Democratic Party map-makers in Springfield have crafted new legislative district lines that are so laughably offensive to the Illinois Constitution that the State Supreme Court either will have to reject them outright, or, confirm the Court’s reputation for partisan political corruptness. You decide this one for yourselves, readers. The State...
President Joe Biden is proposing to spend more money than I knew existed, on infrastructure and children, families, free college, and much more. I am not opposed to spending all that money, so long as it is aimed at improving our Nation’s weak educational and social outcomes, and so long...
As a broken-down professor of American politics, I was asked this question recently: What do the terms conservative and liberal mean today in American political life? I think the question is important because: 1) the human animal craves context to help him or her navigate the world; 2) the terms...
The stars are aligned for Illinois to become a hotspot in the revival of manufacturing across our great American heartland. For example, I propose a really big, transformative, federal-state-private-sector partnership that would create a cutting-edge, computer chip manufacturing and research facility on Arsenal Island, which straddles the Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities....
Friends ask: “Why hasn’t Mike Madigan been indicted yet? After all, he has been under investigation for what must be a couple of years now.” My answer: It’s because the federal prosecutor is not confident he can prove that the former Illinois House speaker personally did anything illegal. I define...
I was a State agency director on three occasions back in the day, yet I don’t think I could navigate the maze of dozens of separate, and scattered, State and local social service agencies that have sprung up over the decades to address problems. It’s time for a major reset,...
Here is a good news story. We could use a few feel good stories. I am late to the game here, as you will see, but, worth the telling, and lessons to be learned. A year or more ago, I made friends with Rick Brooks of Princeton, Ill.. Only later...
The coffee klatch at Julie’s Café Market asks: What’s going to happen in American politics over the next few years, now that Donald Trump has declared he plans to be the leader of the Republican Party? Here is my take. In sum, the Republican Party will survive, if at all,...
In the 1970s, president Jimmy Carter supposedly worried that Americans were suffering from collective malaise, the French word for an underlying feeling of discomfort, uneasiness. Carter was roundly ridiculed. A few years later, president Ronald Reagan campaigned in 1984 on the theme, in sharp contrast: “It’s morning again in America.”...
Adam Kinzinger, Donald Trump, Big Money, the GOP, a lot to handle in one column. But I can do it, because each is a different-colored thread in a single piece of cloth. North-central Illinois GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger (16th District, with offices in Rockford, Ottawa, and Watseka) has been sharply...
I had lunch last week with two civic leaders in their handsome, small, city in central Illinois. Both had moved to their present town for family reasons, after careers in other states. They are both concerned about the averageness of their community’s high school. One is a successful, retired school...
At the post office the other day, where all of us in my rural town go to pick up our daily mail, a friend asked: “Why are we so angry, Jim?” By “we” he didn’t mean the two of us, and I could tell, even with his mask on, he...
The dance of democracy continues this year with the once-a-decade ritual of drawing new State legislative and congressional district lines in Illinois and across the Nation. In two-thirds of the states, including Illinois, the legislators draw the lines. It means the party in power draws maps that favor incumbents and...
Written in quill pen, not literally; it was 1965, my master’s thesis was about “Leaderless Politics: The Illinois Republican Party.” Not much has changed. That was an era when party organization mattered. My thesis was that when Republicans lost control of the governorship, the party became leaderless. Not much has...
The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University asked me to do some noodling about the future of Illinois. I have mentioned it to several friends. The responses: A roll of the eyes; a belly laugh; a retort that it is too late to do anything about Illinois....
Politically, Illinois House speaker and State Democratic Party chairman Mike Madigan is a dead man walking. The recent ComEd admissions of a decade of bribery killed him. And so, the struggle for new leadership is under way, mostly behind the scenes for the moment. Madigan has more or less ruled...
The recent passing of Illinois Republican governor Jim Thompson (1977-1990) begs the question: Can the Illinois Republican Party ever again capture the governor’s office? The only answer I can come up with is, unfortunately: Not likely, but not impossible. Here’s why. Jim Thompson served four terms, twice as many as...
The recent admission by behemoth electric utility Commonwealth Edison that it repeatedly bribed minions of Illinois House speaker Mike Madigan for years (of course, Madigan knew nothing about all this; sure, right) was breath-taking for its brazenness. The bribery is a classic example of otherwise upright citizens fueling the culture...
I am hearing a worried buzz about our republic not holding together, something I have never in my long life encountered before. Some (many?) on the left worry about president Donald Trump calling the election invalid and holding onto power. From the right comes concerns that those leading and supporting...
As one who scribbles largely about things Illinois, I feel almost obligated to observe on the bombshell, certainly for the small fraternity that follows Illinois politics, news that utility ComEd has agreed to pay a $200 Million fine for bribery of Illinois officials. The announcement by the U.S. attorney’s office...
