The Democratic Party of Illinois today hosted candidate interview sessions at five locations – in Chicago, Springfield, Bolingbrook, Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg. Out of the roughly 260-265 applicants still in the running, according to party spokesman Steve Brown, about a third have RSVPed to speak today before some of the 38 Democratic State Central Committeemen and Committeewomen (or their proxies).

State Senator Iris Martinez, herself a member of the State Central Committee, asks to be considered for the nomination. (WBEZ/Sam Hudzik)

I dropped by the event at the Chicago Hilton, where – due to high demand – the party was holding interviews simultaneously in two rooms. Read the rest of this entry →

This morning we wrapped up our second week of stories and conversations about the juvenile justice system in Illinois. We’re calling the series Inside and Out.

As our reporting during the series has shown, this is a hot issue with a lot of passion on all sides. No one is opposed to making the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice work better. It’s just about how the state goes about it. And that brings us to an example from earlier this week of how – at times – it seems like the pitch of this debate has gotten so tense that no one can hear each other.

On Tuesday late afternoon – and into the evening – a state Senate Appropriations Committee met in Springfield, and it ended with quite a bang. I was a couple hundred miles away in Chicago when this hearing took place. But the following is what I’ve been able to confirm from multiple sources (several on the understanding that they would not be named). Read the rest of this entry →

It’s Quinn’s second budget speech. He will lay out his proposal around noon today before the General Assembly.

Governor Pat Quinn (AP/file)

First things first: We’ll have the speech live here on 91.5 FM and WBEZ.org, along with post-speech analysis featuring John Tillman from the Illinois Policy Institute and Ralph Martire from the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. While listening, head over to blogs.vocalo.org, where Justin Kaufmann hosts the second week of The Lunchbox. His all-star panel of guests will live-blog the governor’s speech.

Do your homework: Read the rest of this entry →

Phil Rock loves his retirement. I guess, it’s sort of a retirement.

Rock is “of counsel” at his law form, Rock Fusco. Before I interviewed him last week for a story on the Democratic State Central Committee, he walked over to the window of his beautiful corner office towering 22 floors above the Chicago River, staring down and pointing out where the river turns south toward Chinatown. Not a bad gig.

Rock on retirement

Rock left the Illinois Senate in 1993, more than two decades after arriving. For a few years in the early 80s, he chaired the Democratic State Central Committee, and he held his committee seat in the Cook County Democratic Party until about ten years ago. I asked him to try to sum up what he’s been doing since his name stopped appearing on the ballot.

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Today the Illinois State Board of Elections proclaims the results from the February 2^nd primary. This means the Republican race for governor will likely conclude. It also means Scott Lee Cohen will officially be declared winner, and then have his candidacy immediately withdrawn. That’ll open up the lieutenant governor vacancy to be filled by the Democratic State Central Committee, whose members are also finalized with today’s action by the election board.

The candidates for the Democratic State Central Committee run every four years, in non-presidential years. And – since the 1986 election – the panel has consisted of one committeeman and one committeewoman from each of the state’s congressional districts. (The number has declined over the years along with Illinois’ shrinking congressional delegation.) I did a story for this morning about how this equal gender representation plan came to be.

The pressures involved

Here’s a clip of my interview with Philip J. Rock, then the Democratic president of the Illinois Senate, and chair of the state party. Rock is describing some of the pushback he got from other Democrats about the one man, one woman plan.

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The applications went live Tuesday. And I mean the complete applications. If you applied through the Democratic Party of Illinois’ website to fill the vacancy left by Scott Lee Cohen on the party’s ticket, your internet presence just grew. We’re talking resumes, phone numbers (cell, home and work) and email addresses – along with, in a few cases, the phone numbers and email addresses of your professional references.

AP/file

And who are the 46 brave souls (the number as of Tuesday night) who put this information out there? Forty-one appear to be men, five women. Occupations vary, including retired, unemployed, teacher, engineer and police officer. Home towns range from Plainfield to Chicago, Springfield to Hillside, Lake Forest to Lisle. None of the applications were submitted by politicians mentioned recently as potential picks. Absent at this point are the five candidates who lost to Scott Lee Cohen. There was no Raja Krishnamoorthi, no Julie Hamos. Read the rest of this entry →

You have to give Mary Schaafsma and Illinois Senator Kwame Raoul credit: they knew it was going to be spicy and they still showed up.

At a forum at the University Center in downtown Chicago, Schaasfma, from the League of Women Voters of Illinois, presented the rough outline of a constitutional amendment to change the way state legislative boundaries are drawn. (It was endorsed by some reform groups and Republican leaders in Springfield.) Raoul, chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee, responded to that proposal, and offered up some elements of an amendment he intends to introduce on behalf of Senate Democrats. (I’m told this could be introduced as early as Thursday.)

From left to right: Illinois Senator Kwame Raoul, George Mason University professor Michael McDonald and Mary Schaafsma from the League of Women Voters of Illinois.

When Schaafsma was talking, Raoul sat poker-faced, except for a few times when he smiled and nodded, as if Schaasfma was making his case for him. When Raoul talked, Schaafsma took notes, or stared into the distance with pursed lips. I even saw one eye roll. They shook hands afterward.

I did a story on the continuing debate, but four minutes of radio doesn’t touch the complexities of this issue or some of the differences between the proposals. So here you go, a reading list for those yearning to digest the ins-and-outs of redistricting: Read the rest of this entry →

In the two weeks before the primary election, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn held about 40 campaign events and – by my count – 18 government events, according to a review of his public campaign and official schedules.

Governor Pat Quinn, the Saturday before the primary, giving a pep talk to precinct workers from the 31st Ward.

In the two weeks after primary day, Quinn has held four campaign events. The most recent was Monday, February 8^th, when Quinn held a press conference at the Hotel Allegro in Chicago to take questions in the aftermath of Scott Lee Cohen’s decision to drop out. The governor has held zero public government events since the primary. Read the rest of this entry →

In a meeting legislators are describing as a first of its kind in the Illinois Senate, Republicans and Democrats got together to hear a presentation on state budgets from the National Conference of State Legislatures. And they didn’t let the public or reporters inside, calling it a “joint caucus” (see the Trib’s coverage), rather than a session of the Senate. Why is that distinction important? We turn to Article IV, Section 5(c) of the Illinois Constitution, which doesn’t say anything about caucus meetings:

Sessions of each house of the General Assembly and meetings of committees, joint committees and legislative commissions shall be open to the public. Sessions and committee meetings of a house may be closed to the public if two-thirds of the members elected to that house determine that the public interest so requires; and meetings of joint committees and legislative commissions may be so closed if two-thirds of the members elected to each house so determine. Read the rest of this entry →

The news today, reported by numerous sources, that Indiana U.S. Senator Evan Bayh has decided not to seek a third term, reminded me of some archival tape I had stored away.

In early 2007, I was freelance reporting in Washington, DC, and ran into Evan’s father, Birch Bayh, himself a former U.S. senator. I asked him about his son’s decision, just a few weeks earlier, to not seek the Democratic nomination for president. (Evan Bayh had opened a presidential exploratory committee in late 2006.)

Birch Bayh told me he didn’t play a part in his son’s decision on whether or not to run for president. And he said he wouldn’t play a part in the decision if his son considered a future presidential run.

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FATHER & SON RETIREMENTS: Evan Bayh is 54 years old now, and will be 55 when he leaves the Senate in January. His father’s Senate career ended in 1981, after he was defeated by Dan Quayle, then a congressman and later the vice president. At the time, Birch Bayh was 52 years old.