during it?

Why It Matters: Federal agents shot a woman five times and killed a man in Cook County! The county's top prosecutor won't investigate because she wants to stay cool with the people who did it! This coalition of 400 people have a high legal bar to take the case out of her hands. But it also means that, as long as she refuses to move forward, Burke has to explain on the record, over and over, why she thinks this is fine. 2. A National $25 Minimum Wage.

2. The Federal Minimum Wage Has Been $7.25 for Seventeen Years. Delia Ramirez Just Filed a Bill to Make It $25.

The federal minimum wage hasn't moved since 2009: seventeen years! Companies have been posting record earnings the entire time.

But on Tuesday, Reps. Delia Ramirez (IL-03) and Analilia Mejía (NJ-11) introduced the Living Wage for All Act. (HuffPost / Common Dreams) $25/hour, or what MIT says a single adult needs to cover basics anywhere in the country. 66 million workers — 45% of the American workforce — make less than that right now. The bill phases in by 2031 for big employers, 2038 for small ones, kills the tipped wage, and auto-adjusts going forward so Congress can't just ignore it for another two decades.

This is just one piece of the Working Families Party’s Working Families Guarantee — $25 wage floor plus affordable housing, childcare, paid leave, healthcare, and a federal jobs program for workers getting replaced by AI.

Why It Matters: This is the most coherent thing House Democrats have done in a while — an actual platform, with actual numbers, from members who've actually won these fights at the state level. This is the "we don't suck" caucus putting a plan on the table while the rest of the party is still doing messaging polls about affordability. Let’s see what the rest of the Democratic Party does.

3. Springfield Can't Find the Votes to Tax Millionaires.

City Bureau Newswire: The proposed constitutional amendment to add a 3% surcharge on income over $1 million — on top of the current 4.95% flat rate — needs 60% of the legislature to get on the November ballot by May 3. Speaker Welch didn't bring it to a vote last week. The House isn't scheduled back before Saturday.

A Illinois Economic Policy Institute and University of Illinois study says that it would generate $3.8 billion the first year, but only impact 0.6% of Illinoisans. That revenue could fund property tax relief, fully fund evidence-based school funding, or freeze school property taxes while increasing education spending. Speaker Welch says it's a priority. He also says they don't have the votes.

Why It Matters: If this deadline passes, the next window for a constitutional amendment question isn't until May 2028. That's two more years of the "how do we pay for it" question killing every progressive proposal before it gets to a vote.

1 Big Question: Going Viral Now Costs $1 Million a Month and Get You Nothing 👍

Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day has been reporting on the clipping economy — companies that chop livestreams into short-form clips and flood every platform's algorithm — and it's put him in a genuinely dark place. Not "the internet is bad" dark. Questioning-whether-the-internet-is-a-place-worth-being dark.

A Kick streamer called N3on is spending roughly $1 million a month paying a company called Clipping to blast his content across every platform. He's spending $12 million a year to be, as Broderick put it, “a complete nonentity” — and it works well enough to keep going, because Kick (owned by the same company as the gambling app Stake) keeps funding it.

The original promise of the internet was bypassing gatekeepers to reach people directly. Now "going viral" means paying a company to simulate virality, and even when it works, you, again, as Broderick vividly put it, “sit in an unfurnished McMansion doing bits with Jason Derulo.”

If you do any kind of communications work, I guess this is worth knowing? Not just because it’s bleak, and it’s what’s we’re up against, but also because it feels like the ‘final boss’ of the algorithm — as we go more and more apocalyptic with the state of the internet, the more our content drives people into real life, the better.

Also this week: feds dropped the felony conspiracy charges against the remaining Broadview Four, and the SNAP work-requirement cliff starts Friday.

Two Red Flags:

🚨 "It's Not Just a Press Release — It's an AI-Generated Press Release"

TechCrunch's Amanda Silberling flagged a Barron's report that scanned AlphaSense's database of corporate filings and found the sentence construction "It's not just X — it's Y" has more than quadrupled in corporate press releases, earnings reports, and SEC filings since 2023 — from about 50 mentions to over 200 in 2025. Pangram CEO Max Spero confirmed to TechCrunch that the construction is a known tic of 2025-era language models, and that corporate communications — "writing driven by requirements and not emotion" — are seeing the highest rates of AI use.

Silberling's whole piece is written in the construction as a bit, which is very funny and you should read it. But it’s also wild to realize that the companies reporting record earnings are now using AI to justify it.

🚨 State Commission Confirms What You Already Knew: The White House Told Agents They Could Do Whatever They Wanted

The Illinois Accountability Commission wrapped its final hearings this week. (NPR Illinois) Sixteen incidents were reviewed, with three directives from the top: militarize the streets, suppress speech, guarantee immunity.

Marimar Martinez — the woman Border Patrol shot five times here in Chicago — testified, as did a witness that came forward to contradict the feds' story that Martinez boxed in agents' cars.

But, uh, in terms of next steps after the report drops Thursday: prosecution referrals go to Burke — the same Burke 400 people just went to court to take the case away from.

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May Day is tomorrow, with 750+ events in all 50 states. Show up if you can.