We’re less than nine months from when candidates can begin circulating petitions for the 2026 election, so we’re rapidly approaching the time when major figures will need to decide whether to run or not. Because of that, a lot of people are polling.

Whenever someone assures you that another person you’re both dealing with “understands” the “quid pro quo,” you’d be wise to run away as fast as you can and never look back. But that’s exactly how then-Alderman Daniel Solis assured then-House Speaker Michael Madigan in late June of 2017 that their mark – the developers of a West Loop apartment complex – would eventually be convinced to retain Madigan’s property tax appeals law firm.

Just about nothing happened in the first week of veto session in the House and the Senate. The Democratic legislative leaders are still trying to figure out what their members want to do in the wake of Republican President-Elect Donald Trump’s victory and whether that can be done. Whether that action starts in the second and final week of veto session, or in the lame-duck January session or in the regular spring session, is still up in the air as I write this.

As usual, plenty of false claims have been made during this state legislative election cycle. But the campaign I keep going back to in my own mind is the battle in the 97th House District.