The Chicago City Council passed a “snap” curfew ordinance on June 18 that allows the superintendent to impose short-notice ...

Perhaps you’ve heard the buzz about something called ranked choice voting. Instead of marking their ballots for just one candidate, voters are asked to rank two or three or more, with the winner ...

Salaries and bonuses for Chicago police officers represented by the Fraternal Order of Police in 2024 could exceed the budgeted position costs approved by City Council by $76.8 million or more, ...

Chair Kifowit, Vice Chair Rohr, Rep. Reick, members of the committee: Thank you for the invitation to speak today about one of the most important issues facing our state: How to reinvest in our ...

A BGA Policy comparison of major U.S. cities found Chicago’s Office of Inspector General among the strongest watchdog agencies in the nation — but it lacks independent authority to release its ...

The recent Supreme Court FOIA ruling significantly broadens exemptions to FOIA, raising concerns about transparency. Learn more from the Better Government Association.

The creation of a new City of Chicago Office of Public Safety Administration (PSA) in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inaugural budget for fiscal year 2020, which the mayor’s office announced as a cost-saving ...

Advocates for fair redistricting have been trying for a decade ⇢ to take the job of drawing our state’s legislative maps away from politicians and assign it to an independent panel. […] ...

Chicago City Council is spending only two-fifths of its time on legislative work, with the other two-thirds devoted to honorary resolutions.

With 852 separate districts, Illinois has the third most school districts in the nation, bested only by Texas and California, whose populations are more than double ours.

For first-time watchers, Chicago’s City Council can seem incomprehensible. Most of the business is done in a routine, rapid-fire succession of votes and gavel raps, punctuated by repetitions of the ...