President Barack Obama's first annual address, called a "supermarket of a speech" by syndicated columnist Mark Shields, has also drawn a supermarket of responses from politicians across the state.
Pat Brady, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, was one of the first to respond. Read more...
But state Rep. John Fritchey (D-Chicago) seeks to leave Springfield for a seat on the Cook County Board. Read more...
While Mayor Daley can almost always count on City Council members to vote his way, the opposite is true across the hall in the county boardroom, according to a new study released this week by the University of Illinois at Chicago.
In the report, entitled “County Wars,” political science professor Dick Simpson and Tom Kelly, a graduate student, found only four of 17 county commissioners are likely to vote with County Board President Todd Stroger between 76 and 100 percent of the time. Meanwhile, 11 commissioners who have served at the same time as Stroger vote against him more than 50 percent of the time. Read more...
Monday is the deadline for Cook County Clerk David Orr to submit ballots to be printed for the Feb. 2 primary, though with some outstanding hearings, it looks like that deadline is blown. Already a number of petition challenges have been overturned, chief among them Clerk of Courts Dorothy Brown’s challenge to County Board President Todd Stroger.
Here’s the other county challenges are shaping up, as of yesterday afternoon. In all, eight challenges were sustained; nine were overruled; two were withdrawn and two have yet to be determined. Read more...
Congressman Mike Quigley has supported a bill that would provide benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees.
In a U.S. House hearing yesterday, the Democrat from Illinois' 5th Congressional District also introduced an amendment that calls for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to consider a broad cost-benefit analysis on the measure. Read more...