Politics – Rich Miller

 Several months ago, House Speaker Michael Madigan’s chief of staff Tim Mapes made copies of candidate nominating petitions for what appeared to be every single candidate in the state, regardless of party or office sought. Madigan’s spokesperson was mum when asked why. It turns out that a database was constructed of the names of all […]

I’ve read, watched and heard a whole lot of commentary about the upcoming state budget negotiations during the past few weeks, and it pretty much all ignores recent history and focuses instead on one-sided claims of pending controversy. For instance, this is from an April 7 State Journal-Register editorial: “Some Republicans have voiced in recent […]

 J.B. Pritzker appears to have chosen a solid message for the fall campaign. The overall theme at the successful Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s press conference the day after he won the primary race was “Bruce Rauner is a failed governor.” The message is also the primary subject of his online advertising push against Rauner. Not coincidentally, […]

 The oddest political couple in all of Illinois did pretty well in last Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Two years ago, progressive firebrand Cook County Commissioner Chuy Garcia helped lead Bernie Sanders’ Democratic campaign in the Chicagoland area and was eventually named a national Sanders media surrogate. At the same time, Garcia also endorsed House Speaker Michael […]

Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of a gun dealer licensing bill last week took a lot of folks by surprise. It probably shouldn’t have. We’ll get to the politics in a second, but, as with HB40, the governor was acting on his beliefs. Rauner is a strong abortion rights supporter, so he signed HB40 last year […]

House Speaker Michael Madigan cares most about three House votes: The votes every two years for both the next Speaker and the House rules; and the vote every ten years on the new state legislative district maps. But, prying control of those maps away from Speaker Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton is next to […]

Sources in both parties said last week that their tracking polls were showing a dip in support for Sen. Daniel Biss and a trending increase for Chris Kennedy in the Democratic primary race for governor. That’s the most likely reason why billionaire J.B. Pritzker’s campaign began airing negative ads against Kennedy last week. Pritzker has […]

 Every election cycle, House Democratic candidates have to pay what can be thought of as a “Madigan tax.” The “tax” is the amount of extra campaign money, labor and ingenuity required to overcome the voting public’s strong negative perception of being in any way associated with House Speaker Michael Madigan. The tax has always been […]

Last year’s state budget caused some real consternation among local government leaders because the General Assembly cut their funding. The budget slashed their share of the state income tax by 10 percent for one year and skimmed two percent off the top of several local sales taxes. Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed that budget. His veto […]

A recent statewide poll taken for Sen. Daniel Biss’ gubernatorial campaign showed Gov. Bruce Rauner is much less liked by Illinois voters than his fellow Republican President Donald Trump. The poll also found that the underfunded Democrat Biss actually does slightly better in a head-to-head match with Gov. Rauner than does presumed frontrunner billionaire J.B. Pritzker. […]

A little perspective may be in order. Lots of political junkies, media types, etc. went gaga after last Monday’s Chicago Tribune editorial board faceoff between Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and state Rep. Jeanne Ives. By last Tuesday morning, 28,000 Facebook users had viewed the first segment of the debate. Several more likely watched the forum […]

 For a while now, the book on Chris Kennedy has been that he may not be cut out for a career in politics, despite his famous last name and pedigree as the son of Bobby Kennedy and nephew of John F. Kennedy. That thinking goes all the way back to Kennedy’s disastrous performance after a […]