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Editorial: We strongly support this bipartisan plan to fix Illinois’ broken state elections

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Deception, Elections, Ethics, Fat Bastard, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, The Chicago Way, Topics Of Interest, Unions on October 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

People gather where former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley met for a Fair Maps Illinois panel discussion on Aug. 19, 2025. |Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Illinois elections are broken — with roughly half of legislative races uncontested after politicians drew maps to lock in power. Now, two political veterans, one a Democrat and one a Republican, think they’ve found a way to fix it.

One is Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman from 1995 to 2008 and transportation secretary under President Barack Obama. The other is Bill Daley, son of former Mayor Richard J. Daley and commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton as well as chief of staff for Obama. The two met with the editorial board Sept. 23 to talk about gerrymandering and what to do about it. They sit on different sides of the aisle politically, but they’ve come together for a cause that’s bigger than partisan politics — they’re fighting a pernicious problem that has sapped the health of democracy here in Illinois and likely will worsen matters if nothing changes.

We support them in that fight.

Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Sun, Oct 5, 2025, on gerrymandering reform. | Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune

Last Sunday, in the first part of this two-part editorial, we wrote that in Illinois, the most urgent threat to democracy is the state of play before votes even are cast — political maps drawn deliberately to disenfranchise voters. Unlike congressional maps, which are about federal representation, state legislative maps have a direct impact on who ends up writing Illinois laws and controlling the state budget.

We understand that the national contest over bare-knuckled gerrymandering is one in which Illinois Democrats never would unilaterally disarm, and that’s understandable. We’re focused squarely on the maps that determine who governs the state of Illinois. And right now, the system allows the party in power in Springfield to draw districts to maximize its advantage. Voters don’t choose their politicians; politicians choose their voters.

It’s a reality everyone acknowledges, yet it continues to defy repeated attempts at fixing. On the campaign trail in 2018, Gov. JB Pritzker condemned the practice and vowed to veto an unfair map, but he quickly broke that promise once in office.

So how to change this sorry record of futility?

Daley and LaHood think they’ve cracked the code. And they want to take the issue to voters in November 2026 in the form of an amendment to the state’s constitution.

Read more here.

Related: “Editorial: With mostly powerless voters, Illinois democracy hangs by an elongated thread”

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Editorial: Is ‘exclusive inventory’ a new way for real estate agents to keep commissions high?

Posted in Chicago Tribune, OP/Ed, Real Estate on September 25, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The @properties Christie’s International Real Estate headquarters is seen in Chicago on March 20, 2025. The company was sold to Compass in January. Compass Inc. announced on Monday that it had agreed to acquire Anywhere Real Estate for around $1.6 billion. | Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune

Compass is swallowing @properties, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and others. Reason to worry.

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Rent a car from Avis, Budget or Payless and you are doing business with the same holding company. Same with Hertz, Dollar and Thrifty. Real estate brokerages are going the same way. So when Compass Inc. announced on Monday, the New York Times reported, that it had agreed to acquire Anywhere Real Estate for around $1.6 billion in a deal likely to close in 2026, the amount of competition in the Chicagoland real estate industry was set to shrink exponentially.

Anywhere is the parent company of such familiar local names as Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Jameson Sotheby’s International Real Estate and Corcoran. Meanwhile, Compass now owns @properties Christie’s International Real Estate, itself a product of a purchase.

Such is life, you might say. But close observers of this industry see something beyond the usual push for market share that drives consolidations in all industries. Compass is known for its focus on “exclusive inventory,” meaning homes and apartments that have not yet appeared on the traditional Multiple Listing Service or MLS. Or on Zillow, the free-to-enter online site where many look for homes for sale or to determine the likely selling price of one they already own.

Generally, those homes and apartments do show up on the MLS a week or two later, but that’s if they are not already sold. Especially when the inventory is as low as is the case in Chicago and its suburbs, a savvy buyer of real estate knows that you have to keep a close eye on new listings if you want to beat the competition to an especially desirable home or one that is notably underpriced. The situation is analogous to going to an estate sale. Arrive midmorning and you’ll find dealers took all the good stuff while you still were having breakfast.

This all is great for Compass, since exclusive listings surely will help it attract and retain agents and keep commissions in house. It’s also great for Compass agents, since they can tell potential clients that only if they hire them will they get access to fresh, off-market listings. Snooze until they’re on Zillow, they can say, and you’ll lose.

Read on here.

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Editorial: Google’s admission of censorship during COVID shows jawboning cuts both ways

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Deception, Ethics, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, The Other Half, Transparency on September 25, 2025| 1 Comment »

“If Americans want to protect free expression, we must demand consistency from leaders of both parties.” | Josh Edelson/Getty-AFP

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

In recent weeks, Americans have grown increasingly anxious over mounting threats to free expression. New revelations about government influence during COVID show this is not new.

Google and YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, disclosed on Sept. 23 that the Biden administration pressured the company to suppress content that went against the accepted narrative during the pandemic — even when it didn’t violate company policy.

The federal government interfered with how the nation’s dominant search engine and its most widely used online video platform moderated speech.

Alphabet admitted Biden officials leaned on the company to remove posts questioning pandemic policy — even when they didn’t break its rules. In a letter to the House Committee on the Judiciary, Alphabet’s attorneys wrote: “While the Company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden Administration officials continued to press the Company to remove non-violative user-generated content.”

This comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared much the same story last year.

In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee on Aug. 26, 2024, Zuckerberg said senior Biden administration officials “pressured” Meta during the pandemic to remove or demote some COVID-19 posts, including humor and satire, called that pressure “wrong,” and said Meta took actions it “shouldn’t have.”

COVID was chaotic, and officials were trying to keep people safe. But that doesn’t excuse overreach.

Read more here.

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Editorial: Teens on e-bikes are having accidents in the suburbs. We need real rules.

Posted in Accidents, Chicago Tribune, OP/Ed, Public Safety, Traffic on September 24, 2025| 3 Comments »

Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Wed, Sept 24, 2025, on e-bikes and scooters (Scott Stantis)

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

E-bikes are a growing concern statewide, especially in the suburbs where teenage use is rising.

That problem turned into a tragedy last week when a 17-year-old boy from Mount Prospect was killed. Police say he failed to yield at a stop sign and crashed into a pickup truck.

Parents saw their own children in this tragedy. A knee-jerk reaction among some folks was to call for e-bikes and e-scooters to be banned. We understand that temptation, especially in light of this heartbreaking story.

Still, we wouldn’t go that far, but we recognize the growing tension as more e-bikes and scooters hit the streets and sidewalks.

We’ve seen these vehicles used responsibly, too, with drivers wearing protective helmets and navigating streets and sidewalks carefully and efficiently. Some of these drivers are teens getting to school.

But in practice, high-powered e-bikes function more like motorcycles, and yet teens can ride many classes of e-bikes under Illinois law without the licensing or training required for motorcyclists.

Illinois is struggling to keep up with changing technology and habits, but its rules must evolve and adapt.

Read more here.

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Pritzker’s false focus

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Elections, Letters to the Editor, Politics on September 19, 2025| 1 Comment »

In Wednesday’s Tribune (“After latest threat, Pritzker says Trump is ‘losing it’”), Gov. JB Pritzker is quoted as saying that President Donald Trump is “losing it.”

Instead of running for president, the governor of our state should be focusing on solving problems right here at home. His deafness to the people will result in his failure to realize his ambition. He has already lost it.

— Bobby Ferguson, Barrington Hills

Source

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Former two-term Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, who led the state through much of the 1990s, dies at 79

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Politics, Springfield on September 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Former Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka and former Gov. Jim Edgar after an Illinois Business Immigration Coalition event on April 22, 2014, at the Chicago Club.| Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune

By Rick Pearson and Ray Long | Chicago Tribune

Jim Edgar, the two-term Republican governor who guided Illinois through much of the 1990s with a low-key yet intense persona and a meticulous focus on fiscal matters aimed at preparing the state for the 21st century, died Sunday. He was 79.

Edgar died in Springfield, where he had been hospitalized due to an adverse reaction to treatment for the pancreatic cancer that he had been diagnosed with in January friends and associates said.

“It is with heavy hearts we share the news that our beloved husband, father and grandfather Jim Edgar passed away this morning in Springfield from complications related to treatment for pancreatic cancer,” family members said in a statement. “We are deeply grateful for the love, support and kindness so many have shown to Jim and our family over these last several months.”

Arguably one of the most popular governors in the state’s history, Edgar — who was born in the small town of Vinita, Oklahoma, but raised in Charleston, Illinois — provided stable governance through his reserved tone. It was a sharp contrast to his immediate predecessor, James R. Thompson, a Republican who was a constant campaigner and served a record 14 years with a grandiose, free-wheeling personality bent toward spending, building and dealmaking.

After leaving office in 1999, Edgar kept his word that his formal political career was over. He became a senior fellow at the University of Illinois’ Institute of Government and Public Affairs and declined efforts by fellow Republicans to be drafted as the state party chairman, make another run for governor and, twice, to run for U.S. Senate.

Read more here.

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Editorial: Brandon Johnson and friends think it’s ‘a privilege to do business in Chicago.’ Wrong.

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Cook, County, FUBAR, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Politics, Property Taxes, Taxes, Unions, Who Cuts Your Hair? on August 7, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Pedestrians walk past Boeing International Headquarters in Chicago in 2019. Boeing later left Chicago for the suburbs of Washington, D.C. | Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

In the later years of Richard M. Daley’s mayoralty and especially during the tenure of Rahm Emanuel, the city of Chicago served as a magnet for corporate headquarters relocations, particularly from the suburbs.

United Airlines moved its headquarters to Willis Tower from Elk Grove Village, shifting thousands of employees to the city. Kraft Heinz consolidated its base in Chicago from Northfield. McDonald’s moved its home office to the West Loop from its longtime base in west suburban Oak Brook in 2018. These are just a few of the examples.

At the time of these moves, the city was perceived as hot. Even companies that didn’t go so far as to relocate their headquarters to Chicago opened satellite offices in the city, believing that they needed a physical presence to attract younger workers.

The era we’re talking about wasn’t that long ago — less than a decade — but it feels like ancient history.

Post-pandemic, downtown Chicago lost its mojo and, unlike New York City, has failed to recover adequately in the midst of relentless fiscal crises and poor municipal leadership. Chicago’s progressive mayor, Brandon Johnson, routinely describes the corporate decision-makers in his city as the “ultra-rich” (when he refers to them at all).

With Johnson declaring on Tuesday that the city’s finances are at a “point of no return” — whatever that means — the mayor and his progressive allies believe they may have found the answer to their seemingly never-ending quest for massive revenue infusions that affect only the wealthy. A heretofore obscure advocacy group, the so-called Institute for the Public Good, has proposed a new city tax on companies and other large employers that would require them to pay 5% of their total payroll for anyone working in the city who makes $200,000 or more (including noncash compensation like stock options).

The group estimates such a levy would generate $1.5 billion a year. Voila! A Chicago budget deficit now topping $1 billion in 2026 would disappear thanks to something this group pitches as a “tax on the privilege of doing business in Chicago.”

Read more here.

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Fire tore through Arlington Park racetrack 40 years ago. Less than a month later, the season’s biggest event went on as scheduled.

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Topics Of Interest on July 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

The exhibition halls and grandstand of Arlington Park racetrack burn out of control on July 31, 1985, in Arlington Heights. They still ran the Million race at the track less than a month later. | José Moré/Chicago Tribune

By Ron Grossman | Chicago Tribune

In the early hours of July 31, 1985, Tommy Trotter thought he smelled smoke.

“I’m a light sleeper,” he told the Tribune. “I went downstairs to check out the kitchen and it got stronger.” He could hear “cracking” in the ceiling.

The director of racing at Arlington Park racetrack in Arlington Heights, Trotter and his wife and son were staying on the second floor of the Horseman’s Lounge in the posh Post and Paddock Club. He woke up his wife, sent his son to notify security, and told the switchboard operator to call the fire department.

The first of what would become more than 150 firefighters battle a five-alarm blaze in the Post and Paddock Club at Arlington Park on July 31, 1985. | Paul F. Gero/Chicago Tribune

The enormity of the blaze was quickly apparent to firefighters.

“It went ‘bang, bang, bang, right up to five alarms,” said Bruce Rodewald, Arlington Heights’ fire chief. Two special alarms followed, summoning fire departments from Hoffman Estates, Rolling Meadows, Rosemont, Wheeling, Elk Grove Village, Buffalo Grove, Palatine and Des Plaines.

As firefighters arrived, two trainers salvaged 2,000 documents with the identification numbers of horses that raced at Arlington. ”Those foal papers we got out of there are like the title to a car,” Arthur Blaze, a trainer, said. “You can’t run a horse without them on any track.”

The racetrack opened in 1927; the Post and Paddock Club followed two years later and was periodically remodeled. There were false ceilings and sealed off spaces — through which the fire could travel unseen by firefighters. Some used chain saws, desperately trying to find the flames before they reached the wooden grandstands.

“My first thought was of the last fire I went through at Garden State Park, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey,” an Arlington Park jockey told a Sun-Times reporter. Three people were killed there in 1977. Neither humans nor horses perished in the Arlington Park blaze. The fire never reached the stables.

That was all the more miraculous. A watchman at Arlington told the Tribune the firefighters couldn’t attack the blaze until security officers brought a key to its gate.

Joseph Joyce, the track’s president and part owner, got a phone call at his Oak Park home shortly after 2 a.m. He threw on a pink blazer and headed to the track.

Workers emerge from the wreckage of the old Arlington Park grandstand after extinguishing a small fire that broke out as they were removing debris on Aug. 8, 1985. | Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune

“I was banging on the steering wheel,” he told the Sun-Times. “The traffic was so slow. I just kept saying to myself, ‘I just hope it isn’t the grandstand. If it wasn’t, we’d be up and kicking in a couple of days.’”

“We got here about 3 o’clock,” said Des Plaines Fire Chief Don Schultz. The fire was contained by midmorning but later it got out of control, he told the Tribune.

Read more here.

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Bipartisan group launches latest effort to remove partisanship from how Illinois legislative boundaries are drawn (Who are they kidding?)

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield on July 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Former White House chief of staff William Daley in his Chicago Loop office of Argentière Capital in 2017. | Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune

By Rick Pearson | Chicago Tribune

For the third time in little more than a decade, a bipartisan group is being formed to launch a voter initiative aimed at amending the Illinois Constitution to try to remove the heavy partisan influence of lawmakers in the once-per-decade redrawing of state legislative boundaries.

Unlike the current controversy in Texas, where Republicans are looking to redraw congressional boundaries to maximize GOP seats in the U.S. House for the 2026 midterm elections, the Illinois effort is aimed solely at Illinois House and state Senate boundaries.

And unlike two earlier efforts, in 2014 and 2016, that were struck down by the courts, the current proposal is more streamlined and designed to fit through the very narrow window that previous Illinois Supreme Court rulings have left for a constitutional amendment by citizens’ petition to appear on the ballot.

The formal unveiling of the effort is set for Aug. 19, when the Lincoln Forum and the Union League Club of Chicago will host a discussion with the movement’s leaders, former White House chief of staff William Daley and former congressman and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the co-chairs of Fair Maps Illinois.

Daley is a longtime Democrat who is the brother and son of Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors, while LaHood was a Republican congressman from Peoria who served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet. He’s the father of current GOP U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood. Co-counsels for the effort are veteran election attorney Michael Dorf, a former general counsel for the state Democratic Party, and former GOP state election board member and chairman William Cadigan.

The latest effort comes as the current process for redrawing Illinois House and Senate boundaries has received serious scrutiny and follows years of criticism after its adoption as part of the state’s 1970 Constitution. Its reliance on the legislature to formulate and adopt a map has been described as lawmakers choosing their voters rather than voters selecting their representatives in Springfield, resulting in sharp, partisan gerrymandered lines that have produced few contested general election contests as primaries have become the de facto elections.

More here.

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Editorial: Soaring ComEd bills have us all on edge. Springfield must confront our electricity woes head-on.

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Economy, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes on July 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Rows of tall ComEd electrical towers follow a north-south pathway through Barrington Hills on May 23, 2023. | Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

The politics of energy in Illinois are hot this summer. And they’re only going to get hotter.

Residents throughout the Chicago area only now are opening their electric bills and seeing the effect of our sweltering June, combined with substantially higher electricity rates, on their household budgets. With inflation top of mind for everyone, you can add the cost of keeping the lights on and the air conditioners humming to food, insurance, housing, health care and more items making it harder for ordinary folks simply to pay their bills every month.

A spike in the cost of energy that took effect June 1 along with higher usage in one of the hottest Junes Chicago has experienced resulted in a $67.28 increase in the average June 30 household electric bill, according to Commonwealth Edison. So far, July has been no picnic either in terms of heat and humidity, so next month’s bills aren’t likely to provide relief.

And, adding to the electric-bill angst, there was news Tuesday that next summer’s electric bills will see more upward pressure after the results of a power auction just completed by PJM Interconnection, the power-grid manager for a multistate territory running from northern Illinois east to the mid-Atlantic. The details of that auction are somewhat technical; PJM solicits bids from power generators and others for what the industry calls “capacity” and what effectively are promises from those power-plant operators to produce energy during high-demand periods over a year. The amount paid to those selected operators for those promises comes from power consumers throughout the PJM region — that is, virtually all households and businesses — and is embedded in the overall price they pay utilities or other suppliers for energy.

Much of the reason for this summer’s increase in ComEd rates is due to a spike in the current cost of capacity. That capacity cost will rise another 22% in the year beginning in June 2026 after PJM’s latest auction. ComEd says that change by itself will hike ComEd rates another 2%, raising the average residential bill by $2.50 per month.

Politicians and environmental groups, among others, are castigating PJM for the increases and blaming the grid operator for being too sluggish in approving high-voltage connections of renewable power sources such as wind farms to population centers.

Read more here.

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