Rich Miller

We’ve been seeing many news reports lately that Gov. Rod Blagojevich thinks he can pass a massive $3 billion road- and school-construction plan this year. But Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson is throwing cold water on much of this speculation. An article last week in Crain’s Chicago Business suggested that a deal may be near […]

I was told a few weeks ago by a very good source that Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s campaign had assigned people to monitor my Web log. You may know that in addition to this weekly newspaper column I publish a daily political newsletter called Capitol Fax. I also run a political blog called thecapitolfaxblog.com, featuring posts […]

The fact that Ron Gidwitz and Steve Rauschenberger have teamed up to run as a ticket may seem a bit odd at first, but it makes sense in more ways than one, and it’s probably their best shot at winning next spring. Rauschenberger, you already know, dropped out of the Republican gubernatorial race to run […]

Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka is somewhere in the middle on abortion issues. Because of that, both extremes hate her. Last week, Planned Parenthood and the pro-choice group Personal PAC held a press conference to urge reporters to find out whether Topinka is pro-choice. The groups claim that she has flip-flopped all over the […]

From: Tommy Vietor, press secretary To: Rich Miller Subject: Obama press release U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., today released the following statement about U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta’s pledge to provide $337 million in federal funds for expansion at O’Hare International Airport: “This funding is an important first step in the O’Hare modernization process which […]

I have two George Ryan-related stories for you this week.  First, the irony of former Gov. Jim Thompson’s decision to defend former Gov. George Ryan seems pretty obvious up front, but there’s more than first meets the eye. Thompson was the U.S. attorney who put former Gov. Otto Kerner behind bars for corruption and was […]

In my 15 years writing about Illinois politics, I’ve never had a better day at the Statehouse than Wednesday of last week. That was the day the World Series champion White Sox came to Springfield. I’m a Sox fan, and it was thrilling just to see manager Ozzie Guillen and, to some extent, chairman Jerry […]

Federal investigators didn’t make it easy for Gov. Rod Blagojevich last week. On his big day, when he tried to turn around his political fortunes with All Kids, a major new public-health policy initiative formally unveiled in front of a joint session of the General Assembly with most of the state’s media in attendance, the […]

A friend of mine asked me the other day why I stopped being a Cubs fan five years ago and converted to the White Sox. There were many reasons, but the most important one is that I had grown tired of rooting for a team that didn’t seem to care about winning. I have the […]

Something a bit out of the ordinary happened earlier this month. On a Saturday, the Chicago Tribune published a story about a relatively minor allegation of corruption at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. The next day, the Sun-Times ran a similar story. According to the newspaper, a longtime pal of the governor’s […]

Gov. Rod Blagojevich finally started showing a little of that “new way” of doing business last week that he has promised for so many years but so often failed to deliver. Since day one, Blagojevich has been deep in the pockets of the state’s utility industry. He has supported just about every major utility initiative […]

The U.S. Attorney’s office allowed two guilty-plea agreements to weave a sinister tale last week about an alleged “fundraising strategy” supposedly headed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The alleged strategy was designed to strong-arm firms seeking business with the Teachers’ Retirement System and other state boards into hiring do-nothing consultants who would then kick money back […]