Costly Statehouse Races Highlight Illinois Power Struggle

The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform was mentioned in this article

via The Daily Progress

“CHICAGO (AP) — State Rep. Michael McAuliffe is no stranger to being at the center of a power struggle that could define the future of Illinois.

Twenty years ago, the only Republican lawmaker in Chicago had just taken over his late father’s district when he found himself targeted by Democrats fighting to regain the majority they’d lost two years before. That November, Democrats won back the majority they’ve held ever since, and McAuliffe got a taste of the attention he faces again this year in a fight raging from St. Louis’ Metro East suburbs to Kankakee to Chicago’s Northwest Side.

‘We knew this was going to be a battleground,’ McAuliffe said.

This year, the political clash in Illinois pits the nation’s longest-serving state House speaker, Michael Madigan, against first-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is using his vast wealth to fund GOP candidates in an effort to diminish the supermajorities Democrats have held in the Illinois Legislature since 2013. The two years House Democrats were in the minority in the mid-1990s marked the only time in the past 32 years that Madigan was not speaker.”

View full article