“We’re almost there” on a Bears stadium bill, Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) told some sports radio hosts on a Friday morning before the House returned to Springfield for three days of session last week. “We’re very close.” Asked if the rumor spread by sports business pundit Marc Ganis earlier that week was true about House […]
Politics – Rich Miller
Posted inRich Miller
Big spending doesn’t guarantee victory
One of the biggest stories to come out of election day was that several candidates with the most money came up short. The obvious example is the race for U.S. Senate, where U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi reportedly spent $29 million on TV ads and benefited from another $10 million spent by the crypto industry against […]
Posted inUncategorized
Independent campaign expenditures rise
Independent campaign expenditures have skyrocketed this year in state legislative races. All of these numbers were current as of 4:20 p.m. Friday, March 13, when I finished writing this column. Independent expenditure committees are not allowed to coordinate their spending with candidates, ergo the “independent” label. As with the federal level, they are also not […]
Posted inOpinion
Teachers’ unions slam state budget
As expected, we did not see a whole lot of spending increases in Gov. JB Pritzker’s state budget proposal last week. Last year, Pritzker said his budget limited discretionary spending to less than a 1% increase. The plan unveiled last week limits discretionary spending to less than a half a point increase. An education funding […]
Posted inRich Miller
Senate candidates debate
The top three Democratic U.S. Senate candidates faced off twice last week. The first debate wasn’t televised, so the live audience was quite small. The second debate was televised, so the audience was bigger. However, these debates don’t attract even a smidgeon of the audience of presidential debates, when half the country often tunes in. […]
Posted inRich Miller
Chuy Garcia and the machine
You likely already know that U.S. Rep. Chuy García (D-Chicago) dropped out of his re-election race in a way that essentially handed his seat to his top aide. After his doctor advised him not to run again because of his heart condition, and his spouse who has multiple sclerosis which didn’t respond to her most […]
Posted inRich Miller
Leaks lead to lecture
House Democratic legislators received a stern lecture during the second week of veto session about leaks from their private party caucus meetings. During the first week of veto session in October, I posted a photo on my blog of a caucus PowerPoint presentation showing the range of revenue ideas under consideration in the House to […]
Posted inRich Miller
Hospitals and law enforcement
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights held a Statehouse lobby day last week to push its far-reaching veto session agenda. Included in the ICIRR agenda are things such as putting strict limits on executing civil immigration warrants in state courthouses. That would likely be challenged in court, but there is some common law […]
Posted inOpinion
Arroyo resigns, fallout continues
The first day of the 2019 veto session on Monday, Oct. 28, was unlike any other that most people have ever seen. First, we learned that Rep. Luis Arroyo (D-Chicago) had been arrested on public corruption charges. About an hour later, federal prosecutors claimed that Arroyo had attempted to bribe a state senator, who has […]
Posted inOpinion
ComEd/Exelon struggles in wake of investigation
Gov. J.B. Pritzker has lately won plaudits from even some conservative opinion-makers for making the right moves on corruption. But I am going to register an objection in a bit. When Senate President John Cullerton dithered about what to do with Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-Chicago) after the powerful Transportation Committee’s Statehouse and district offices and […]
Posted inOpinion
ComEd/Exelon struggles in wake of investigation
The political muscle of ComEd/Exelon aced its last major test in 2016, when the energy companies finally passed what one Illinois House member referred to at the time as a “multibillion dollar corporate bailout” by electricity ratepayers to keep two of its nuclear power plants open. The vote came after that year’s election during the […]
Posted inOpinion
Making the numbers work for first responders’ benefits
One of the provisions of the sweeping state pension reform law passed in 2010 has always stuck in the craw of first responders. Police and (especially) firefighter unions fought the local government lobby for decades to increase survivor benefits, and then they watched many of those hard-fought wins get wiped away when the General Assembly […]
