12 May 2025

Governor JB Pritzker Reiterates: Now’s Not the Time for Budgeteers to Make It Rain

By Rich Miller

I spent some time talking with a top legislative budget negotiator last week who said rank-and-file legislators will very soon have to come to terms with a state budget environment unlike anything many have ever seen before.

05 May 2025

A Couple of Three Things Pritzker Should Know Should He Take the Fight to Trump

By Rich Miller

During a rip-roaring speech in New Hampshire last week, Governor JB Pritzker called for mass national protests and “disruption,” assailed “do-nothing” Democrats for their “simpering timidity,” and labeled President Donald Trump a “madman” who cannot be reasoned with. The Jewish Ukrainian-American governor said of Trump: “Stop tearing down the Constitution in the name of my ancestors. Do not claim that your authoritarian power-grabs are about anti-Semitism. When you destroy social justice, you are disparaging the very foundation of Judaism.”

28 Apr 2025

It Was an Open-and-Shut Case. If Only Emil Jones III Hadn’t Failed to Incriminate Himself.

By Rich Miller

As you likely know by now, a federal jury deadlocked last week on all three corruption charges against Senator Emil Jones III (D-Chicago). U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood declared a mistrial after polling individual jurors and arriving at the conclusion that they could not possibly reach a verdict.

14 Apr 2025

Pritzker Advises Orgs to Make Cuts Where They Can Ahead of Trump’s Axe

By Rich Miller

Governor JB Pritzker said last week that the extreme uncertainty with the U.S. government and the international economy might mean that the legislature may have to reconvene to reconfigure the state budget after it adjourns at the end of next month.

07 Apr 2025

Illinois GOP Appears Eager to Employ Methods Foul and Fair to Nullify Dems’ Vote-by-Mail Advantage

By Rich Miller

You’ve probably read about the Republican Party implosion last week in suburban municipal and township campaigns, particularly in DuPage County.

31 Mar 2025

Marty Moylan Is Prepared to Go Over the Top on OT; Marcus Evans Would Rather Die on Some Other Hill

By Rich Miller

The Civic Federation, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, the Illinois Economic Policy Institute, and the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability recently released a report calling for the expansion of the sales tax to several services, claiming such a move could raise $2 billion for the state.

24 Mar 2025

Higher Ed Puts Camel Clutch on Pritzker for Promoting Four-Year Community-College Degrees in Illinois

By Rich Miller

Two major proposals backed by Governor JB Pritzker did not advance out of legislative committees before last week’s passage deadline. Senator Suzy Glowiak Hilton confirmed that she won’t be advancing her legislation supported by the governor that would dissolve townships with populations below 5,000 (SB2217), and eventually abolish townships with populations below 50,000 and lower the petition threshold to five percent from ten percent to put a township abolition on the ballot.

17 Mar 2025

Representative Marty Moylan Wants You to Justify Your OT – “You” Being “CTA Workers”

By Rich Miller

Representative Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines) recently told me he was “astonished” by some Chicago Transit Authority employee paychecks. Representative Moylan, the Chair of the House Transportation: Rail Systems, Roads, and Bridges Committee, is heading into the transit-funding discussions armed with an inch-and-a-half-thick binder filled with CTA salary data. The agency’s gross payroll for all employees in 2024 was close to a billion dollars.

10 Mar 2025

Be Sure the Kids are Buckled in When Illinois’ Foster-Care System Finally Hits the Wall

By Rich Miller

Advocates say a major storm is brewing that could overwhelm the state’s child foster-care system. The problem is legal liability insurance, or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

03 Mar 2025

What Is the Penalty for a State That Fails to Pay the Minimum Amount for Teachers’ Pensions?

By Rich Miller

The latest report from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability shows that spending on four “core” state services in the governor’s proposed Fiscal Year 2026 budget will be 9.1 percent less in real dollars than it was way back in Fiscal Year 2000. Those four core services are education, health-care, human services, and public safety.

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