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 multi-billion-dollar class-action lawsuits filed over asbestos and Marlboro Lights, and the focus of a multi-million-dollar Supreme Court race last year that featured both candidates accusing each other of being soft on child molesters in front of a backdrop of stories about small-town hospitals closing their doors and doctors fleeing to neighboring states, and ending with the trial lawyers' hand-picked Democratic candidate losing both the campaign and his appellate court seat, which then spun off a bizarre sequel when the loser immediately filed a nine-figure defamation lawsuit against his opponent's financial backers.

It was probably no accident that Governor Rod Blagojevich chose a Naperville school last week 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 the real-life violence that their children face every day.

After the Republicans lost complete control of the state legislature in the 1996 election, they rushed through several bills the following January, before handing the House gavel back to the Democrats. The state Constitution requires a three-fifths majority to pass any bills with immediate effective dates after May 31.

Women House members from both parties have stuck together like glue for the past few years, uniting to form the bipartisan Conference of Women Legislators (COWL). The group has become a powerful force at the Statehouse, successfully pushing several woman-friendly bills and budget items.