It’s time once again to dive into another round of quick takes on the people, places and events that were being talked about over the past week:
Keeping hat on
After Democratic U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin announced that he won’t run for re-election in 2026, would-be successors quickly made their intentions known.
Three candidates — Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and U.S. Reps. Robyn Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi — immediately threw their hats in the ring. Another, U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, hemmed and hawed until finally deciding a U.S. Senate race wasn’t in the cards and that she would run for re-election to her House seat.
Meanwhile, another high-profile politician, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, did nothing. That was a surprise, because Giannoulias, previously the state treasurer, ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in 2010, losing to Republican Mark Kirk. He was considered by many to be planning another go at it.
Giannoulias still has vast political ambitions. But he said recently that he’s running for re-election as secretary of state in 2026. Rumors suggest he might be a candidate for mayor of Chicago in 2027 — or perhaps another office if something should pop up, say Gov. J.B. Pritzker not running for his third term in 2026 as a prelude to running for president in 2028.
Whatever Giannoulias does in the future, his decision to stand pat represents a burr under the saddle of other political wannabes trapped in their current posts.
For now, besides Durbin’s seat, the only statewide office that would represent even a marginal promotion for current politicos, like Comptroller Susanna Mendoza or Treasurer Michael Frerichs, is lieutenant governor.
Mendoza has said she’ll run for one office, either comptroller or mayor of Chicago.
That leaves Frerichs, a onetime Champaign County resident now living in Chicago, looking at another four long years as treasurer or — maybe — at a shot at lieutenant governor.
The real political movement in Illinois is up north, where all kinds of people have announced for the two U.S. House and state legislative seats now open because their current occupants are seeking higher office.
Obviously, the game of musical chairs isn’t what it appeared to be a few months ago. But that will change if Pritzker announces a surprise decision not to seek a third term.
Tight budget, not really
Illinois doesn’t have much money, but that didn’t stop Democratic House Speaker Chris Welch from including $40 million in the new 2025-26 budget to build a sports complex at his old high school.
Some, mostly Republicans, complained that it is inappropriate to use state tax dollars to build a local school facility.
Welch, a former school board chairman, dismissed the complaints. But House Republican Leader Tony McCombie dismissed his dismissal, telling reporters that she “would probably bet the farm that there is not another school in the entire state that’s getting $40 million.”
Welch said that the project isn’t just for the school’s use but will be available to the entire community for a variety of sports. He predicted the project will be “transformative for the entire region.”
It’s not unprecedented for powerful legislators to dip into the state till to pay for construction projects at favored school districts while others are forced to rely on local property taxes.
Not long before he left office, former Speaker Michael Madigan set aside state money to build a new school in his Chicago district.
Racism, pure and simple?
That was the explanation an anti-violence advocate gave after a St. Clair County judge ordered two suspects in a gun-related case released from custody after making a court appearance.
Two youths — ages 18 and 20 — were taken into custody by East St. Louis police after a reported shooting at T.A.K.E. (Teens Against Killing Everywhere) in East St. Louis. There is a question about whether any shots were actually fired, but video showed two people pointing guns out of a car window and open door outside the center, according to news reports.
Police recovered a machine gun — actually a handgun modified to shoot automatically — and a second firearm.
The judge ordered one suspect released immediately and the second released after 15 days. The pair then will be placed on electronic monitoring.
That decision outraged Vickie Kimmel, executive director of T.A.K.E., who said public officials are apparently fine with “exterminating an entire race of people.”
“If this would’ve happened at … any White community, they would be locked up and they would have thrown away the key. They do not care because it was Black kids shooting at Black kids,” Kimmel said.
Her anger is understandable but misdirected.
Prosecutors argued unsuccessfully the two should be held, but the defense said they were entitled to release under provisions of the state’s controversial new SAFE-T Act, a criminal-justice-reform law that abolished the bail system.
The judge agreed with the defense that the law required her to release the defendants.
The accusation that what occurred under the new law is driven by racism is ironic, because it was the state’s legislative Black caucus that pushed hardest for passage of the SAFE-T Act.
Black legislators argued that too many people, mostly minorities, were being held unnecessarily in jail and should be released pre-trial. Now what the law’s proponents characterize as social justice is being portrayed as anti-Black racism when minority group members are the victims of alleged crimes committed by other minorities.
How one stands on this incendiary issue depends on where one sits: victimizer or victim.
What’s in an image?
Chief Illiniwek may have been sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, but legislation barring Native American imagery at K-12 public schools statewide failed to pass during the recent legislative session.
Despite that, suburban Democratic state Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton said she’ll continue to seek passage of legislation that would have barred Native American imagery at K-12 schools statewide.
Many public schools in Illinois embrace Native American imagery — Blackhawks, Indians, Braves, Chiefs — and want to maintain the status quo. Relying on their local legislators, they pushed back against the proposed ban.
Pseudo-time again
World War II books are, in terms of numbers, a dime a dozen — great ones published year after year about the brutal struggle that shaped today’s world.
To a certain extent, they bear great similarity.
But today’s choice from Jim’s Pseudo-Intellectual Book Club, “The Daughters of Yalta” by Catherine Grace Katz, takes a different tack. It’s about the 1945 conference in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin met to discuss the final phases of the war and negotiate a permanent post-war peace.
But the book isn’t so much about these historic figures as it is about three of their daughters, who joined the conference to work as aides and confidants for their fathers.
Kathleen Harriman, daughter of famed U.S. diplomat Averell Harriman, Sarah Churchill, devoted daughter of British Prime Minister Churchill, and Anna Roosevelt, protector and adviser to her ailing father, President Roosevelt.
While not used to working in such ratified air, they were women of extraordinary ability and sound judgment who were dropped into a game of high-stakes and incredibly dangerous diplomacy. They each performed flawlessly for their fathers.
Women then did not play big roles in world affairs. But they each were undaunted by the challenges they faced guiding their fathers through the trials and tribulations that went with trying to reach a working accord with Russian dictator Joseph Stalin.
Americans now know that, aside from defeating German dictator Adolf Hitler, East and West were engaged in a partnership of convenience that was doomed to implode.
That’s why the tough negotiations that produced an agreement on post-war affairs quickly devolved into a post-war Cold War.
Nonetheless, the stories of these three brave, energetic and confident women is one readers of history, whatever their gender, will find informative and inspiring.
