The immediate partisan reaction to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s reversal on whether legislators should be allowed to get vaccinated during Phase 1B was fairly predictable.
“Gov. Pritzker is prioritizing young healthy felons and Springfield politicians over high-risk adults,” the Illinois Republican Party seethed.
However, no such press release was issued the week before when U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, a 52-year-old Republican, cheerfully announced that he’d been vaccinated. And not a harsh word was uttered by the state GOP when federal prisoners received vaccinations during the Trump administration.
Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie’s office first denounced Senate President Don Harmon’s decision to cancel floor sessions and hold committee hearings online this month, saying it was time to get back to work. The very next day, McConchie said that allowing legislators to be vaccinated was “ridiculous,” without any apparent sense of irony.
By Kelsey Landis | Belleville News-Democrat
• Feb 8, 2021
House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) speaks with reporters in July 2017. Three former ComEd lobbyists, including a close Madigan confidante, and the former CEO of ComEd s parent company were indicted Wednesday, charged with orchestrating a bribery scheme that allegedly sought to influence Madigan. Brian Mackey / NPR Illinois
Editor’s note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
To southern Illinois Democratic lawmakers, Speaker Michael Madigan was the omnipresent benefactor the force behind nearly every successful piece of legislation or election.
To downstate Republicans, he embodied the worst of Chicago politics. He was the ruthless architect of the pension crisis, higher taxes and redistricting that pushed conservatives to the margins. He left the speakership as “Public Official A,” the unnamed figure in the f
Ryan Burge (PhD, Southern Illinois University) teaches in a variety of areas, including American institutions, political behavior, and research methods. His research focuses largely on the intersection between religiosity and political behavior (especially in the American context.) Previously, Ryan has completed an appointment as a post doctoral research fellow at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute in Carbondale, Illinois. While there, he was an advisor on issues of survey methodology and polling, as well as providing data collection and analysis.
Ryan s work has been published in a number of well regarded peer reviewed journals including Politics & Religion, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, the Review of Religious Research, the Journal of Religious Leadership, Representation, Politics, Groups, and Identities, the Journal of Communication and Religion, and the Social Science Computer Review.
The McDonough County Voice
Days remain to enjoy “Forgottonia: The Musical,” an original production presented online about a region seceding from the United States.
Loosely based on a real, if satirical, brainstorm by the late Neal Gamm in western Illinois in the early 1970s, the show is streaming at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday on www.youtube.com/flynorththeatricals.
Gamm, a Viet Nam veteran and theater student, boosted western Illinoisans’ feeling that the area was ignored, especially in transportation. Maps of the 16 counties along the Mississippi River then showed it was a “fly-over” (even “can barely get there”) territory. As Forgottonia’s self-proclaimed governor, Gamm, who died in 2013, got a lot of attention for a little while, from Springfield lawmakers to the New York Times. But then his public-relations act played out.
Dick Durbin s position as an experienced leader in the party that is about to take control of what issues will be considered by the U.S. Senate can t help but benefit