Politics and government
Here are articles about municipal and state government in Illinois, including the General Assembly, state agencies and state workers, history and (then) current issues, and enduring controversies as published mainly in Illinois Issues and Illinois Times. Because the distinction between politics and government is a fine one at times, I list pieces on both topics here.
I grew up in the capital city because my father, from a family of Democrats, got a patronage job as a page at the Illinois State Library when he got back from war, when Democrat Eddie Barrett ran the Secretary of State's office.
A journalist who grows up in a government town is doomed to take up government as a topic at least occasionally. Before I wrote about "the state," I wrote for the state as a contract writer and editor. I took on dozens of projects on a contract basis for the agencies devoted to public health, to education, to energy and the environment. A few of the more interesting ones are included in this archives and are listed according to their subject matter. The work paid the bills, but more importantly it gave me an education in how government works.
I was fortunate. While I stumbling toward a career as a journalist, there debuted in the capital a new magazine that took government seriously in ways that the daily newspaper could not (for space) or would not (out of consideration for the tastes of the reading public). That magazine was Illinois Issues. Meanwhile the weekly Illinois Times offered me a forum for pieces of a different character on the same topics.
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Looking back, I am reminded that my very first efforts in serious journalism addressed public issues. It's what I've written the most about, and while I won't say that politics and government is the subject area I know best, I concede that it is probably the area I know most.
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Why the State of Illinois is a lousy surrogate parent
"Prejudices" Illinois Times January 9, 1981
The Prairie State Is Not Hostile to the Arts, Just Indifferent
The state of state-funded arts in Illinois
Illinois Issues December 1998
On converting Illinois corn to motor fuel
Illinois Issues January 1981
Mined Land Reclamation: Ends and Means
Healing damaged farmland in Illinois, Part 1
Illinois Issues December 1984
The Battles Over the Ground and Behind the Doors
Healing damaged farmland in Illinois, Part 2
Illinois Issues January 1985
Transportation and the Government's Uneven Hand
State intervention in the transportation marketplace
Illinois Issues October 1981
The Enlightened Citizen Is Made, Not Born
Deliberative polls and democracy
Illinois Issues November 1998
The (Energetic) Ambition of Frank Beal
The thinking bureaucrat's sort of bureaucrat
Illinois Issues April 1980
A new approach to environmental protection
"Prejudices" Illinois Times August 27, 1992
Cities don’t make floods but they make them worse.
"Prejudices" Illinois Times July 21, 1993
Remembering Harold
The career of Chicago's first black mayor
"Prejudices" Illinois Times December 3, 1992
Devising a decent family policy for Illinois
"Prejudices" Illinois Times March 10, 1994
Is Illinois an accessory to child murder?
“Prejudices” Illinois Times November 9, 1993
How one woman’s mistake may have doomed ERA
The Weekly (Champaign-Urbana) June 19, 1981
Dealing with the Dead
Balancing respect and learning at Dickson Mounds
"Prejudices" Illinois Times [?],1999
Another Illinois governor, another reorganization plan
"Prejudices" Illinois Times April 9, 1992
Chicago's Women Take Charge of Change
Another female new dawn breaks in Illinois
Chicago Enterprise May 1992
Who's Afraid of Paula Wolff?
The U of I Chicago plays find the leader
Reader May 17, 1991
Religion sneaks into Illinois schools by the back door
Illinois Issues February 2008
Searching for Leadership
Garry Wills' Certain Trumpets
lllinois Issues January 1995
Public servants shouldn’t get servants’ wages
"Prejudices" Illinois Times February 5, 1991
The Advent of Unstate Illinois
Demographics threaten to undo Illinois
Chicago Enterprise December 1990
How Mass Transit Can Serve the Masses
Chicago thinks new thoughts about the CTA
Chicago Enterprise January 1992
Interest groups as Illinois’s fourth branch of government
Illinois Issues November 1997
Illinois's addiction to gambling
Illinois Issues May 1997
The Enlightened Citizen Is Made, Not Born
Deliberative polling as a cure for democracy's ills
Illinois Issues November 1998
Is the U.S. a nation-state or a nation of states?
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times August 20, 2015
The state can’t be both pro-family and anti-father
“Prejudices” Illinois Times June 7, 1993
When the statehouse sleeps, Springfield snores
"Prejudices" Illinois Times April 9, 1981
Bad Government Is a Cultural Defect
The sociology of the Illinois Way
"Forum" Illinois Times April 1, 1976
When "justice" means a fairer distribution of spoils
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 29, 1987
Converting the capitol into an office building
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 7, 1979
Illinois tries to make itself safe from kids and vice versa
“Prejudices” Illinois Times Undated
A Park that Needs Protection from People
Springfield’s Carpenter Park under threat
Illinois Times September 15, 1978
Planning for a courts complex that won’t be built
“Prejudices” Illinois Times October 8, 1981
Religion sneaks into Illinois schools by the back door
Illinois Issues February 2008
Gov. Edgar tries to make taxes fairer, confuses people
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 24, 1991
The State of Illinois flunks its science test
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 20, 1992
Something About a Man in Uniform
Rep. Mark Kirk suffers a self-inflicted battle wound
"Dyspepsiana" Illinois Times June 17, 2010
Who should do what to deserve welfare?
"Prejudices" Illinois Times September 9, 1993
Illinois institutions try to keep the heat in
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 12, 1984
Democracy gives Illinois too much of a bad thing
“Prejudices” Illinois Times November 24, 1978
Making the progressive dream of efficient public management come true
“Prejudices” Illinois Times January 30, 1992
Big Jim Thompson lives large at our expense
“Prejudices” Illinois Times November 19, 1981
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love LaRouche
Lunatics hijack a major party primary. Sound familiar?
“Prejudices” Illinois Times April 3, 1986
“A Little More Dirt in Your Lungs”
An Illinois governor preaches pollution
Illinois Times August 3, 1979
The state's sums fail to add up—again
“Prejudices” Illinois Times July 16, 1992
Beyond Parochialism in Economic Planning
It's every town for itself in this fight
“Politics & Policy” Chicago Enterprise June 1991
Private government can deliver good service—for a price
Chicago Enterprise September/October 1993
The Distinguished Senator
Are good Illinoisans wasted in the Senate?
Illinois Issues September 1995
A new guv's first job? Reinvent the wheel
Illinois Issues January-February 1999
“Takes one to know one” says the Illinois bureaucrat
“Prejudices” Illinois Times September 24, 1992
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