A Cook County Democratic Party committee Wednesday recommended the party endorse Mary Jane Theis for the state Supreme Court in the March primary election. Theis was appointed by the other six members of the court last year to fill out the term of Justice Thomas Fitzgerald. She is running with the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Details on Mayor Richard M. Daley's plan to deal with the Supreme Court's decision invalidating Chicago's handgun ordinance hit the street today.
If passed, the law would prohibit handgun ownership outside of private homes, and further restrict firearms possession by:
“As long as I'm Mayor, we will never give up or give in to the gun violence that continues to threaten every part of our nation, including Chicago,” Daley said. Read more...
4:20 p.m.: Not much news out of the presser. The mayor is annoyed with the Supremes, pledges to make appropriate changes to the city laws regulating handguns, doesn't offer much in the way of specifics.
“Across the country, cities are struggling with how to address this issue. Common sense tells you we need fewer guns on the street, not more guns,” Daley said.
“So, we're working to rewrite our ordinance in a reasonable and responsible way to protect 2nd amendment rights and protect Chicagoans from gun violence," he said. "We’ll publicly propose our new ordinance soon." Read more...
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled today that the Chicago Fire Department illegally discriminated against hundreds of black job applicants.
The fire department's reliance on results from a 1995 civil service exam had a negative “disparate impact” on black applicants.
The decision could mean the city will have to pay up to $100 million in damages to applicants who were party to the lawsuit. Read more...
Their exchange ended with smiles, but Democratic U.S. Senate candidates made clear last night that the fight for Barack Obama's old seat is going to heat up and narrow down in the final primary stretch.
State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman and Chicago Urban League President Cheryle Jackson answered a rapid-fire set of questions from the Chicago Sun-Times' Carol Marin yesterday evening.
In their second, and milder, widely televised forum, the three leading Democrats broke little new ground in revealing their policy positions. They also rehashed some of the same arguments they have previously made about each others' personal characters and experiences. Read more...
