Pat Quinn: Hey, he picked a tie! (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
Gov. Pat Quinn and the Illinois legislature last week met expectations by agreeing on a $26 billion budget for the fiscal year that started July 1 — the agreement is every…
For too many Illinois legislators, the state’s corruption crisis is not Job One. The state’s budget crisis is not Job One. Job One is making sure they hang onto their own jobs.
So they ended the regular legislative session in May by…
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Illinoisans soon will get a new weapon to fight political corruption. It’s not the machete that’s needed to hack away decades of endemic corruption sown by pay-for-play political contributions that have gone totally unchecked. State lawmakers couldn’t bring themselves to…
One way corruption creates jobs.
It’s a fine mess the Illinois legislature has gotten itself into. Its members have known since January that they had to fix a $12 billion budget deficit. But first they had to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from…
Robert Cohen/Post-Dispatch
Pat Quinn walked into our offices 10 days ago with a stack of business cards reading “Pat Quinn, Lieutenant Governor, State of Illinois.” Before he handed each card over, he used a pen to scratch out “Lieutenant.”
He then launched into…
Reform might end scenes like this: Rod Blagojevich after his arrest on Dec. 9. (Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images North America)
Illinois lawmakers now have 33 days to put up or shut up. On Tuesday, the Illinois Reform Commission submitted…
Not that its products are unsafe, but the Acme Co. would find it easy to make friends in the Missouri Legislature.
Regarding the revelation that FBI agents have been poking around the Missouri Capitol, looking into alleged “pay-to-play” schemes involving state…
Gov. Pat Quinn
Last week, when Illinois’ second-most powerful state official proposed hiking income taxes by 50 percent to close an $11.6 billion budget deficit, we were heartened by the response of Illinois’ most powerful state official:
“I think Illinoisans want to…
Time to downsize campaign cash.
Wafting over the impeachment and removal from office last week of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was the faint odor of hypocrisy. With his brazen and profane greed, the now-former governor may have exposed Illinois’ culture of…
Now-former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevcich talks to Diane Sawyer on Monday about his impeachment hearings. | Getty Images
So, the Illinois Senate convicted (now-former) Gov. Rod Blagojevich, removing him from office.
The nation (or at least the media) seemed transfixed by the…
