Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) is making a bid to boost his influence within the Democratic Party by running for a second office, he announced in an email to his supporters Monday afternoon.
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) is making a bid to boost his influence within the Democratic Party by running for a second office, he announced in an email to his supporters Monday afternoon.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is defending her decision to put two Democratic Party regulars on the payroll after their terms in the state legislature expired.
After years of this kind of hijinks from her predecessor Todd Stroger, Preckwinkle seemed like a breath of fresh air, and I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt when she talked reform.
Of course, every Chicago politician worth his/her salt has run on the promise of reform, from Richard J. Daley to Rod Blagojevich and hizzoner, Richard M. Daley. Suffice it to say that after the polls closed, reform was nowhere to be found. Read more...
Forrest Claypool, the county commissioner who left the Democratic party to run as independent candidate for Cook County assessor, says he'll file petitions today signed by more than 90,000 voters in his bid to get on the ballot in November.
Claypool is running against Democrat Joseph Berrios, a board of review commissioner and chairman of the party, Republican Sharon Strobeck-Eckersall, a former Evanston assessor, and the Green Party's Robert Grota.
Claypool announced his candidacy in early April, angering Democrats by leaving the party and running without having participated in the primary. He needed to garner 25,000 signatures to get on the ballot, and expects a tough challenge from election lawyers retained by the Berrios campaign. Read more...
The impact of the upcoming trial of former Governor Rod Blagojevich is already being felt throughout the halls of the Illinois state Capitol.
While the upcoming trial will no doubt bring negative fallout to state Democrats in the coming months, the federal corruption probe into Blagojevich and his administration has spurred numerous ethics-related developments including the formation of a government reform commission headed by former prosecutor Patrick Collins.
The commission proposed campaign finance reform and a renewed push for term limits. Both provisions were rejected by the Democrat majority in the Legislature. Read more...
Michael Demetrio says that when his wife ran for office, there was one place, and only one place, she turned for money: their own bank.
“We have a fairly firm philosophy,” Demetrio says. “We do not take funds from anyplace else besides us.”
The Chicago attorney pitched in about $125,000 for his wife’s judicial campaign last year. Mary Katherine Rochford won one of three vacancies in the 1st District of the Illinois Appellate Court — taking the concept of judicial independence to a financial extreme. Read more...
