Last month, Chicago was poised to become the second city in Illinois to impose burdensome new restrictions on e-cigarettes, threatening to regulate them like tobacco products even though they contain no tobacco. But after facing strong opposition at the City Council’s joint Finance and Health Committee hearing on Monday, a much weaker version of the...
Illinois is one of only 11 states without term limits, but a constitutional referendum proposal to bring the proposed reform to Illinois met a significant milestone. From the Chicago Sun-Times: “Bruce Rauner’s Committee for Legislative Reform and Term Limits has already reached 150,000 petition signatures — the halfway mark to getting onto the Nov. 2014...
E-cigarettes have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly among smokers of traditional cigarettes looking to kick the habit by moving to a less harmful alternative. So why are Illinois governments wasting taxpayer dollars and time trying to make them harder to buy? The Evanston City Council recently jumped to regulate e-cigarettes under the same...
Illinois has more units of local government than any other state in the nation.
Most public employees in Illinois receive a single pension upon retirement. But some workers don’t just get one pension – they get two or three. This is made possible by either working multiple government jobs at the same time, or retiring from one public job and beginning a second within a different pension system. Both...
“It is a safe bet that the General Assembly will never pass a bill limiting its own members’ ability to seek re-election.” – Christopher Mooney, University of Illinois Springfield professor, term-limits expert Overwhelmingly, Illinoisans support term limits. A recent poll showed 78.7 percent of Illinois voters support term limits. But good luck convincing Illinois legislators...
The Local Transparency Project is an encouraging example of a successful grassroots effort and a great resource for citizen activists looking to organize and mobilize.– Sunlight Foundation For democracy to work citizens need access to the information about what government does. Proactive online transparency is the best way to give citizens the opportunity to be educated...
With 42,336 elected officials as of 1992, Illinois has nearly 12,000 more state and local elected politicians than any other state. Amazingly, with this unprecedented wealth of legislators Illinois hasn’t been able to adequately address some of its most dire problems. Illinois still ranks near the bottom of the nation in numerous key economic indicators,...
Earlier this year Texas Gov. Rick Perry wrote a letter to Illinois’ businesses and individuals trying to sell them on a move to Texas. The sales pitch was simple — it wasn’t tax credits, grants or sweetheart deals. The sales pitch was this — Texas doesn’t have an income tax. Perry understands something that Illinois...
This morning we began to notice that a number of Federal agencies have “shutdown” their websites. We put that shut down in quotes because the websites aren’t really shutdown. In reality, federal agencies have “shutdown” websites while keeping them online to say they are “shutdown”. For example, here’s the page you will see when you...
In July, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn used his line-item veto power to suspend legislators’ salaries, pledging to withhold legislators’ paychecks until they solved the state’s pension problem. But just Thursday, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Neil H. Cohen ruled that Quinn’s move was unconstitutional. Article IV, Section 11, of the Illinois Constitution prohibits any “changes” to...
An inspector general investigates allegations of fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement, misconduct and related violations of the law involving individuals employed by or doing business with a government agency. With Illinois’ long history of corruption, inspector generals are one of the most important public servants who help make sure taxpayer dollars are being spent appropriately. Unfortunately,...
Despite their rationale, critics who oppose term limits are siding with the status quo, which not only keeps intact all-powerful political dynasties but also preserves special-interest lobbyists’ relationships with legislators. Christopher Mooney is one such critic, as he made clear in his recent anti-term limits editorial in Crain’s Chicago Business. By opposing term limits, Mooney isn’t...
Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner is championing a term-limits referendum proposal to amend the Illinois Constitution. If the measure is successful, it would limit terms in the Illinois General Assembly to eight years. The proposal has three major hurdles to pass to become law. It must: Gather more than 300,000 signatures to appear on the ballot Survive...