The Illinois Senate debated and passed several bills last Thursday dealing with what the news media likes to call “culture war” issues. Perhaps the least controversial (there was almost no debate) was House Bill 1591, which deletes some anti-miscegenation laws still on the books since 1915. Even so, nine Republicans voted against the bill.

We’re going to talk some history today. According to testimony at the federal ComEd Four trial, then-House Speaker Michael Madigan’s former 13th Ward Alderperson Frank Olivo was brought on as a subcontractor under then-ComEd Chairman and CEO Frank Clark.

The now-notorious violent youth riot in downtown Chicago during a recent weekend got me to thinking of a press conference way back in 2010. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley voiced frustration about what he said were large groups of suburban kids causing trouble on Chicago’s lakefront, even though plenty of Chicago kids were also participating, including six teens who brutally attacked an 18-year-old suburban woman. Mayor Daley complained that the youths would text each other to organize their mayhem.

A couple of Chicago mayoral race polling results from last month have been stuck in my head ever since they were released.

If you’re getting a strong and unpleasant sense of déjà vu about the new U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for counties, including Cook County, you’re not alone. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-8) is feeling it as well. Krishnamoorthi, who sits on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, has been trying to force the Census Bureau to retool its population estimates because they have been so awfully inaccurate going back years and years.

Could the 2022 massacre during Highland Park’s July 4th parade have been prevented with a small change to state law?

ComEd has long been a source of political patronage. The company’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement with federal prosecutors even references how former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s “old-fashioned patronage system” obtained ComEd meter-reader jobs for its precinct workers.

Governor JB Pritzker declared last week when announcing the formation of the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center that the state was building “the best behavioral health system in the nation.” It was quite a bold thing to say. So, my associate Isabel Miller and I asked a couple of follow-up questions: How long will this take and how much will it cost?

Last month, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek headline for my blog: “Poll conducted for IEA finds about 10 percent of Illinoisans are wackos.”

Governor JB Pritzker told reporters a few weeks ago that he was concerned about some local school and library board races. “There are organizations that are anti-LGBTQ, that are racist, they’re anti Muslim, that are supporting candidates for these local boards. And they’re trying to take over at a local level and build up candidates at the local level that they can then run for the state legislature and for other offices.”

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