Illinois News

[Gracile]

For those interested, Chicago just witnessed the narrowest budget vote in the City Council since the 80s — Lightfoot's budget only passed 29-21, with six aldermen dissenting from the left and 15 from the right. One DSA-affiliated council member and another generally associated with the city's left voted for the budget; if they and a couple other conservatives voted against, the budget fails.

Lightfoot will be a one term mayor.

I hope Vasquez and Hadden get primaried for this. These are two wards that deserve aldermen who are firmly on the left (the 49th, in particular, is definitely fertile ground for a DSA-aligned candidate).

[Gracile]

State Rep. Kathleen Willis (D) has announced that she will not vote for Madigan as Speaker-

https://capitolfax.com/2020/12/01/caucus-chair-kathleen-willis-becomes-19th-house-democrat-to-announce-she-wont-vote-to-reelect-madigan/

Willis a member of Democratic House leadership, so this move is fairly significant.

[Gracile]

^Suburban Democratic organizations have been trying to make a big push to get their voters to elect candidates for Township offices (trustee, clerk, etc.). In places like DuPage, they are now running full slates when in previous years (as late as 2017) many of those offices were uncontested - that combined with the GOP's former institutional advantage in the Collars and low turnout helped Republicans maintain these offices.

It will interesting to see the results. A sweep for Democratic-aligned candidates is not unlikely given the shift in these high-propensity voters preferences' toward Democrats at higher levels of government, though the advantage some of the Republican-aligned incumbents have is not insignificant.