>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight.

I'm Amanda Des Freedman is on assignment.

Here's what we're looking at.

>> We're not going to be intimidated.

>> City and state leaders respond to the Trump administration's ongoing executive orders are spotlight.

Politics team has the latest.

>> They're enacted map is not just a little corrupt.

It may be one of the most corrupt in American history.

>> Illinois Republicans call on the state Supreme Court to toss out the map of legislative districts.

>> Run to the grocery store or make a trip to the hardware store buy a new car.

Not so fast.

Not on Sunday.

>> If you've got the to buy a new car, we explain why you can't do it on Sunday.

And now to some of today's top stories.

Mayor Brendan Johnson administration is in active talks with the U.S. House Oversight Committee to testify about Chicago sanctuary City practices.

>> Johnson says it's not simply about giving testimony.

>> series of documents that they are requesting some of which our corporate counsel can speak to.

this is really not.

About I don't believe this is just simply about sanctuary cities.

This is really about our democracy.

>> Johnson says President Trump's goal is to get Chicago to surrender its humanity, but that the city's challenges with and support of migrants is longstanding.

The city's attorney says she won't divulge private discussions, but that she is in talks with the Republican led panel about its request.

Illinois's public health leader is responding to the Trump administration's move to withdraw from the World Health Organization, Dr.

Some nerve says he's worried about losing access to data that has allowed Illinois to quickly respond to outbreaks like the bird flu.

He says the high volume of international travelers that go through O'Hare Airport, the second busiest airport in the U.S. is another point of concern.

In a letter, Doctor Vohra says the agency is exploring buying high-tech tools so IDPH can monitor global disease outbreaks.

President Trump has criticized the World Health Organization for how it handled the COVID pandemic and he says the U.S. pays too much.

Northwestern University says it will cooperate with the federal investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus.

Northwestern is one of 5 schools, the U.S. Department of Education plans to scrutinize after what it described as an explosion of Anti-Semitism.

Last May Northwestern's president was called to testify before a congressional committee about pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

In a statement, Northwestern says the school has taken action to address Anti-Semitism, including an update to the student Code of conduct that prohibits harassment that creates a hostile learning environment.

Up-next Illinois's legislative map is facing a legal challenge.

That's right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part by the Alexander and John Nichols family.

The gym and K maybe family.

The Pope Brothers Foundation.

And the support of these donors.

>> Illinois Republicans are behind a lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to throw out the legislative district map thrown drawn by Democrats.

They say the map is an example of extreme partisan gerrymandering, which it renders it, which renders it that is unconstitutional.

Under state law.

Now, this map was initially challenged in federal court, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that partisan gerrymandering cases like this one should be decided by states.

Here now to talk about the legal challenges, state representative and assistant Republican leader.

Dan, you guessed via zoom from Springfield, where the legislature is in session.

We should note we did invite Democratic lawmakers to join us for the discussion, but they declined.

Is saying that House Republicans can't justify their party leaders, unlawful attempts to slash services, working families need to access healthcare, afford rent and put food on the table.

So they're choosing to distract people.

Fi relitigating the matter that courts decided years ago.

Representative, you guess the let's begin with that Democratic statement.

They're saying that this is just an attempt to distract from what President Trump is doing in Washington.

Your response?

>> Has nothing to do with that at all.

And thanks for having me tonight.

Appreciate it.

What this is about is about 3 people actions and whether the maps were drawn properly under the Illinois Constitution.

And there is no way we could have even started to put this together.

So the working on the time frame of what they're alleging because what the president is currently doing, this is ban a work week.

Something we've been working on for quite some time.

And expert was hired a detailed ranking complaint was drawn in filed with the court.

So there's no merit to that whatsoever.

>> You another Republican leaders have use really strong language to decry this map.

And this is of Illinois General Assembly state legislative districts, not congressional ones, calling it a manipulation of the system.

But what is legal argument here?

How is this legal?

>> to basis it.

We are challenging Didn't violate ceiling Constitution to bases.

One under Section 4 of the Illinois Constitution.

It says maps have to be contiguous of approximately equal population are all districts must be continues of approximately population and also compact.

It's violative that section of the Illinois Constitution as well as section 3 of the Constitution, which provides for all election shall be free and equal.

It violated on 2 grounds.

And what we have is evidence from our expert in detail in our complaint, which shows that it does violate both of those and I can go into more detail each of those.

If you like her.

>> We may soon it.

In terms of the compact argument, we saw a map and really you're just alleging that they're drawn to be sort of snake like instead of his square or a close together as possible.

example, eyes that.

>> Sure compactness is a divine term that was already defined actually by the Illinois Supreme Court 1981 Jason, called the strange case.

They ruled that a map in central Illinois.

They did that time was a part of Representative Taylor's district, not no relation to the current senator serving but represented Caylor was drawn in a way that wasn't compact and the narrows it was was by township.

Some of these maps pay no attention to township winds or any other mines.

And some of these districts in the current map and there are currently measurements used by national standards that have been used in other court cases throughout the United States where you can take a measure, the compactness of the district.

we've applied both those to our current maps and in 52 instances out of 118.

So 52 districts out of 118.

The current districts are the districts are current map measure compact than the one that was previously overturned.

In the strange case by the Illinois Supreme Court.

>> Now, this is a map that has been in law for nearly 4 years at past in 2021.

So why wait that long to bring this case?

>> So there were a few things that stood out to us in 2022.

With the elections.

What we had was I know election in which House Republicans actually received 70,000 more votes than Democrats.

And if you were to do it based those straight numbers alone, we would have had 60 seeds and they would have 58.

Yeah.

With the way the maps were drawn to the way it worked out is they have 78 House seats and we have 40 and it just appear that something was clearly wrong with that.

We have new leadership come in.

We had to work through a number of things, get up and running as well as you don't want to file something during the middle of an election cycle.

We complained rightfully so about the Democrats actions last election cycle when they change the rules of the game disallowing still waiting to be part of the process.

So we were going to follow the same process.

We are going to wait until election cycles over election cycles.

Now over we are filing and now there's still Each map only affects 5 election cycles.

There are still 3 left.

So we're not really wait.

We're just not early as we >> You're saying that Republicans could be in control of the Illinois House.

This is a state that is known to be quite flu where Kamala Harris, for example, easily won in the last presidential election.

>> Well, what I'm saying is based upon the 2022 election now, it didn't hold in 2024, but based on the 2022 election alone, not Republicans received 70,000 more votes 2024.

Democrats received more votes but not by a margin 2 to one.

I believe that most they may have had in Democrat House candidates received approximately 55% or slightly west of the vote.

And yet they still have a 2 to one majority in numbers just don't ever of Kuwait.

>> You know, there no guarantee that the Illinois Supreme Court is going to hear this case.

And I'm curious why you believe that they would given that 5 of the 7 justices on the state's high court.

Are Democrats.

>> Because it's the right thing to do.

clear that based on the evidence we are bringing forward as well the contained in our complaint.

you look at voters are being disenfranchised.

that's the main thing here.

The free and equal election cause is being violated as well.

Each voters boys does not count the same as the other, which is required by our constitution.

And because of that, because we need to protect the voters of Illinois.

No matter what our position is, we believe in are optimistic that the state Supreme Court will take it and do the right thing.

In this case, overturn these map to validate a monastic.

Those special master draw a fair map that complies with our constitution.

>> You know, the House Minority Leader Tony Macomb be has described.

This is saying that Democrats rigged the system to maintain the majorities and that this is cheating.

Has your party, however, lost credibility on that front, given that President Trump members of his cabinet, they are saying still wrongly that he won the election in 2020.

Is your party lost all credibility there?

>> I don't think one thing has anything to do with the other.

And in all honesty, it's not a party policy.

We're saying on behalf of Illinois voters.

Yes, it's coming from the Illinois House Republicans.

But this is just the Illinois House Republicans saying We did not take that position is a caucus that I'm aware of room about the prior election.

So I don't think there's any loss of credibility here whatsoever.

>> Well, we will leave it at that.

And we will be following as the state Supreme Court decides whether and how perhaps to deal with us.

We appreciate your joining us from Springfield.

Once again.

That is state Representative.

Dan.

You guessed it.

>> Thanks for having me.

>> Up next, our Spotlight politics team on how local leaders are responding to the Trump administration's executive orders.

As President Trump races to rule out a new executive orders, state and local politicians are responding in a range of ways.

Governor Pritzker's banning January 6.

Rioters from state jobs Mayor Johnson calling the president's actions unconstitutional.

And as Trump moves forward with abolishing the Department of Education, Illinois lawmakers introducing a bill to push back on presidential priorities impacting local schools here with all that and more is our spotlight politics team Heather, Sharon and Nick Blumberg.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Team now, Governor Pritzker.

Again, he is saying that pardon January 6, rioters cannot be employed by the state.

>> Heather?

Mayor Johnson going to do the same for the city, not at least right away.

I asked him about this today.

He said that the governor's move was the right way to go but declined to issue an executive order that would do the same for city departments.

And I think this is especially important because >> one of the people convicted of participating in the January 6 attack is a former Chicago police officer who his lawyer says wants his job back.

Now, last week I asked Superintendent Larry Snelling if he was the kind of person who should be a member of the Chicago Police Department.

Superintendents filling didn't answer saying that he believes Chicago police is the greatest police force in the nation which I have to point out not in fact an answer to my question not, in fact an answer.

So you'll you'll be following this.

I'm sure.

Now a W t Tw held a televised a special town hall last night.

>> The mayor made news.

They're saying that he would like to try again to pass the bring Chicago home initiative that would increase the tax on home sales over a million dollars.

Now, here he is today talking about that commitment.

>> There is unfair tax structure in this country where those who have keep more and those who have less less have to give more that system in of itself is equitable.

And we're going to do everything in our power and the city work with community organizations, work with businesses and corporations to ensure that we have an equitable tax structure that allows us to meet the needs of everyday people.

>> Heather, that ballot initiative failed last time around.

Did the mayor indicate whether he's truly serious about putting this back on the ballot and went well, he didn't give any timeline for that.

And he has always seen himself to serve the leader of a coalition.

This was bring Chicago home as it was known was a years long effort led by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

And he says it's not really about him and what he wants that's about with the community wants what especially caught my aired last night about the mayor has remarked was he's really harsh remarks about the fact that he blames the business community for its failure, saying that they leveraged sort of the migrant crisis that everybody was coping with back in March of last year to sort generate fear about that.

What this would mean for Chicago's economy.

I spoke with a number of business leaders today and they said that that criticism was unfair, that they oppose this ballot measure picks the wrong policy for Chicago and that they will do so again if and when it comes back.

But the mayor did have more of an answer than the non-answer.

reference to He did have actually something to say about it, but not against the city committing or saying where the funding would come from to really put this before Chicago voters again, Well, I mean, certainly this is the kind of thing that it even needs to happen with an act of the general assembly or a majority of city voters need to approve a big change like this in the real estate transfer tax.

>> I mean, irrespective of timeline, I think it's something that the mayor is going to be interested because as Heather rightly mentioned, there's a big coalition of people who are politically aligned with him.

still very interested in this idea and be as we talked about ad infinitum ad ad nauseum over over the fall and early winter, the city needs revenue.

The city needs sustainable sources of revenue because there is this huge structural deficit that Mayor Johnson and probably whoever comes after him, however, long he should serve, will have to be dealing with.

There are a lot of issues here in this could be a major source of funding and it could be a major source of funding, you know, going towards the sort of programs that Johnson and his allies really want to see happen, right?

Certainly were covered to get it past.

Given that I mean, it did fail.

He can say that people want this, but they they didn't sure it's also sort of politically expedient for the mayor because he campaigned back in 2023 about taxing the ultra-rich and sort of making corporations pay their fair share.

This is one of the few ways that Chicago voters sort of have the immediate ability to do so if they passed.

But ballot measure.

>> It also comes as he's about to go to Springfield and ask for a lot of new money or a lot new ways to raise what he calls progressive revenue, which could help shift the burden from property tax to other sources.

That, of course, is a big ask for state legislators who have a 3.1 or 3.2 billion dollar deficit of their own Tory heard the mayor make call again last night and he really did not parsed his words and making demands of the state.

But Governor Pritzker who we're not and away right.

>> Let's move on to the mayor also saying neck that he will not be intimidated by a president who is, quote, operating outside the bounds of the Constitution.

Federal workers increasingly afraid for their jobs.

that does include Chicagoans.

That's right with there was some reporting that about 100 employees at the local Environmental Protection Agency office, which is a regional office.

This is multiple states and indigenous American tribes overseas.

>> It's a massive workforce there for folks who are on a probationary period, sometimes reporting about 100 of them notified they can be terminated immediately.

New York Times had some reporting nationwide putting that number at 1000 probationary EPA employees.

Of course, this comes on the heel of the entire federal workforce getting this email offering them a chance to resign via e-mail and keep getting paid until September.

But you know, the issue here with these probationary employees, they don't have absolutely no recourse.

They can allege there's an oversight board for mayor federal employees.

They can say they were removed for partisan political reasons.

They can also go to the equal Employment Opportunity Commission or to the special counsel and say they were removed because of their political affiliation.

So if folks want to push back on this, they do have some avenues.

But clearly that the messaging going out to them was basically saying abandon hope.

All ye who enter here.

We can fire you if we want to, even though that's not strictly the case.

And of course, questions as well about the work that they perform protecting the Great Lakes and the environment and the Chicago and surrounding areas.

Now there's another executive order.

This one really dealing with the Department of Transportation and how it focuses its funds in a way that could be.

>> Damaging to Chicago and Illinois.

Nic, explain this one.

If this was newly minted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put out an order saying that they prioritize grant making loans all sorts of capital flowing to states municipalities.

Some of the the criteria caught people's eye because it was saying they want to see a preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.

One of the thing that didn't necessarily get as much attention as well.

They also said there can't be any mask mandates or vaccine requirements in there as well.

>> But clearly, this is, you know, targeting areas like Chicago that have lower marriage rates that have birth rates.

This give significant advantage.

2 Republican held areas.

We should note that this the secretary of transportation does not have unilateral authority to change grant making rules.

This does not immediately take effect.

This is a policy statement.

This is not something that's going to happen overnight if they want to change the rules for these grants and for eligibility here, there is an extensive notification and comment process that federal agencies have to go through in order to do this.

And I think even if they do go through that quite lengthy process, you will see some legal challenges for bases here.

And we heard from Mayor Johnson today saying we take all these orders seriously as a threat, but we are parsing whether they are constitutional because many of them have many steps to go before they take effect.

So Clinton is there's a lot in the Currents are going to be busy it let's say I'm so you're saying basically that the red line funding, therefore.

>> This is for new funding going forward.

Not previously guaranteed funding, which has its own issues.

Certainly certainly but the red line extension funding.

They have a legally binding document that the CTA and the Department of Transportation have signed.

So unless they really want to test the patience of the courts will be pretty difficult for them to withhold.

Those already agreed upon Now, Heather, back to you.

We've got just under a minute left.

What is the latest on this top secret gift closet filled with the handbags and the shoes and the cuff links.

>> The mayor asked about it today.

Well, he said that he still hasn't seen the guest room and he is still insisting that the inspector general's office has no right to make an unannounced visit to that gift room.

However, the city's top lawyer Corporation counsel Mary Richardson, Larry, said they're going to step up efforts to properly document gifts that the mayor's office except on the city's behalf and that they're going to provide a video of the guest room that will show the public exactly what's in there and how it is being stored.

Perhaps that will come next week.

A few short.

I will be among the first viewers to get a look at the good handbags and this Kate Spade handbags and the size, 14 live video and not just let people.

that's a good question.

One of the things reporting in instead of out that really I don't know.

Maybe that's they We will find out that been about out of time for spotlight.

So thank you very much.

very own Heather Strong in Nick from Berg.

Now.

Up next, why a weekend a shopping trip for a new car might not be in the cards.

>> But first, a look at the weather.

Start your engines.

The Chicago Auto show kicks off this weekend at McCormick Place.

And while you're perusing the latest in vehicle styles and technology, if you get the urge to buy a car anytime soon be warned.

The state of Illinois he's put up a roadblock for you.

Our Nic Bloomberg has the details in TONIGHTS W T Tw News explains.

>> The weekend, the perfect time to knock a few items off field to do list, run to the grocery store or make a trip to the hardware store buy a new car.

Not so fast.

Not on Sunday.

Since the 1980's, it's been illegal for car dealerships to operate on Sundays in Illinois.

Why?

Well, some owners and employees wanted to shut down to spend time with their families or for religious reasons, but and pay attention.

This is the key.

They didn't want their competitors to pope and have a chance to steal business.

>> The first attempts to close down dealerships on Sundays date back to the 50's and 60's.

But those laws never made it off the lot.

They were veto struck down courts.

But since 1984, Illinois car dealers must close their doors on Sundays.

Illinois isn't alone a dozen other states don't allow Sunday car sales either.

It's a vestige of so-called blue laws barring certain activities on the basis of religion like, say, buying a sports car on the 7th.

The religious angle is one reason Illinois's ban has been challenge multiple times.

One alternate proposal still restricted car sales to 6 days a week.

But a lot of dealerships to which day they take off since, for example, Jews and Muslims don't observe day of rest prayer on Sunday, some pro business groups argue the law restricts free commerce.

But so far, Illinois this Sunday car sale ban on the books would be test drives off the roads.

So if you're looking for a hot deal on a new set of wheels, you'll have to look day.

>> And this year's Chicago Auto show begins Saturday runs through February 20 17th at McCormick Place.

You can watch more in our W T Tw News explains series on our website.

And that is our show for this Tuesday night.

Join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10 morning, the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

And we sit down with actress Kiki Palmer, talk about her new movie and her Illinois routes.

>> Now for all of us here at Chicago tonight on them into Vicky's.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe have a great.

>> Closed captioning is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford law offices, Chicago, personal injury and wrongful