A special Illinois House committee’s hearings next week on the Springfield bribery scandal should begin with testimony from executives of Commonwealth Edison, the company at the center of the federal corruption probe, WBEZ has learned.

In a letter Thursday to the Democratic lawmaker heading the legislative inquiry, House Republican Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs said he or his lawyer, the former federal prosecutor Ron Safer, “will be questioning” the ComEd executives at the special panel’s meeting on Tuesday.

Interest groups and candidates for an Illinois House seat are far apart on whether to change the Illinois Constitution’s flat income tax to a graduated income tax structure.

Voters get to decide whether to adopt an amendment to the Illinois Constitution at the ballot box. The election is Nov. 3, early voting began Thursday.

Hoping to make a political and governmental point after a year of continuing scandal, Illinois Senate Republicans today rolled out a package of new ethics laws they say are needed to clean up state government.

The measure faces an uncertain future, especially in Speaker Mike Madigan’s House. But it drew a surprisingly warm initial response from Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, who said his colleagues on the other side of the aisle came up with “some interesting ideas.”

Around Chicago, it’s safe to say that the City Council hasn’t always been viewed as a model of legislative independence.

By law, of course, the council is the city’s legislative branch, responsible for passing ordinances and providing oversight of city operations. But the council has long been characterized as a rubber stamp for powerful mayors. Even aldermen have noted — and in some cases boasted — that they saw their primary responsibilities as delivering services in their wards, leaving much of the legislative process in the hands of the executive branch.

Illinoisans, even former Illinoisans, with a Facebook account have likely seen a notification that they’re entitled to a cash settlement from the social media giant. Here’s why.

Facebook’s agreed settlement, which will cost the company $650 million, was recently finalized. This allows people who qualify as a member of the class action case against the California company to apply for their share of the pot of money. Each person could get up to $400.

Advocates of long-stalled efforts to put an elected board of Chicago residents in charge of the Chicago Police Department hoped in June that it would get new life amid a nationwide push to hold police officers accountable for misconduct after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

But despite weeks of sustained protests against police brutality, Chicago’s elected officials haven’t even held a hearing on the proposal, and Mayor Lori Lightfoot has yet to make the establishment of an elected board a priority — keeping the effort mired in legislative limbo.

Amid a swirl of statewide corruption controversy and protest resignations from members of its Ethics Board, Cook County’s ethics code is on its way to a revamp.

Two of the Cook County Board’s most senior Democrats, Larry Suffredin and John Daley, introduced a series of changes to the code at today’s board meeting with Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s support, after roughly nine months without movement on a proposal from Ethics Board members.