Off the record, most top Illinois Republicans these days will tell you that they want a state bill legalizing gay marriage passed as soon as possible.

It's not that they're necessarily in favor of gay marriage. Many of them are publicly and privately opposed. Some of them do support it, even though they don't feel they can vote for it because it might destroy their careers in the next GOP primary.

The reason so many Republicans would like to see the bill passed is because they know - with the huge new Democratic majorities in both state legislative chambers - that it's eventually going to pass anyway, and they want to get this issue out of the way and behind them as soon as possible. The issue is trending hard against the GOP's historical opposition, and they want the thing off the table before it starts to hurt them.

"Frankly, I'm not sure they want it," Illinois Senate Republican Leader Christine Radogno said Tuesday about the Democratic legislative leaders and state pension reform.

It sure looked liked she was right last week, at least in the House, where Speaker Michael Madigan barely lifted a finger for any of the pension-reform bills that were on the table.

His top aides insist that he does indeed want pension reform. Madigan has said he wants a bill to pass. So what will it take to get him off the dime and start pushing for a solution?

It's difficult to argue with a point by the Washington Post's Greg Sargent shortly after news had broken of the mass murder at a Connecticut school.

"If today's shooting doesn't prompt action on guns," Sargent wrote on his Twitter account, "then nothing ever will."

You'd think that the shocking horror of 20 children and 6 adults murdered at that school by a crazed gunman using a semiautomatic assault rifle with high-capacity ammunition magazines would prompt some action, either nationally or at least locally.

But nationally the NRA has almost completely embedded itself within the Republican Party and allied itself closely with congressional GOP leaders. As a result, when one of its own members (Gabby Giffords) was nearly killed during an Arizona mass murder by yet another crazed gunman, the U.S. Congress did little more than applaud her return to the chamber.

One of the most fascinating things about the media frenzy surrounding state Senator Donne Trotter's arrest last week was that not one of his Democratic Second Congressional District opponents immediately jumped in front of the cameras to comment publicly about the matter.

They stayed silent even when Trotter (D-Chicago) announced after he was bonded out of jail the next day that he wouldn't drop out of the race to replace disgraced former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.

Trotter was arrested Wednesday morning after allegedly attempting to bring an unloaded pistol through a security checkpoint at O'Hare airport. Reporters swarmed the courthouse after Trotter posted bond Thursday and then, when he refused comment, some descended on his home on Chicago's South Side.

His arrest was one of the biggest news stories in the city, mainly because of his congressional bid, yet none of his dozen or so prospective Democratic opponents in the Second District special-election contest immediately issued a statement or responded on-the-record to questions about the case.