A Chicago Blog

The ballyhoo over the Supreme Court’s recent decision that declared Washington DC’s handgun ban unconstitutional, and therefore implied the same for Chicago, didn’t last through the holiday. Unfortunately, neither did five poor souls who fell victim to gun violence in downtown Chicago during the long weekend.
“Why should our streets be open to someone carrying a [...]

Carol Marin today chimes in about the Constitutional Convention. She notes, as any good journalist would, the chances of getting a Constitutional Convention in Illinois are slim. But she adds a glimmer of hope:
Meanwhile, citizens, fed up with being bystanders in this car wreck of a government, are stuck with skyrocketing gas prices, a faltering [...]

Capitol Fax is hosting a debate on the merits of states setting their own minimum wages, rather than waiting on a federal minimum wage hike.

Stanley Fish comments on the debate I raised here last week.

Don’t forget, if you want to buy anything, leave Cook County and avoid being raped at the register. Lucky for Todd, the price of gas has gone up. It’s no longer worth driving to the suburbs for a carton of cigarettes and groceries. You can only really break even if your buying a car or [...]

Another notch in Blagojevich’s belt.

It’s always fascinating to watch momentum shift in public policy. A year ago, it looked like the eco-fundamentalists would continue to amass supporters and inevitably storm the gates of power and “revolutionize” American energy policy.
But it i amazing what $4 per gallon does to American politics. Remember the carbon tax? A popular “solution” to global [...]

Chairman Durbin’s plot to take over the nation’s economy picked up steam yesterday, as the windfall profits tax was debated on the floor of the Senate. Durbin seized yet another opportunity to threaten the petroleum industry: “The oil companies need to know that there is a limit on how much profit they can take in [...]

Looking for Chicago City Employee Salaries? The Better Government Association has them. I sure wish they’d let me download the whole database in CSV. These user-friendly online databases are hard to deal with.
[Hat tip: CapitolFax]

Seriously. This is only partly invective. Today the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) is busing 30,000 kids to Soldier Field to rally for more school funding. But Chicago already spends more than $11,000 per student on average. The real problem is that Chicago school budgeting ensures that most of the resources are sucked up by schools [...]