Rich Miller

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 […]

Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka has a new poll that shows her trailing Gov. Rod Blagojevich by just 3 points in a head-to-head matchup. By just about any test, the numbers are real. I was given access to all of the poll’s results, and the internal numbers tracked with those of several other recent surveys. The […]

Dan Hynes was once the brightest of Illinois’ young political stars. After Hynes won his first statewide race for Illinois comptroller in 1998, the 30-year-old Democrat’s future looked limitless. Hynes was the youngest person elected to a statewide constitutional office since World War II — his father’s long service in politics helping automatically smooth relations […]

Almost half of the entire Illinois House has signed up to sponsor an anti-abortion bill this year. The proposal is an exact replica of a federal law that ostensibly protects infants who are “born alive” during botched abortion procedures. Opponents say that the bill is merely a backdoor attempt to ban almost all abortions, but […]

Emil Jones was not treated too well during his 10 years as the minority leader of the state Senate. The majority Republicans locked him out of the room and killed most of his members’ bills. His fellow Democrat, House Speaker Michael Madigan, treated Jones like a junior associate, occasionally helping him out but not doing […]

One of the problems with applying “appearance of impropriety” rules to Illinois and Chicago politics is that most of the players are swimming in a small political pond. We’re constantly treated to stories about how this or that political insider connected with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is representing a company that just landed a sweet […]

The reaction by the religious right to the passage of a gay-rights law in Illinois has been predictably loud and aggrieved. But the law’s critics have universally zeroed in on one key argument: a claim that churches and religious institutions will now be forced by the government to hire gays and lesbians. They’re wrong. Their […]

Politics is a numbers game — and the numbers of votes, dollars, and favors are the only numbers that matter. The boys who play politics at the street level never forget their numbers. They can tell you how many votes they pulled out of precinct 22 three elections ago, or how much money they raised […]

Gov. Rod Blagojevich tends to bring out the worst in people. There is such a strong feeling of ill will against him among all stripes of political insiders and observers in this state that they’ll believe almost anything. Two solid years of the governor deliberately attacking people who didn’t deserve it, attacking people who deserved […]

The ongoing Illinois drama over the medical malpractice-reform debate intensified last week when President George W. Bush paid a visit to Madison County. Yes, that Madison County — the favored courtroom home to many of the nation’s wealthiest trial lawyers, made universally infamous by the multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuits filed over asbestos and Marlboro Lights. Madison […]

It was probably no accident that Gov. Rod Blagojevich chose a Naperville school last week in which to unveil his proposal to criminalize the sale or rental of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors. If he had used an impoverished inner-city school as a backdrop, the assembled parents might have asked him about […]