Politics – Rich Miller

Presidential candidates set the turnout. That’s the race voters care about the most by far, so everybody else who’s running down-ballot essentially has to work within the structure of that year’s presidential turnout numbers. Some organizations can fiddle around with the margins here and there and get some voters out who might not have bothered […]

A harsh new TV ad slams Rep. John Bradley (D-Marion) for supporting a convicted sex offender. It’s described by the Republicans as a form of payback for all the sex offender-related ads that the House Democrats have been using against Republicans this year and in years past. The ad begins with footage of a Chicago […]

Gov. Rauner attended a meeting last week of his “Cabinet on Children and Youth,” but it’s not known if he pulled aside one of its members, State Superintendent of Education Tony Smith, for a little chat. The Illinois State Board of Education is reportedly mulling whether to settle a civil rights lawsuit filed eight years […]

Since his inauguration, Gov. Bruce Rauner has consciously aped Washington, D.C.’s notoriously noxious battle to “win” the daily media spin cycle. Rauner has a set base of talking points based on tried and true poll-tested topics, and he rarely, if ever, deviates. While Chicago suffered through its most violent summer in decades, the governor routinely […]

The Republicans have been saying behind the scenes that they have put four Democratic state Senators “on the bubble” – Tom Cullerton in DuPage County, Melinda Bush in Lake County, Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant in Will County and Gary Forby in southern Illinois. Understandably, Senate President John Cullerton does not agree. “If it wasn’t for Donald Trump […]

PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Whenever you see a statement from the Democratic Party of Illinois, you can feel supremely confident that House Speaker Michael Madigan, the party’s longtime chairman, approves of the sentiment. And the same goes for the Illinois Republican Party and Gov. Bruce Rauner, who accounts for 95 percent of the party’s total […]

PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Gov. Rauner said last week that he has never spoken with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel or any legislators about a much-anticipated proposal to toughen penalties for gun crimes. “I’ve not discussed that issue with the mayor myself,” he said, adding, “Frankly, I’m talking with legislators all the time. They have not […]

PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Gov. Bruce Rauner announced early last year that he wants the state to reduce its prison population by 25 percent over 10 years. He has since signed numerous pieces of legislation during the past year or so to help achieve that goal, including recently, when he signed the marijuana decriminalization bill […]

PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS An organization controlled by Gov. Bruce Rauner has spent a million dollars on a new television ad promoting legislative term limits in a little over a week. And that’s just for starters. Turnaround Illinois, Inc. is one of those “dark money” non-profit groups that doesn’t have to disclose its donors. It […]

PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS Is Illinois the next state to deal with “voter suppression”? Maybe, depending how you look at it. You may know that a conservative group filed a federal lawsuit last week to stop Illinois’ election-day voter registration law from being carried out this November. The group’s top expert in the case is […]

PHOTO BY ALAN SOLOMON/TNS “Do you think he knows what he’s doing?” asked a top Republican last week about House Speaker Michael Madigan’s high-profile role at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Madigan heaped public praise last week on at least two potential Democratic gubernatorial candidates, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Chris Kennedy. And he […]