United States Senate

Spring 2011 Legislative Session Summary

06/01/2011
by Collin Hitt The General Assembly has adjourned for the summer. A budget was passed that contained real cuts, but it was still too big. Significant school reform sits on the governor’s desk. Illinois government will be more transparent. And yet so much more remains to be done. Here are the highlights of the spring...

What’s Going on Next Door?

05/04/2011
by Mark Cavers Last week, Indiana’s Governor, Mitch Daniels, released a recap of the previous legislative session and touted a number of successes for the residents of Indiana. Here in Illinois, our legislators are now faced with many of the same opportunities that Indiana took advantage of over the past few months. Lets take a quick look...

Teacher Tenure or High Performance?

04/14/2011
by Collin Hitt We’ve reached an important moment for education reform. Teacher tenure – the impregnable job protection held by teachers good and bad – could soon be replaced by a system that protects only high performance. The threat of strikes could be diminished. And school districts could no longer be forced to bargain away...

Nonessential Personnel

04/07/2011
by Mark Cavers In the case of a government “shutdown” the government doesn’t actually shut down. Rather, essential services remain up and running: Military personnel in Iraq don’t suddenly fly home, TSA agents don’t stay in bed, and the IRS doesn’t stop collecting taxes (although, in a particularly cruel bit of irony, they stop sending...

Quinn Spokesperson Wrong About Budget Cuts

03/11/2011
Following the Senate Republicans’ press conference Thursday, Illinois Statehouse News released an interview with the governor’s budget spokesperson, Kelly Kraft.  In her interview, Kelly paints a doomsday picture of what Illinois would be like after cutting $6 billion from the budget. Kelly states the governor has already made dramatic budget cuts, but we know that’s not true....

SB37: The Local Government Transparency Act

By Brian Costin, Collin Hitt
02/28/2011
The Problem Taxpayers deserve to know information about the governments they fund. Illinois has thousands of units of local government, but key information about most of them is not readily available to average citizens. Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for governments of all sizes to make information publicly available at no incremental cost. While...

The Bad Habit We Just Can’t Kick

02/28/2011
Since 2009 the Illinois General Assembly has tried over and over again to pass a tobacco tax which will unfairly target small business owners and the poor.

SB37: The Local Government Transparency Act

01/31/2011
Taxpayers deserve to know information about the governments they fund. Illinois has thousands of units of local government, but key information about most of them is not readily available to average citizens.

State Sovereignty. National Union.

01/31/2011
If Illinois fails financially, it will not do so in unison with the rest of the country. Will voters from Texas, Florida and the rest of the states send their tax dollars to help? Perhaps the success of "The Mount Vernon Statement" suggests not.
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FAQ: How the federal scholarship program would help Illinois students

Illinois students could soon benefit from scholarship money to help them find a tutor, attend ACT or SAT prep sessions, pay tuition, get special education services or assist with other academic needs. That will happen in Illinois only if Gov. J.B. Pritzker lets the state’s schoolchildren benefit from the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, established...

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