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Editorial: Senate President Harmon’s sly legislative maneuver exemplifies the need for campaign finance reform

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Deception, Elections, Ethics, Illinois State Board of Elections, OP/Ed, Politics, Springfield on June 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Wednesday, June 11, 2025, on Don Harmon and need for campaign finance reform. | Scott Stantis/For the Editorial Board

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Even lawmakers who’ve been around Springfield a long time were taken aback at the audacity of Senate President Don Harmon slipping a provision into a broader elections reform bill that would have gotten his campaign off the hook for a potential penalty well into the millions.

The Senate president’s problem stems from a March ruling by the Illinois State Board of Elections that his campaign had improperly accepted more than $4 million in donations in 2024 — a finding that stemmed from this newspaper’s questions about the campaign’s fundraising. If Harmon’s appeal of that determination is unsuccessful, his campaign could be subject to a penalty as steep as $6.1 million.

Harmon’s language in the broader reform bill would have deemed the grounds for his campaign’s appeal correct, both going forward and retroactively. House Democrats concluded the provision would have ended the board’s enforcement action, wiping the slate clean for the Harmon campaign.

The Senate president’s attempted slick move only confirmed what many voters already believe about Springfield — that those in power regularly speak in support of good government and clean campaigns but, when push comes to shove, do what they feel is necessary to preserve their authority. The maneuver deserved the condemnation it received — including from members of Harmon’s own party. Thankfully, there was no vote on that elections reform package in the most recent session of the General Assembly.

Beyond the unseemly legislative maneuvering, the Harmon story to our minds underscores how Springfield’s past efforts at campaign finance have failed so miserably. The issue at the heart of Harmon’s woes is a provision in the state’s 2009 campaign finance reform law that was meant to neutralize the effect of big money on Illinois politics. Back then, worries about independently wealthy candidates effectively buying elections led state lawmakers to lift donation limits when “self-funding” got to a certain level so that opponents could compete.

More here.

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State agrees to pay $1.3M for never-built migrant tent encampment despite Gov. JB Pritzker’s assurances

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Commodius Maximus, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Taxes, The Chicago Way, Unions on June 10, 2025| 1 Comment »

Signs proclaiming environmental hazards are posted on a fence as the tent encampment for migrants in constructed in the Brighton Park neighborhood, Nov. 29, 2023. | E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune

By Dan Petrella | Chicago Tribune

Despite assurances from Gov. JB Pritzker that state taxpayers would not end up footing the bill for a migrant tent encampment in Chicago that was never built, the state recently agreed to pay $1.3 million to the project’s contractor.

Pritzker made the highly publicized decision to halt construction of the shelter encampment in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood in December 2023, saying “serious environmental concerns” were still present at the city-selected site. The governor’s decision caused the Brighton Park project to be scrapped, and it signaled an early political rift between the governor and Mayor Brandon Johnson, who was pushing for the shelter to be built as winter arrived and the migrant crisis in the city continued.

Pritzker that month also made public assurances that the project’s state contractor, GardaWorld Federal Services, would absorb the costs of the work that it had already put into constructing the camp.

“The understanding with GardaWorld is that they will do other work with us,” Pritzker told reporters at an unrelated event in December 2023. “And they knew, as they were building this shelter, before the environmental report came in, that it was possible that the environmental report wouldn’t allow the building — the completion, rather — of the shelter. And so they understood that, and they were willing to take that liability on through the state’s contract.”

Officials with Pritzker’s office also said the company had agreed not to charge the state if the land was deemed unsafe.

But a $1.3 million payment to GardaWorld was tucked into the recently approved $55 billion state spending plan being sent to Pritzker’s desk. And Pritzker’s Illinois Department of Human Services, which spearheaded the state’s portion of the migrant response, agreed this April to settle a dispute with GardaWorld over payment for its work at the site, other state records show.

Read more here.

Related: “More than 1,200 beds from McCormick Place COVID-19 temporary hospital go unused amid immigrant housing crisis,” “McCormick Place hospital’s cost to taxpayers?” “Now-closed McCormick Place COVID-19 hospital cost taxpayers $15M to staff, run”

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Editorial: Illinois Supreme Court’s refusal to hear gerrymandering case is a blow to democracy

Posted in BOHICA, Chicago Tribune, Elections, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Springfield, Unions on April 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Last month, we urged Illinois Supreme Court justices to consider state Republicans’ strong arguments against extreme gerrymandering in the Land of Lincoln. To no one’s surprise, on Wednesday the Democratic majority on the high court seized on a technicality to avoid confronting the obvious and refused to hear the GOP’s case.

That leaves intact legislative maps that badly undermine democracy in Illinois. Any reasonable, non-partisan person looking at the facts would arrive at that conclusion. State House districts are so distorted that GOP candidates won 45% of the total vote for the Illinois House of Representatives in 2024 and just 34% of the seats.

That’s plain wrong, and the justices ought to be ashamed.

After multiple failed attempts in the past two decades to get a fair hearing before the Supreme Court, the GOP thought this time might be different. A lawsuit led by House Minority Leader Tony McCombie presented hard data, strong arguments that numerous bizarrely shaped districts violate the state Constitution, and even responded to court decisions in the past that had tossed GOP litigation because it was filed too close to an election.

Read more here.

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Editorial: Suburban speed cameras? Don’t replicate Chicago’s mistakes.

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Hoffman Estates, OP/Ed, Taxes on April 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

By The Editorial Board | Chicago Tribune

Want speed cameras proliferating on your suburban roads?

Chicago-style speed cameras could be coming to a suburb near you thanks to a bill that’s still alive ahead of the April 11 third-reading deadline in Springfield. Today, cameras are allowed only in municipalities with populations over 1 million — which, in Illinois, means Chicago. If this new bill advances, it would authorize home-rule municipalities with populations over 35,000 in counties with more than 3 million people to install speed cameras.

Translation: Speed cameras could be coming to suburban Cook County, the only place in the state with municipalities that fit these requirements.

Red-light cameras are already a reality of life in some parts of the suburbs. From south suburban Homewood to northwest suburban Rolling Meadows, more towns are raising money from these cameras, plaguing drivers just trying to get to work, run errands or shuttle kids to activities.

Des Plaines operates red-light cameras at the busy intersection of Golf and Rand roads that issued 7,885 tickets last year, totaling $320,000.

Other suburbs leverage red-light cameras, too, including Hoffman Estates, also in the northwest suburbs.

Read more here.

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It’s time to slash the number of Illinois local governments

Posted in Better Government Association, Chicago Tribune, Civic Federation of Chicago, Cook, County, Crabtree Nature Center, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Economy, Ethics, FPDCC, Look For The Union Label, OP/Ed, Organizations, Politics, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes, The Chicago Way, Topics Of Interest, Transparency, Unions on April 6, 2025| 1 Comment »

A trap to catch female and pregnant mosquitos is set up by the Northwest Mosquito Abatement District near the Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington, June 6, 2019. The governmental organization is one of four Cook County mosquito abatement districts. | Jośe M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune

By Joe Ferguson and David Greising | Published in the Chicago Tribune

Illinois has 8,923 local governments — more than any other state. Texas, which has more than double Illinois’ 12.7 million residents and nearly five times Illinois’ land mass, is next-highest, with 5,433 government units — about two-thirds as many as Illinois’.

Our state’s extraordinary number of local governments contributes to increased costs, overlapping jurisdictions, duplication of effort, a lack of transparency and accountability and, often, outright corruption. Other states manage to deliver services effectively without this bureaucratic sprawl, and Illinois should do the same.

With so many governments providing a smorgasbord of services, it is difficult to understand which governmental unit provides which service, how they operate and how well they perform. Because many local governments and their operations are so obscure, there are abundant opportunities for unethical behavior and corruption. The Cook County Office of Inspector General has documented unethical hiring practices and conflicts of interest by board trustees at the South Cook County Mosquito Abatement District. Recent media reports have uncovered fraud, embezzlement and graft totaling millions of dollars at several Illinois special districts.

A prime example of unnecessary local government is the four Cook County mosquito abatement districts. The Civic Federation recently released the first-ever comprehensive examination of the governance, finance and transparency of these governmental units.

In 2022, the districts collected nearly $11 million in revenue, mostly from property taxes. Yet they varied widely in the transparency of publicly available information. Most strikingly, there was a distinct disparity in the amount of service provided between the south Cook County district, which covers the city of Chicago south of 87th Street and 53 other communities, and the other three districts, raising concerns about the equitable application of environmental policies in Cook County. Dissolving the Cook County mosquito abatement districts could easily be done by incorporating their functions into Cook County government, which already offers some vector control services.

To be clear, mosquito abatement is a vital public health service, as are many of the other services offered by Illinois’ thousands of government bodies. However, there is simply no compelling reason to maintain separate taxing bodies for services that larger governments could deliver more efficiently, equitably and transparently. Gov. JB Pritzker acknowledged as much in his recent budget address, calling for streamlining local government by simplifying the process to eliminate or consolidate townships.

The Better Government Association has been promoting “smart streamlining” for more than a decade, backing a 2014 state consolidation measure. Similarly, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club has long highlighted that Illinois’ thousands of local governments not only shield officials from public pressure to deliver services in the most effective and efficient manner but also lead to inefficiencies that have been blamed for Illinois’ local tax rates, which are some of the highest in the nation.

In short, dissolving small, anachronistic, single-purpose local governments and incorporating their functions into municipal or county governments can reduce spending and improve efficiency by eliminating redundant management positions, tapping into the pooled resources a larger jurisdiction possesses and accessing economies of scale for purchasing. Most importantly, consolidating local governments can substantially improve transparency and accountability to residents.

To his credit, Pritzker has focused on this issue almost since the beginning of his time in office. He signed a law in 2019 that allows citizens to petition for the dissolution of their local governments and another that enabled the dissolution of drainage districts in the state. In his fiscal year 2026 state budget proposal, Pritzker included initiatives to make it easier to dissolve and consolidate townships. However, those bills have stalled in committee. Moving these initiatives forward will require strong leadership from the governor and legislators.

The Civic Federation and Better Government Association urge the state of Illinois to approve these bills. Doing so would make it easier to dissolve hundreds of unnecessary government entities — including the Cook County mosquito abatement districts — and incorporate their functions into larger governments.

During this period of uncertain and shifting federal funding, when local governments are looking to tighten their belts and local taxes continue to rise, now is the time for action. Illinois residents deserve a more efficient and effective governmental system than the current chaotic mix of unaccountable jurisdictions.

Joe Ferguson is president of the Civic Federation of Chicago. David Greising is president of the Better Government Association

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Former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar exemplifies courage, candor and stewardship

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Guest Essay, Politics, Springfield on March 31, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Former Gov. Jim Edgar speaks during the Illinois GOP delegation breakfast at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater Beach, Florida, before the start of the Republican National Convention on Aug. 27, 2012. | Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune

By John T. Shaw | Posted in the Chicago Tribune 

When Jim Edgar first ran for governor of Illinois, he faced a dilemma that has haunted and hounded politicians since the dawn of time. Should he do the easy but wrong thing or the hard but right thing? History shows that far more leaders have opted for the former than the latter.

Specifically, Edgar was in a tough gubernatorial campaign in 1990 with popular Democratic Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan. A central issue was whether a temporary income tax surcharge that had been approved several years earlier should be extended. Nearly everyone in state government was counting on the revenues generated by the tax extension, but not everyone was willing to say so publicly. Another timeless story.

Hartigan played it safe and opposed the tax extension. Edgar took a risk and told the truth that the revenues were necessary for the services that the public wanted, especially education. “I don’t want the people of Illinois to be surprised by anything I do after the election, and they won’t be,” Edgar told voters several months before they cast their ballots.

Not all of his political advisers supported his decision or at least his public declaration. However, the voters of Illinois appreciated his honesty and elected him by a narrow margin that fall. Four years later, Edgar was reelected in a landslide, carrying 101 of the state’s 102 counties, including Cook County.

Edgar’s courage and candor on the tax issue exemplifies statesmanship.

As did his approach to governing. Edgar was conservative in the most honorable sense of that word and philosophy. He was committed to conserving and preserving — to stewardship. Prudence is a neglected feature of statesmanship. Edgar believed in limited but effective government. He pushed tough spending cuts but also boosted funds for early childhood programs, other preventive programs and education. Frugal and tight-fisted, he was sometimes referred to as “Governor No.” It should be noted that he inherited a large budget deficit and left his successor with a sizable surplus. Sometimes, statesmanship means saying no.

Popular and respected, Edgar decided to retire after eight years as governor. He became a senior fellow at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois (IGPA) and has devoted much of his time to teaching and mentoring.

Most notably, he created the Edgar Fellows program at IGPA. Every August, he brings 40 young leaders in local and state government, business and labor to a conference center in Champaign for a week to study government, delve into public policy issues and learn from the reflections of veteran leaders.

In its 13th year, there are now more than 400 Edgar Fellows alumni who live across Illinois and work in all sectors. Edgar hopes these fellows from various backgrounds and political beliefs will work together to help solve many of the challenges facing the state.

Edgar’s focus on the future is also evident in his work with my institute on the Paul Simon-Jim Edgar Statesmanship Award.

The annual award celebrates exceptional leadership in Illinois by a state and local government official. It goes to a statesperson who has demonstrated unusual vision, courage, compassion, civility, effectiveness and bipartisanship. Each award recipient to date has offered a special tribute to Edgar for his inspiration and example.

Now in its fifth year, the award generates nominations of accomplished and inspiring mayors, city council members, county commissioners, constitutional officers, members of the General Assembly and others. It is a tangible indicator that statesmanship is still alive and well and is often occurring in quiet ways, away from the headlines.

Edgar’s legacy of courage, candor and stewardship deserves our gratitude. Principled statesmanship, he has demonstrated, can solve problems, command public respect and build a better future.

John T. Shaw is director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. Shaw’s columns, exclusive to the Tribune, appear the last Monday of each month. His most recent book is “The Education of a Statesman: How Global Leaders Can Repair a Fractured World.” 

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Wealthy white homeowners vote more on property tax hike proposals in Cook County, study finds*

Posted in Barrington Education Association, Chicago Tribune, Cook, County, District 220 referendum, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Politics, Property Taxes, School Districts, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)? on March 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

By A.D. Quig | Chicago Tribune

Some suburban voters are facing key decisions about hiking property taxes in the April 1 election, but if the past is precedent, “the few will decide for the many” again, according to a report from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ office.

Referendums for $45 million in infrastructure spending in Western Springs, $94.9 million in school upgrades in Northbrook, and for permission to go above state tax caps in the Northfield Park District, Prospect Heights and Roselle are on the ballot this spring.

And Pappas’ office found a small number of voters — largely rich, white homeowners — tend to have the strongest turnout for these types of property tax votes.

The treasurer’s office report compared turnout with census data on race, income and home ownership to reach its conclusions.

Pappas, whose office mails property tax bills, previously released an analysis showing low turnout on pocketbook issues further down ballot, arguing more voter engagement would keep rising taxes under control. Average turnout across the county for property-tax-related issues in the 2024 primary was just 20.9%, according to the report. Less than a quarter of all Chicago voters, for example, gave their say on the “Bring Chicago Home” question, which did not pass.

“Rising property taxes always anger property owners. Despite that, most don’t vote in referendums that determine whether their taxes go up or down,” Pappas said in a release.

Read more here.

*A study was needed?

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Vintage Chicago Tribune: Our favorite animals who became celebrities

Posted in Animal Welfare, Chicago Tribune, Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation, Nostalgia, Topics Of Interest on March 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »

An adult fox walks through Millennium Park’s Lurie Garden at dusk on May 21, 2023, in downtown Chicago. | Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune

By Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather |  Chicago Tribune

Chicago loves a good animal story. Whether it’s the discovery of a massive snapping turtle nicknamed Chonkasaurus, or pondering the lifespan of an Australian lungfish named Granddad, who arrived at the Shedd Aquarium for the 1933 World’s Fair and was estimated to be 109 years old when it died in February 2017.

For older generations, animals were mostly viewed in cages at local zoos. But as animal care practices have evolved, we’ve been able to watch polar bears, gorillas, lions and even beluga whales roam — or sleep — in their habitats from just beyond a panel of glass.

Then there are those wild, recent creatures who have imprinted on our hearts — and even a city sidewalk — for making their homes near ours.

Here’s a look back at some of Chicago’s well-loved animals.

April 3, 2007: A coyote walks into a Quiznos

A coyote that wandered into a Chicago Quiznos is released in Barrington Hills by Dawn Keller of Flint Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation on April 4, 2007. | Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune

Shortly after lunchtime, a docile coyote nonchalantly wandered through the propped-open door of a Quiznos submarine sandwich shop at 37 E. Adams St. in downtown Chicago and plopped down in front of the soda cooler.

Officials picked up the year-old male about an hour after it entered the restaurant. The animal ate nothing and no one was harmed.

The coyote was released later in Barrington Hills on 9 acres of private property, where rabbits and mice — not submarine sandwiches and chips — would be his daily fare.

Another coyote ventured onto ice on Lake Michigan in 2015, before it ran off into a nearby park. And in January, a coyote was discovered in a refrigerated section inside an Aldi grocery store at 800 N. Kedzie Ave. It was safely removed by Chicago police and Animal Care and Control.

More here.

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Audit finds many were improperly enrolled in state health care program for noncitizens, while costs were vastly underestimated

Posted in Chicago Tribune, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Fat Bastard, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Springfield, Taxes on February 27, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Gov. JB Pritzker provides an update on the new migrant arrivals, during a news conference in Chicago, Sept. 14, 2022. | Antonio Perez/ Chicago Tribune

By Jeremy Gorner and Dan Petrella  | Chicago Tribune

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration vastly underestimated the cost and attraction of a pair of controversial programs that provide state-funded health insurance for immigrants who are not citizens, according to an audit report released Wednesday.

The programs have cost the state more than $1.6 billion since the initiative began in late 2020 and also have been plagued by improper enrollments and a failure to move some recipients who were eligible into Medicaid, the traditional health insurance program for the poor that is jointly funded by the federal government, according to the report from Illinois Auditor General Frank Mautino’s office.

While widely supported by the Latino caucus in Springfield and other progressive lawmakers, the programs have been a source of tension among the Democrats who control the legislature and briefly derailed budget negotiations two years ago before legislators reached a compromise that gave Pritzker broad latitude to rein in costs.

The audit’s release comes a week after the governor proposed eliminating funding beginning July 1 for the program that insures people younger than 65, a move his administration estimates would save $330 million and help erase a state budget deficit for the coming year it once estimated at more than $3 billion.

The cost overruns were particularly pronounced in the program meant for recipients ages 42 to 64, with the actual expenditure of $485 million through the three years ending June 30, 2023, the period covered by the audit, coming in at nearly four times the initially estimated cost of $126 million, according to the report. During the same period, the actual cost of the program for those 65 and older was $412 million, nearly double the original projection of $224 million.

At a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday to announce another round of medical debt relief for Illinois residents, Pritzker did not answer directly when asked why the estimates his administration used for the programs were so far off. Instead, he said some individuals were at times kept on the programs’ rolls for a period before the state determined they were no longer eligible, either because of a change in immigration or employment status or some other factor.

Read more here.

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Go large when pruning tree limbs

Posted in Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago Tribune on February 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Be careful not to damage the bark or the trunk as you are pruning. | RJ Carlson/Chicago Botanic Garden

By Tim Johnson | Posted to the Chicago Tribune

There are some large limbs hanging too low over my patio that I need to address before spring. Can I just prune these branches to create more clearance over my patio?

— Jim Young, Libertyville

Winter is a great time to prune the trees in your garden. You should not have any problems pruning off the low limbs to provide more clearance for the patio. In most situations, it is better to remove a larger branch rather than cutting off the ends of branches and leaving unsightly stubs as I see in many home gardens. Be careful not to damage the bark or the trunk as you are pruning. When you cut off a tree branch, the tree forms a callous tissue that covers the wound and seals it to keep out disease and decay.

Use a series of three cuts to remove the limbs. Make the first cut on the underside of the limb approximately 6 to 12 inches away from the trunk and about a quarter of the way through. Then make another cut just outside of this notch on top of the branch that goes completely through the branch. The cut that you made under the limb will keep the bark from splitting or tearing down the main trunk as the branch falls. In some situations, I prune off sections of a large limb to reduce the weight of the limb before making these cuts. The distance that the undercut is from the trunk may vary depending on the size of the branch you are removing. A 1-foot section of a large limb can also damage the trunk as it falls. In these cases, I support the stub with my hand so it does not fall before the final cut is all the way through. Pay attention to your position when pruning these limbs so that you are not knocked off a ladder or in the way of a potential falling limb. Heavy branches can roll unexpectedly as they fall and as they hit the ground. Consider hiring an arborist to prune branches that are 6 inches or larger in diameter if you do not have any experience with pruning large limbs.

The last cut should be made just outside the branch collar that you can see as a swollen area where the branch connects to the trunk. Sometimes this area appears with wrinkled bark. This will allow for proper healing and closure of the wound. The branch collar looks different on different types of trees and can be hard to see on some trees. Certain evergreens, for example, have a branch collar that is flush with the trunk or slightly recessed. It is also important to avoid leaving a stub of branch by cutting too far outside of the branch collar. Generally, there is no need to apply paints, wound dressings or chemical formulations of any type to the surface of the cut. The best practice is to make a clean cut just outside the branch collar using sharp tools.

For more plant advice, contact the Plant Information Service at the Chicago Botanic Garden at plantinfo@chicagobotanic.org. Tim Johnson is senior director of horticulture at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

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