Capital Facts

ComEd has long been a source of political patronage. The company’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement with federal prosecutors even references how former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s “old-fashioned patronage system” obtained ComEd meter reader jobs for its precinct workers.
Madigan’s wasn’t the only patronage network to do this. It was a widespread practice and, as old-timers tell it, became even more important when Mayor Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, cut some prominent White politicians out of the city’s patronage spoils.

Last month, I wrote a tongue in cheek headline for my blog: “Poll conducted for IEA finds about 10 percent of Illinoisans are wackos.”
The Normington-Petts and Next Generation Strategies poll of 1,000 Illinoisans conducted in January found that 11 percent strongly favor, “the fighting, yelling, or other contention at school board meetings that has been happening around the country.”

After taking a pandemic-induced hiatus from proposing large, permanent base spending increases and instead using most revenue increases for one-time expenditures, Gov. JB Pritzker’s recently proposed Fiscal Year 2024 state budget appears to increase base operational spending by at least $2.75 billion, or 7.9 percent.
Annual pension payments will also rise by a relatively modest $201 million, which ups the total base spending increase to $2.95 billion.

State records show that Dan Proft’s People Who Play by the Rules PAC spent almost $36 million during the second half of 2022, mostly on advertising boosting Sen. Darren Bailey’s gubernatorial bid and opposing Gov. JB Pritzker.
Of that, $2.4 million was spent on consulting. Former ABC7 political reporter Charles Thomas was paid $100,000 in two $50,000 installments. Thomas appeared in some of Proft’s ads praising Bailey.