“Is it weird that I’m kind of glad to have Judy Baar Topinka back?” a Democratic friend of mine asked me the other day.No, I replied. It’s not weird. I’m glad she’s]]> Rahm Emanuel will be sworn in as Chicago’s new mayor on May 16, just 15 days before the end of the state legislative session. So, while Emanuel has more than enough on his plate dealing with the]]> Governor Rod Blagojevich was pure defiance last week after the House voted 114-1 to impeach him. Blagojevich said he expected the impeachment because the House has been fighting ]]> The state’s Secretary of Human Services met with a group representing child-care providers Jan. 31 and gave them some bad news. Prepare for $100 million in cuts to child-care programs, Secretary]]> Child care advocates thought they had avoided $400 million in threatened cuts to the state’s child care services budget after speaking with top officials in Gov. Pat Quinn’s office earlier]]> As you probably know already, Moody’s slapped Illinois with its worst credit rating of any state in the nation earlier this month.But while Moody’s report was damaging, S&P’s rat]]> It’s a fairly common Statehouse phenomenon that bills will zoom out of the Senate or the House and then flame out in the other chamber. People in the other chamber just don’t always care a]]> It occurred to me not long ago that the best analogy for this year’s governor’s race would be if the Washington Generals played the Washington Generals.The Washington Generals basketball t]]> I can only take so much of Illinois politics before I begin to go a little crazy. Don't get me wrong, Illinois politics is my life. I truly enjoy my job. But, eventually, the bickering, the corrupti]]> It’s not every day that a group almost nobody has ever heard of gives $175,000 to a single state legislative candidate. But that’s just what happened on Oct. 7 when Stand for Children Illi]]> Last week, powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared to all but endorse an idea to force downstate and suburban school districts to pay a significant share of their state pension contri]]> There are lots of different angles to Gov. Pat Quinn’s highly controversial decision to unilaterally refuse to pay scheduled, contractual pay raises to unionized state employees, so let’s ]]> I will never forget the night Paul Lis was fired.My parents were at my house, but I refused to budge from my barstool because I couldn’t miss this. Not for them. Not for anybody. Lis was a bigti]]> While the Republicans say the pollsters are contacting the wrong people, the fact remains that three polls released last week had the Illinois governor’s race within two points. And five polls r]]>