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How far will changes at the beleaguered Illinois tollway go and how will that affect day-to-day operations? Illinois House lawmakers voted 100-6 Tuesday to end the terms of nine tollway directors appointed by departing Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner after concerns about "unethical behavior." The state Senate is expected to vote Wednesday, and the tollway directors could be sent packing shortly after Democratic Gov.-elect Pritzker takes office Monday. The agency can continue to run normally without a board in the short term, one expert said. "The tollway will be fine -- at this time of year they're working on long-term planning...

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Gov. Bruce Rauner caused a firestorm within the Republican Party by admitting Thursday in an exclusive ABC7 interview that he had recruited four people to take his place on the ballot in November. "And I said, 'I'll step aside, I'll give you huge financial resources, you run for governor, I'll support you. You have as good or better chance to get than me,'" Rauner recalled to ABC7. "All four of them said no." Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison, a leading state Republican, is now calling for an emergency meeting of the State Central Committee to address the...

The Fox News Decision Desk has determined that in Illinois, Democratic billionaire J.B. Pritzker will unseat Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. He’ll become the richest governor in U.S. history.

You know what you think of Bruce Rauner and J.B. Pritzker. One promised to shatter the status quo and admits he has come up short. The other removes mansion toilets to save on taxes and coos on FBI recordings with a corrupt Rod Blagojevich. Now set all of that aside. Focus instead on the one reality that should guide your vote for governor of Illinois. Combative campaigns, like summer romances, tend to be fun and have no lasting consequence. But after this election, one of these men — Republican Rauner or Democrat Pritzker — likely will govern with an overwhelmingly...

President Donald Trump is making his first visit to Illinois since becoming president, making a stop in Granite City on Thursday where he is expected to tout the reopening of a U.S. Steel Corp. mill. The White House announced Sunday night Trump will swing through Granite City, in southern Illinois near St. Louis and Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday. The Trump administration has been highlighting U.S. Steel’s Granite City mill as a trade war success story even as the tariffs have sparked concerns in other sectors, with alarms sounded by Illinois farmers whose main crop is soybeans. The visit will have...

The Illinois tollway contends its no-bid process that uses a selection committee to makes recommendations to the board on expensive engineering contracts is independent and transparent. But when asked to provide meeting minutes, the agency blacked out the names of committee members in a majority of cases, making it impossible to see who is voting -- a response criticized by attorney and public access expert Don Craven as improper under Illinois open records law. When the names did surface they included tollway board Director Corey Brooks, who like all directors is appointed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, countering claims the...

Cook County GOP Chairman Sean Morrison is attempting a first time ever-seen tactic to overrule or undermine all of the Republican Township Committees that chose to endorse counter to his primary picks with a sample ballot that hit mailboxes Friday. In the mailing, Morrison writes in a small box a comment that leads unknowing Republicans to believe that any other ballots - possibly including local township organization ballots - are illegal. Wheeling Township GOP Committeeman Ruth O'Connell told Illinois Review, "This mailing undermines the work we've been doing in Wheeling Township and my authority as a committeeman. We endorsed Jeanne...

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) cares about diversity. In fact, he cares about it so much that he drank your mom’s favorite chocolate milk concoction at a corporate event honoring Black History Month. The supposed-metaphor happened after Hyatt Hotels’ vice president and global chief diversity officer Tyronne Stoudemire presented a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup and said that it represents “diversity” through “women, people of color, people with disabilities, the aging population, and generation X, Y, and Z.” Standing on stage right next to him, Gov. Rauner held a glass of milk as Stoudemire poured chocolate syrup right into it....

(CHICAGO) Mayor Emanuel says he’s going to sue the Trump Justice Dept on Monday over its new Sanctuary City rules. New rules just out prevent Sanctuary Cities like Chicago to get certain law enforcement grants and so the mayor says Chicago will file suit to kill the rules and get the millions in question. In an interview with WLS-AM for Sunday’s edition of “Bill Cameron and Connected to Chicago”, the mayor said “We are not going to be put in a position of choosing who we are as a welcoming city and strengthening our police dept. These are exactly the...

Let’s begin with a quick refresher: In July, 2017, the Democrat-dominated legislature of the State of Illinois, a state already suffering the loss of 95,000 residents per year, voted to override its governor and increase both the business and personal income tax by a third. To be specific, that’s a 32% increase in the individual income tax, and a 33% increase in the corporate income tax…thereby adding to a regulatory and tax structure that’s already so crippling, it’s driving out people and businesses at a rate faster than any other state, even states as famous for such flight as California...

The lineup for Illinois’ 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary is firming up fast. So far, the six-candidate field is mostly white, and all male. To win, one of them must energize and capture the party’s crucial base. African-American voters should be asking: What have you done for me? What will you do for me? Public affairs consultant Alexandra Sims says they should be making deals. In the governor’s race, “what’s going to happen across the state and across Cook County is deals. And you want the black community to be part of those deals.”

Rebuilding and widening the mammoth Central Tri-State Tollway (I-294) is complicated enough given it's the system's most-used road, with up to 185,000 cars and trucks clogging it daily.Throw in a tangle of towns where officials either hate or love the project, plus churn on the tollway board, and the planned redo gets even gnarlier. The Illinois tollway intends to fix the road between 95th Street in the South Suburbs and Balmoral Avenue in Rosemont. There's no final design or budget yet, but a decision is expected soon.Improvements likely could include extra lanes and new interchanges -- exciting news for anyone...

Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner has clashed with Illinois Democrats on big issues like the state budget and the influence of unions, but he recently he bucked the party line on legislation the GOP has fervently opposed: expanding birth control coverage and access to abortions. Not a single Republican voted in favor of either bill. So last week, Rauner surprised some Republican legislators and angered conservative groups when he signed both Democrat-sponsored measures. One of them extends insurance coverage for nearly all contraceptives and the other requires physicians who refuse to perform abortions or other health care services for moral and...

President Obama’s nostalgic speech in Springfield has local politicos wondering what he has planned after leaving the White House. “I miss you guys,” Obama said during an address in the Illinois statehouse on the anniversary of his Presidential campaign announcement. He returned to his frequent theme of bringing civility and compromise to politics. Next year I’ll still hold the most important title of all, and that’s the title of citizen. And as an American citizen, I understand that our progress is not inevitable — our progress has never been inevitable. It must be fought for, and won by all of...

On Monday, the Illinois legislature passed a bill lowering the amount the city of Chicago has to pay into police and firefighter pensions in 2016. To do this, the legislature overrode a veto from Gov. Bruce Rauner, confirming what we already knew: It's really, really, really, really hard to agree with Rauner about anything at this point. For no one would it be harder than Mayor Rahm Emanuel, once Rauner's buddy in vacationing and wine-sipping. Rahm became basically apoplectic when Rauner vetoed the pension bill on Friday, saying in a variety of press statements that Rauner's veto would trigger a...

As Donald Trump held closed-door meetings Thursday with top Republican leaders, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois cautioned that the presumptive GOP presidential nominee's "radical" and "extreme" positions will pose a challenge for Republican candidates in Illinois, including U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk. Kirk, who is up for re-election, has said he will support his party's presidential nominee — even if it is Trump — but will not attend the GOP's national convention in Cleveland in July. Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is not on the ballot in November, said he will not attend the party's presidential nominating convention — nor...

Illinois’ college and universities received a much-needed lifeline Friday when lawmakers approved a $600 million short-term funding fix for the institutions, which have been struggling without state funding during the months-long budget stalemate, even laying off employees. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner is expected to sign the bill, which is a one-time deal and includes nearly $170 million in tuition grants for low-income students. But state Comptroller Leslie Munger said she wouldn’t wait for the Republican’s signature, instead immediately begin processing payments for schools. The rare bipartisan deal comes at an especially crucial time for Chicago State University, which has been...

CHICAGO — Thousands of Chicago teachers plan to walk off the job for one day on Friday, shutting down schools in the nation's third-largest district in what could be an early glimpse of a more prolonged strike still to come. Some 27,000 Chicago Teachers Union members have been working without a contract since June. They've overwhelmingly authorized an open-ended strike like the one that closed schools for more than a week in 2012, though that would still be weeks away. The union and its allies say Friday's action is an attempt to draw attention to their fight for a new...

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has announced with members of the state general assembly a plan allowing the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) to add at least one additional lane in each direction to a 25-mile stretch of Interstate 55 near Chicago using a public-private partnership (P3) agreement. IDOT is allowed to use P3 agreements only if the general assembly adopts a resolution supporting a proposed project, a state law in place since 2011. This would be the first P3 managed lane project in the state. “By using existing resources to leverage private investment, we can build the type of infrastructure...

Backed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, top Illinois Republicans called Wednesday for a state takeover of the financially troubled Chicago Public Schools, which faces a nearly $1 billion budget deficit that could lead to thousands of teacher layoffs and a possible strike in a matter of months. Senate GOP Leader Christine Radogno called the plan a "lifeline" for CPS, though Democrats quickly shot down the idea. Radogno and House Republican Leader Jim Durkin said the legislation would give the Illinois State Board of Education control over the nation's third-largest school district. They also noted that GOP lawmakers may reveal a bankruptcy...