Rich Miller

Much of the Illinois Statehouse appeared to be girding itself for battle with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson before his Springfield visit last week. After dramatically announcing to Chicago reporters earlier in the week that the city’s families are “owed” $1 billion from state government, particularly education, Gov. JB Pritzker sent two distinct messages to the […]

Gov. JB Pritzker unexpectedly moved away last week from his long-standing opposition to taxing services, saying he didn’t want to start taking ideas off the table as lawmakers search for ways to fund and reform the Chicago region’s mass transit system. A major business group predictably pushed back. As you may know, Chicagoland’s mass transit […]

Just eight of 78 Illinois House Democrats openly sided last week with the once-indomitable Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU hotly opposed a bill to halt all public school closures and prevent disproportionate budget cuts and changes to admissions criteria at Chicago’s selective enrollment schools until a fully elected Chicago school board is seated in 2027. […]

Chicago-area news outlets have been so intent on amplifying every possible angle on the proposals for new publicly financed sports stadiums that they’ve sometimes missed the bigger picture. Senate President Don Harmon last week tried to make it simple for everyone what that bigger picture is. In a speech to the Illinois Chamber, in town […]

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has been a very big state problem for a very long time. The department now has new leadership under Director Heidi Mueller, whose appointment was met with widespread praise. The former director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice was confirmed by the Senate without a single […]

As we’ve discussed before, the competition for scarce state dollars is particularly fierce this year in Springfield as various groups elbow each other for money while large surpluses and revenue increases start to dry up. A poll taken by respected national Democratic pollster Normington Petts in late February of 700 registered Illinois voters purports to […]

“The woke left is coming after me for peeing on a tree during my college days,” state Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dietrich, told me not long ago. I’ve told you about this race before. The 102nd Illinois House District is one of a handful of southeastern and southern Illinois Republican primaries that might slow or intensify […]

“Mayors slam Pritzker’s proposal to eliminate grocery tax,” was the Daily Herald’s headline above a story last week about several mayors of upper-income suburban communities complaining about a proposed tax cut. I don’t know if the mayors quite understand this, but headlines like that are basically an in-kind campaign contribution to the governor and the […]

Gov. JB Pritzker proposed some changes to the state’s pension system during his budget address and State of the State speech last month that will likely please the New York City-based bond rating agencies by giving them something they want, as well as his fellow Democrats by freeing up some money to spend on other […]

Two press conferences held after Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget address last week didn’t receive much news media attention. As the saying goes, coverage follows conflict, and the two pressers were far more subtle and polite in their criticisms of the governor’s plan than those held by Republicans, so they were mostly overlooked. But clear undercurrents […]

“Everybody gets pinched, but you did it right; you told ’em nothin’ and they got nothin’” Jimmy Conway told a youthful Henry Hill in the classic gangster movie Goodfellas after the mob-connected teenager was arrested for selling stolen cigarettes, clammed up to the police and was then released by a corrupt judge. “You learned the […]

Way back in 1990, I was making $17,000 a year working for an online Statehouse news and information company. I was too broke for a vacation, so I helped pay for a modest trip by covering a strike at the Delta Pride catfish processing company in Indianola, Mississippi for a few publications. Almost all of […]