Free Republic

After more than 24 years in the Illinois legislature, House Republican Minority Leader Jim Durkin is resigning his seat. In November, the day after the election, Durkin announced that he was resigning as House Minority Leader. During the midterm election, Durkin suffered embarrassing losses, giving House Democrats once again, supermajority control in the Illinois House. In media interviews after announcing his resignation as House GOP leader, State Rep. Jim Durkin attempted to place all of the blame on the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump. “As long as we continue to say that we are the party of...

The National Education Association – an organization whose state association in Illinois endorsed Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker for governor and Democrat Kwame Raoul for attorney general; promoted mandates during the pandemic, and helped write the controversial sex education standards, has donated more than $1.5 million to Illinois House and Senate Republicans since the start of the pandemic through their political action committee, Illinois PAC for Education (IPACE). At the start of the 2021 school year, Gov. Pritzker announced a mask mandate for students and teachers – and the Illinois Education Association (IEA), the largest education organization in the state, applauded...

First a lot of bad news, but read on for a positive game-changer. If there’s one thing Republicans across Illinois should all be able to agree on at this point, it’s this: the Illinois Republican Party is dead. And I don’t mean dead like people said it was after the innumerable other disappointing elections for the GOP in Illinois over the past couple of decades. Let’s not kid ourselves, 2022 is far from the only year the Illinois Republican Party embarrassingly underperformed the GOP in states where the state party takes a serious approach. I mean dead, dead like the...

This is an unusual election year, and not for the usual reasons. Midterms have a certain dynamic, as it’s a different environment to have a US Senate candidate at the top of the ticket, as opposed to a presidential candidate as in leap years. And the “2” years – 2002, 2012, 2022 – are always a challenge because it’s the first year with a new map, so all the candidates and their respective constituencies are just beginning to learn the new districts, both for Congress and the state legislatures. But it’s an especially odd season for Illinois, because we are...

Reflections on the Kirk campaign and the helper scandal… In the classic Kaufman & Hecht comedy “The Front Page” (and its wild remake, “His Girl Friday”), there is a moment when everything looks darkest for our heroes, as the governor and mayor are about to arrest the publisher and editor for harboring an escaped criminal… when all of a sudden a piece of evidence falls into their hands (proof of attempted bribery of one Mr. Pettibone by the governor and mayor), which gives them a second chance, an opportunity to escape punishment for their error and come back on top,...