Column

No single issue may have a more significant bearing on the way Pritzker leaves his mark on Illinois than how he manages public pensions.

The fiery loss of the Sultana, a badly overcrowded steamboat on the Mississippi that exploded on April 27, 1865, cost over 1,700 lives – exceeding the 1,517 lost on the Titanic.

Member schools elect IHSA directors who hire an executive director and staff. The layers insulating IHSA policies from lawmakers and taxpayers are thicker than in most other education matters, but if the right people get angry, that self-governance will earn intense scrutiny.

The CTU hotly opposed a bill to halt all public school closures and prevent disproportionate budget cuts and changes to admissions criteria at Chicago’s selective enrollment schools until a fully elected Chicago school board is seated in 2027.

Efficiency requires balancing competing interests. Lawmaker support of HB 4431 represents shifting priorities.

Cleaning up government requires diluting the authority of those who might peddle their influence.

General Assembly Democrats drafted a bill that significantly reduces financial liability to modify the 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act.

There might be some members who could be open to the idea, but there simply aren’t nearly enough of those folks right now to cobble together a majority of 30 votes in the Senate and 60 in the House and a governor’s signature.

Government is about working for the public. Politics is about perception.

The so-called “Super Outbreak” of tornadoes over April 3-4, 1974, remains one of the worst tornado events in American history. Few remember that it began in Illinois.

Paschal: Once again, I got jazzed up at the solar eclipse that swept across the country this past Monday.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and if the insurance companies don’t see it that way, lawmakers might force their hands.

If it is possible to separate emotions from tragedy, the ongoing legal drama in DeKalb County may prove instructive.

Oh, how one adult’s small gesture of good will can enhance a blossoming poet’s—or storyteller’s—confidence and pride!

Cost is an important aspect of Gov. JB Pritzker's proposed new state agency for early childhood services consolidation.