Just eight of 78 Illinois House Democrats openly sided last week with the once-indomitable Chicago Teachers Union. The CTU hotly opposed a bill to halt all public-school closures and prevent disproportionate budget cuts and changes to admissions criteria at Chicago’s selective-enrollment schools until a fully-elected Chicago school board is seated in 2027. The final roll call was a lopsided 92-8. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, whose popularity has plummeted along with his Statehouse influence, ought to take this as a warning not to follow the CTU’s example. And so should some other Chicago-based organizations.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has been a very big state problem for a very long time. The department now has new leadership under Director Heidi Mueller, whose appointment was met with widespread praise. The former director of the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice was confirmed by the Senate without a single “No” vote last month, minutes before I interviewed her.

“The woke Left is coming after me for peeing on a tree during my college days,” state Representative Adam Niemerg (R-Dietrich) told me not long ago.

Governor JB Pritzker proposed some changes to the state’s pension system during his budget/State of the State speech last month that will likely please the New York City-based bond-rating agencies by giving them something they want, as well as his fellow Democrats by freeing up some money to spend on other things.