You haven’t heard of Lincolnshire, Illinois, and likely don’t care to know much about it. It’s a nice, northern suburb of Chicago, with nice homes, good schools, and a Jewish population so large its residents kiddingly refer to it as “Lincohenshire.”

They did something monumental today that won’t get much play in other states, and might not get the notice it deserves even in Illinois. Today, village trustees voted 4-1 in favor of banning mandatory union dues within its borders.

Illinois has been a right-to-work state for a long time, but that doesn’t mean you can avoid dealing with the unions. If you join a union—and many industries are still effectively closed to non-unions in Illinois—you’re getting your pay docked to cover your union dues. Unless you live in Lincolnshire.

To be clear, this is no different than what Scott Walker did as governor of Wisconsin; but this is Illinois, where unions long held complete power. As a union member, you’re free to pay your own dues with your own money. Or you can just not pay and effectively quit the union: that’s between you and your union. In Wisconsin’s case, the unions found they could’t remotely cover the workload required to collect their own dues, and further discovered a massive number of members just stopped paying.

The lone dissenting trustee wasn’t even opposed to the idea—she simply felt that for this move to be effective, it must happen at the statewide level. The Czar agrees: the measure is mostly symbolic since Lincolnshire is a small community. But interestingly, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan also agrees, saying that federal labor law requires this to be a statewide measure, not a municipal one.

The unions, naturally, have been howling. While they don’t have enough members to collect their own dues, they apparently have plenty to pack into the village hall and interrupt proceedings. Even so, trustees were unswayed because, hey, let’s face it: everybody but the big dopes understand that unions are finished. They’ve outlived any sense of usefulness and are responsible, at least in Illinois’ case, for the massive financial debts on the taxpayers.

A legal challenge is sure to follow, especially when the overly Democrat Attorney General is basically giving them the legal challenge on a platter. But if survives—even in a modified form—expect hundreds of Illinois municipalities to follow. Outside of Chicago and its Cook County suburbs, unions are practically invisible. Statewide, taxpayers have been fed up with Chicago’s many unions for decades and this is first substantive strike back ever.

Good luck, Lincolnshire. We’re pulling for you.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.