Here are articles about municipal and state government in Illinois, including the General Assembly, state agencies and state workers, history and issues of the day, 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 the war in 1946, 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 responsible for public health, for education, for energy, and for the environment. The results of a few of the more interesting projects 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 both government and Illinois work. 

 

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 about most often, 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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Interested readers also should know that I devoted a chapter in my history of mid-Illinois—"Jiggery-pokery"—to politics as it affected that part of the state; see Corn Kings & One-Horse Thieves. You can find more articles about politics and government on the Chicagoland and Chicagoland history pages.

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Note: I broke down this long list into several subcategories to make browsing easier.