Kurt Granberg, poster boy for retirement planning. (Post-Dispatch file photo)

During his 22 years in the Illinois legislature, Kurt Granberg became something of an expert on the state’s severe underfunding of its five public pension funds. “People didn’t pay attention,” he told…

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…

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…

Rod Blagojevich talks to reporters the day he was impeached.

Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevcich, who was impeached by state legislators earlier this year, was indicted Thursday on federal charges in Chicago. (Read the AP story here.)

The indictment said Blagojevich operated…

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…

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris | AP photo

OK. That’s enough.

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., is on his fourth version of the story about pay-to-play allegations surrounding now-former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

We detailed the first three versions in an editorial today. First: No…

You want the truth? Which version?

Listening to U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., try to explain Sunday why he didn’t exactly lie about his contacts with associates of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, we were reminded of the advice that comedian Steve…

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…

No, that's not a check Roland Burris is taking from his pocket as Gov. Blagojevich introduces him Tuesday. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

In a way, we don’t blame Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich for defying the leadership of his own Democratic Party last…

AP Photo by Seth Perlman, February 2003.

I MET ROD BLAGOJEVICH just once. It was March 9, 2007. Twenty-one months later, I don’t know what to think about what I saw and experienced that day.

The Democratic governor of Illinois and several senior…

On the other hand, there were financial vices. And if somebody in City Hall saw a chance to make a fast bundle or two, Daley wasn’t given to preaching. His advice amounted to: Don’t get caught.
— Mike Royko, about Chicago…

In March 2005, a month after Alberto Gonzales became U.S. attorney general, Justice Department staffers sent to the White House a chart ranking all 93 U.S. attorneys in terms of their allegiance to President George W. Bush and his administration.

On…

President-elect Obama meets with the nation's governors Tuesday in Philadelphia. (Jeff Hayes/Getty Images)

If it’s any consolation to Jay Nixon, Missouri’s governor-elect, that $342 million shortfall in the state budget he inherits Jan. 12 is chump change compared with the problems that…

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogas

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., has received the Chicago Sun-Times’ endorsement for the U.S. Senate seat recently vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr. Jackson spoke to us by telephone this morning seeking the Post-Dispatch’s support.

Kevin McDermott, from…

Chicago heavyweights Rod Blagojevich, Barack Obama and Richard M. Daley in 2007.

As Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich ponders the question of who should take President-elect Barack Obama’s barely warmed seat in the United States Senate, it’s safe to assume that the…

Illinois voters tired of a state government that argues a lot and does little will have a chance to do something about it on Nov. 4. On the ballot will be a proposal to call a convention to reform the Illinois…

It seems odd to use the words “ethics reform” in the same sentence as “Illinois legislature,” and to be sure, the ethics reform bill that the legislature gave final passage to Monday leaves a lot to be desired.

But as Dr. Johnson…

Illinois state government runs on the buy-now/pay-later plan, and it’s been that way for decades. If a new public works program called “Illinois Works” is approved by the General Assembly, the state will buy $34 billion worth of infrastructure projects…