Rich Miller

Serious, intense clout usually only comes into play at the Illinois Statehouse on behalf of giant corporations, powerful political organizations, influential labor unions, entrenched bureaucracies, and other unstoppable special interests. Rarely, if ever, is the full force of a legislative leader’s office deployed to push a bill that is opposed by the powers that be […]

Yet another statewide survey shows big trouble for Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The Glengariff Group’s poll of 600 registered Illinois voters found Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka leading Blagojevich 33 percent to 31 percent. The poll was taken June 2-4, after the legislative session ended and the governor had received his first positive media coverage in months. […]

Rep. John Fritchey’s session was going extraordinarily well — until he smacked into the last 10 days. The Chicago Democrat was the prime mover behind the unprecedented compromise between anti-abortion and pro-choice groups earlier this session. The two sides had never worked together before Fritchey forced them to the table. It all started when House […]

The Chicago media declared Gov. Rod Blagojevich a winner after the spring legislative session ended last week. Adjourning the session by May 31 and, for a change, getting along with other Democrats, upholding his promise not to raise taxes, and coming up with lots of new programs and comprehensive medical-malpractice reform made him look pretty […]

If you’re wondering why Gov. Rod Blagojevich would flip-flop on his vow to reform the state’s massively underfunded pension system, you don’t have to look much farther than the most recent poll. A recent survey of 1,000 registered Illinois voters showed Republican state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka leading Democratic Blagojevich by almost 10 percentage points. […]

I suppose the easy thing to do would be to follow everyone else’s lead and write a column about Rod Blagojevich’s potty mouth. So much has been written about the governor’s self-proclaimed “testicular virility” that you’ve probably gotten the point, however. Instead, I’ll tell you a story. Two years ago, I was at a party […]

House Speaker Michael Madigan last year sent a clear message to Gov. Rod Blagojevich when he brought all of the governor’s highly unpopular tax and fee hikes to the floor for up-or-down votes. The governor’s bills all lost by overwhelming margins, and Blagojevich was forced to back down from his demand that Madigan pass his […]

Other than a handful of state employees, highway workers, Medicaid vendors, commercial-truck owners, and poor people, few out there in Voter Land have really paid much attention to the state’s budget problems. Sure, they know that the troubles exist, but only on an abstract level. Most people have very few direct contacts with state government, […]

There’s no violation of state law if a toxic-waste landfill — or even a nuclear-waste dump, for that matter — is partly owned by one of the governor’s in-laws. There’s no problem with the law if a member of the governor’s family owns stock in a regulated monopoly such as Commonwealth Edison or SBC. A […]

Harsh statements and public and private threats by Senate President Emil Jones in the past two years have prompted Senate Republican Leader Frank Watson to reach out to some labor leaders. Jones has been sharply critical of the construction-trades unions, accusing them of freezing out African-Americans and Latinos from apprenticeship programs and job sites. Black […]

By now, you’ve probably read or heard stories about all of the gun-related bills pending in the Illinois General Assembly. A large number of gun-control bills is not particularly surprising. Most that end up on the legislative calendar are introduced year after year by allies of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. What’s striking this year […]