Illinois Family Action wants to provide an update regarding the upcoming leadership vote tomorrow of the Illinois Republican State Central Committee (SCC).

The Illinois GOP SCC is the state party’s governing board, with one member chosen from each congressional district. Those elections took place last month at county party conventions across the state. Tomorrow, the SCC will meet to elect a party chairman for a four-year term.

The reason this committee and the party chairman is important is that the quality of messaging, candidate recruitment, and support are dependent on the quality of the party leaders.… Continue Reading

Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) of Illinois believes that his state is on the verge of “banana republic territory” because the state faces an imminent financial crisis. As described in a story published by The Fiscal Times on June 12:

Last week, the state marked the second full year in which Gov. Bruce Rauner and a combative Democratic legislature were unable to agree on a new operating budget. The state Senate the week before rejected a House-passed budget measure premised on a $7 billion revenue shortfall after Rauner threatened to veto it.

Written by State Representative Jeanne Ives

No one should be surprised that group think instead of rational choices surround the 13 interconnected bills of the “Grand Bargain.” It is wholly predictable given the longevity of the Illinois Senate leaders involved. They’ve been working together for nearly 2 decades. They put in place many of the policies that are now taking a toll on our state.

They are the beneficiaries of generous pensions when they retire, excessive pay for their part-time jobs, and the public attention and stature of the positions they hold. … Continue Reading

Written by Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner

Illinois Senate members have a drafted a new budget plan that relies on multibillion-dollar tax hikes, but little in structural spending reforms.

The plan punishes taxpayers with more than $5 billion in additional income and other taxes, borrows $7 billion from the bond market and adds casinos in Chicago – none of which provide relief to struggling Illinoisans. The plan also leaves pensions unreformed, does little to workers’ compensation costs and burdens job creators with a higher minimum wage cost.

Written by John Biver

Former Governor Pat Quinn, a fixture on the Illinois political scene for decades, has been on the statewide ballot many times, and also served as State Treasurer and Lt. Governor. Earlier this month, Reboot Illinois’ Matt Dietrich wrote this:

Before serving as governor from 2009 to 2015, Pat Quinn was known as a rabble-rousing reformer who, most famously, led a 1980 citizen initiative that cut the membership of the Illinois House by one-third.

Written by Eric Kohn

Rich Miller wants Bruce Rauner to surrender.

This has been a theme of Miller’s since shortly after Rauner was inaugurated.  [Recently] in a guest column at Reboot Illinois, he used the loss of two high profile Rauner-backed primary candidates to renew his call.  Miller begins with this sentence:

It’s almost impossible to make a deal with somebody who won’t accept reality.

Let’s talk about reality.

Miller is correct that Rauner lost two races where he had made a significant investment.  … Continue Reading

Chicago City Council passed the largest property-tax hike in modern city history by a vote of 36-14 on Oct. 28, approving Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2016 budget proposal.

The budget includes a $588 million property-tax hike to be phased in over the next four years.

In short: Chicagoans are likely to take a closer look at their upcoming tax bill, as homeowners and small-business owners will need to see just how large a hit their family’s bottom lines will take.… Continue Reading

Written by Russ Stewart

Remember that old verity, you get what you pay for? Often, you don’t. In Illinois politics, however, you pay for what you get, and the candidate who pays the most is the candidate who gets.

Bruce Rauner is Illinois’ governor because during 2014 he raised $78,191,560 and spent $58,426,802. Roughly $25 million of his receipts came from his own pocket. Self-funding, in essence, bought him the governorship.

Rauner beat Pat Quinn 1,823,627 to 1,681,343, getting 50.3 percent of the vote and winning by a margin of a margin of 142,284 votes.… Continue Reading

Written by Russ Stewart

The outcome of Illinois’ gubernatorial race proves anew that any mother’s son can grow up to be governor, provided that he can self-fund $28 million and raise another $60 million.

Republican Bruce Rauner‘s win also reaffirms another pearl of wisdom: Bad always gets worse. If Illinoisans thought that state government was incompetent and leadership was dysfunctional under the Quinn-Madigan-Cullerton Democratic regime, they ain’t seen nothing yet.

The 2018 campaign for governor started on Nov.… Continue Reading

Written by Russ Stewart

The Nov. 4 election, for Democratic politicians in Chicago, will be a “UPS moment.” Which committeemen among the 50 Chicago wards will deliver, and will their delivery be decisive and intimidating?

With Chicago politicians already heavily focused on the Feb. 24, 2015, municipal election, and those with statewide ambitions intensely pondering the state landscape for 2016 and 2018, the 2014 vote will, to use that old expression, “separate the men from the boys.”… Continue Reading

Written by Benjamin BanMetre

Illinois began August with a $4.4 billion dollar backlog of unpaid bills. If lawmakers would have kept the promises they made in 2011, the backlog would be zero today – or close to it.

In January 2011, Illinois lawmakers pushed through a record tax hike that raised the income tax rate on individuals to 5 percent from 3 percent, and on corporations to 7 percent from 4.8 percent. They called it the Taxpayer Accountability and Budget Stabilization Act and went on record making the following promises:

“We have some temporary tax increases that are designed to pay our bills, get Illinois back on fiscal sound footing and make sure that our state has a strong economy.”

Almost all of those who have emailed us following our exposé of Dr. Arie Friedman’s pro-abortion position have expressed shock about his views, which he does not include on his website and which we have learned are even more extreme than we realized.

Although Friedman did not return IFI’s survey on his positions or the survey sent out by Illinois Citizens for Life, he did express his views to the Buffalo Grove Patch in June:

“Friedman indicated he supports a women’s right to choose.