Making Illinois a Purple State: Better Representation in the General Assembly

To start, I wanted to discuss the possibility of making Illinois more of a "purple state" than the solid blue state it's considered today. In my opinion, there shouldn't be permanent red states or blue states. All states should be competitive—Illinois, California, New York, Texas, Florida, and everywhere else. Healthy competition keeps politicians accountable and forces them to deliver real results for working families across the state.

My goal with this exercise is to make Illinois more competitive politically, especially in the Illinois General Assembly. Democrats have held majorities in both chambers since around 2003, often with supermajorities that limit genuine debate. As of 2026, Democrats control the Senate 40-19 and the House 78-40. That's not healthy balance—it's one-party dominance.

Chamber IL House of Representatives - Source

Illinois Isn’t Finished Yet

I wanted to get back into campaign mode. We’re about three months from the Illinois gubernatorial election, and we’ve heard nary a peep from Republican nominee Darren Bailey. Meanwhile Governor J.B. Pritzker has been making noise about President Donald Trump and signaling his own 2028 ambitions.

Recently Al Salvi sat down with Jeff Berkowitz on Public Affairs for a half-hour worth watching if you care about Illinois at all. The title is blunt: Should ex-State Rep Al Salvi run Bailey’s IL Gov Campaign. The conversation is less about staffing charts and more about whether Bailey can actually beat Pritzker in November.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

Creating an Illinois Republic: A Thought Exercise for the Land of Lincoln

I’ve wanted to write about this subject for a while and keep getting sidetracked. My goal has always been a genuine thought exercise — exploring ideas about Illinois governance without claiming to have all the answers. I’ve enlisted help refining these thoughts so I can better articulate why certain changes feel worth considering.

I’ve been using the word Republic a lot more deliberately. The U.S. Constitution guarantees every state a republican form of government. That guarantee is not just formal language; it is a commitment to representative self-rule, accountability, and government that exists for the public good. One aim of this exercise is to find ways of making Illinois a more distinctive state — a place people would actively choose to live, work, and build their futures.

We should not be proud of corruption or of functioning as a one-party state. Illinois ought to stand alongside states like California, New York, Florida, and Texas in terms of confidence and civic pride. California’s flag still proclaims “California Republic.” Texas was once an independent republic and carries that history with unmistakable pride. Both states have turned identity into energy. I want to explore what an Illinois Republic could mean — not as a name change on paper, but as an aspirational frame that strengthens representation, competition, and shared ownership of our state.

Some states have chosen a related but distinct word to express similar ideals of self-government. Four U.S. states officially refer to themselves as a Commonwealth: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. They adopted the term during their early constitutional periods. “Commonwealth” draws from an older English tradition meaning a political community organized for the common good — the “common weal.” In practice today there is no legal difference between a commonwealth and any other state. The word was chosen to emphasize that government exists for the people rather than for a monarch or privileged few. It is a proud, historical declaration of self-governance.

Why prefer Republic for Illinois rather than Commonwealth? Both terms point toward government for the public good. Commonwealth stresses shared welfare. Republic more directly highlights elected representation, the rejection of hereditary rule, and the active role of citizens through institutions. For the Land of Lincoln — a state whose most famous son defined government as “of the people, by the people, for the people” — Republic feels like the clearer link to the constitutional tradition we already inherit and to the competitive, responsive governance this thought exercise hopes to imagine.

This series will continue as an open exploration. Some ideas will feel practical. Others may seem more ambitious. The point is to think together about how Illinois can live up more fully to its republican foundations and become a place that inspires lasting pride.

What does a stronger republican Illinois look like to you? Which aspects of our state’s identity and history should guide that vision?

What a Governor’s Job Really Looks Like: Lessons from the Bears Stadium Debate

Source: DesignYourWay.net

Rich Miller’s column from two Sundays ago, shared via Capitol Fax, pulls back the curtain on what effective governing actually requires — and why Governor JB Pritzker’s handling of the Chicago Bears stadium situation raises legitimate concerns.

Pritzker might want to take his own advice https://t.co/etQVjweabq

— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) June 22, 2026

Gov. J.B. Pritzker's Trump Feud: Will It Cost Him in the 2026 Governor's Race?

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is more than likely to win a third term as Illinois' governor, however, I find myself wondering if he's going to take a serious beating for his ongoing feud with our 47th POTUS Donald Trump.

In a recent wide-ranging interview with POLITICO at Chicago's iconic Manny's Deli, Pritzker sat down for a candid conversation covering everything from the 2024 election fallout to his sharp criticisms of Trump, his influence in state politics, and speculation about a potential 2028 presidential run. The governor didn't hold back, framing Trump's leadership in stark terms and doubling down on the confrontational style that's defined much of his time in office.

Pritzker has positioned himself as one of the leading Trump antagonists among Democrats. In the interview and recent statements, he highlights what he sees as damage from Trump's agenda to working families, farms, retailers, and more—while criticizing policies on tariffs, immigration enforcement, and broader governance. He portrays the current administration in strong language, calling out tones of political violence and authoritarian tendencies.

Check out the interview here [VIDEO]

Reclaiming Illinois Pride: Addressing the Loathing and Building a Better State

In my earlier post on the NBC Chicago documentary "Separation: A State without Chicago", we saw real frustration bubbling up across Illinois. The idea of downstate and suburban areas breaking away from Cook County and Chicago highlights deep divides—political control from the metro area, burdensome taxes, quality-of-life concerns, and debates over whether Chicago functions more as a fiscal drain than an economic engine for the whole state. Rural and small-town Illinois often feels overshadowed. These tensions feed into a broader sentiment: many Illinoisans seem to loathe the state or at least complain about it constantly.

This isn’t new. Back in 2022, the Geography King profile of Illinois noted a sense of self-loathing among residents—no one seems eager to defend the state. And during that year’s governor’s race, I shared thoughts on "IL Governor's race and trashing Illinois", observing how some political talk focuses more on tearing the state down than on fixing it and making the Land of Lincoln better.

For some folks, trashing Illinois has become a perverse pleasure https://t.co/tPAX9DJX6K

— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) May 23, 2022

But why exactly does this persist, and what can we do to foster genuine pride instead? 

NBC Chicago — Separation: A State without Chicago

 Get a load of this, this was uploaded to NBC Chicago's YouTube channel. A documentary about a movement for the rest of the state of Illinois to separate themselves from Cook County & Chicago. Legitimate gripes is for example continued control over Illinois by the politicians of the Chicago area.

Might be more to it than that certainly complaints about quality of life, taxes, even mentions of Chicago being less of a goldmine than a financial disaster. Perhaps the divide depicted in this documentary are between the rural and small towns of this state and a big city like Chicago. [VIDEO]

Question to be asked here, how can we make Illinois a better state?

CapFax: Illinoisans should not have to live this way

 I found this interesting on Capitol Fax, yesterday

* One of my top complaints about Democratic rule in this state is the super-majority party’s unwillingness to firmly step in to help some small Black-majority suburban and Downstate towns find their way to fiscal solvency. East St. Louis is just one of many…

What caught my eye is that there is a complaint about Democratic rule in Illinois. The bad news is there's no serious opposition in this state.

It won't solve all problems, however, the right politician could use this. Hopefully this theoretical politician would be serious about getting this done. 

Geography King - Gerrymandering: How to Manipulate Maps for Political Gain (With Tutorial!)

 Another great video on gerrymandering. While Geography King does look at Illinois' Congressional map and other states such as Kentucky & Louisiana to see how their maps appear to be drawn to insure political power.

Current Illinois Congressional Districts

One example he gives is looking at the neighboring state of Indiana. That state's congressional map is actually drawn by a computer. However, he uses this site https://davesredistricting.org/ to gerrymander Indiana's districts insuring that no Democrats can get elected to Congress.

I suppose that's the thing about gerrymandering. You have to know which areas will vote for whom. Cities generally will tilt Democrat while rural areas will generally tilt Republican. Indiana is basically a red state thought with blue or liberal enclaves such as Indianapolis in addition to areas like Gary, Lafayette, or even Bloomington - the latter two are college towns.

The trick is to dilute their strength and basically drown them out with those areas that are solidly Republican or conservative. And if nothing else create a district that is competitive where a Democrat would have to fight to win that district.

That's the thing about gerrymandering, as he puts it the politician chooses his voters and not the other way around.

Check out his almost hour long presentation [VIDEO]

Gov. George H. Ryan R.I.P.

 George Ryan served as the Governor of Illinois from 1999 to 2003. There was a Republican dynasty from 1977 to 2003 which included Governors Jim Thompson, Jim Edgar, and finally Ryan. That dynasty ended upon the election of Democrat Rod Blagojevich as IL Governor.

George Ryan I recall was the last effective governor Illinois had. There was significant infrastructure investment during his term and one infrastructure project involved the rehab of the Douglas branch of the CTA L (back then it was part of the CTA Blue Line, today it's the Pink Line). His infrastructure program was called Illinois First.

He's primarily known for commuting all death sentences in the state after at first placing a moratorium on death sentences. He had been demonized for this by death penalty advocates and they cite his political problems as a result of what was going on during his tenure as IL Secretary of State.

You might remember license for bribes you can read more about it here. This scandal led to his downfall (that is is one term as Governor) and ultimately his status as a convicted felon. Sentenced to six and a half years in federal prison in 2006, he was released from federal custody in 2013.

His wife preceded him in death and Gov. Ryan showed little regret in his decisions regarding the death penalty. However, many still view his moves on that issue as more politically motivated.

For the record, while I do consider myself right of center (or conservative) I'm against the death penalty. I'm in favor of justice, and hard for me to justify the death penalty when it's not always applied in the most just way. And certainly that some people may not be guilty of the crime for which they will be put to death. Also I don't find the application of the death penalty very humane.

I would say regardless of what motivated his decisions on this issue, I think he did the right thing in hindsight. Almost a decade after Gov. Ryan had left the Illinois Governorship, the state abolished the death penalty. And a later Republican Governor - the ineffective Bruce Rauner  - had proposed reinstating the death penalty and that failed.

To make a comparison while I may not like the progressive politics of J.B. Pritzker, I would give him credit for being an effective IL Governor. What both men have in common is that they both are interested in governing more than anything. That's what this great state needs.

Gov. Ryan died on May 2, 2025, he was 91.

I'm sorry to say I was slow to share with you news of the death of Gov. Jim Thompson who died in 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic. He was Illinois' longest serving governor from 1977 to 1991.

Also we have Gov. Thompson's immediate successor, Jim Edgar who is currently fighting cancer. Having seen someone I was very close to deal with this, I feel for Edgar. He was another one who was truly an effective IL Governor serving from 1991 to 1999. I hope he defeats that dreadful disease.

Favored design of the Illinois state flag - the people have spoken.

 The people of this state cast 165,602 votes for the current state flag. As our Secretary of State says  in a video below this flag got more votes than five of the other designs combined.

Drum roll please…🥁 After receiving 385,000 votes, we have a DECISIVE winner in the state flag redesign contest! The Illinois Flag Commission will now report the results to the General Assembly who will vote on whether to adopt a new flag or keep the current one. pic.twitter.com/CS3RMesLH6

— Secretary Alexi Giannoulias (@ILSecOfState) March 6, 2025

You can see how many votes was cast for each flag here. Only wo of my favored designs in the ten submitted for a new state flag came in the top five votes. That includes the one that had a blue and red stripe on each side of the state seal coming in at #4.

Though I should note feedback on these chosen designs weren't very good. These results will be submitted to the general assembly and who knows the state legislature may still decide to come up with a design for a new state flag.

Though I would still say we could keep the current state flag for the governor. A few states have standards for a state's governor. An Illinois governor has no standard.

Knowledgia: The History of Illinois in 20 mins.

 

[VIDEO] Well it's not often we show a video with regards to the history of this state. They did note Illinois' population decline, the election of Barack Obama as President, and the scandal involving former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

I hope you learn something new from this video.

Rating the 10 finalists for Illinois' state flag.

UPDATE (2/4/25): The video that I had embedded was made private but here is that same segment via Illinois Public Radio that you can listen to.

[VIDEO] This video was published to YouTube last month before voting started for a new IL state flag. And the guest on this segment - Ted Kaye of the North American Vexillological Association takes a look at the designs for a future state flag.

He notes that the states of Utah, Minnesota, and Mississippi most recently had adopted new state flags and all of those flags were discussed by Kaye on this segment. Mississippi broke the rule of not having words on a flag though allowed this was more or less a political or historic compromise.

I think his views on the state flags designs are semi-similar to mine and I slept on (the wild-card) that I think could make a great flag. The one you see in the screen cap the very top left corner - almost a true tricolor with the white space that is shaped as the letter I - the letter I is for Illinois :P. And I feel as if this could be the most American design possible.

My favored rejected designs for the Illinois state flag

Generated by GrokAI

I wanted to dig into this, perhaps some of these rejected designs for a possible new state flag could be the proposed symbol for the Illinois Republic. My vision for this republic is not only to revamp how this great state could be governed, but what could be done to unify this state and give it the pride that it deserves.

My vision could put Illinois up there with places like Texas, Vermont, or even California states that actually were independent republics before they became part of the United States. Either way it's difficult to create something resembling a "new regime" without creating symbols (i.e. a flag) to represent it.

So the so-called state flag reject pile was shared on Capitol Fax on Monday linked below.

The Illinois Flag Commission’s reject pile https://t.co/21vedtR5Oj

— Capitol Fax (@capitolfax) January 6, 2025

While I haven't gone through every submission so far, there are a few that I do consider favorites and then from the 10 designs that were chosen I also want to share the ones I do like best. In addition, other than the grassroots designs shown it's also important to show the favorite choices of others.

Of course click on the screencaps below to see the text description of each design. You will see 20 below the page break.

Voting for a state flag is now open

Generated by Google Gemini

I wanted to write about the rejected designs that I really liked. However, we can further discuss those designs that Illinois' citizens can vote on as of last Friday, January 10th.

We can start with already established designs such as our state flag. Then we will look at those designs I really like submitted by Illinois residents.

I've included screen caps and the text with the designs, feel free to click these pics for a full view of these designs and accompanying text descriptions.

Creating an Illinois Republic

Happy New Year to you all.

In about 2007 or 2008 I became aware of a blog - Con Con Illinois 2010 - which had a brief run back then proposing some ideals for how to reform Illinois state gov't. In 2008 - which was the one where Barack Obama won the Presidency - one item on the ballot at the time was a State Constitutional convention or what was popularly know as the con-con which would commence in 2010.

Of course to my disappointment at the time it got voted down. Opponents of a con-com seemed to often cite concerns over the possibility that a con-con would threaten the pension language in the 1970 IL constitution. Perhaps there wasn't great political support for one anyway.

We're at the point now where a con-con is again on the ballot, which would be in 2008. The political scene is vastly different in 2028 though I don't know how this will play out. I'd probably have to buy a subscription to the Capitol Fax newsletter to be able to tell you all for sure. However, what I can say definitely is that the players of the political scene in Illinois has largely changed significantly and who knows if they could effectively scuttle any possible enthusiasm for a 2030 con-con.

Generated by Google Gemini

However, what was on that Con Con 2010 blog is something worth exploring as we talk about an Illinois Republic.

I think many points that were shared on the Con Con 2010 blog's first post applies to what I hope to do in this thought exercise. Although I may not necessarily use the term democracy, I do prefer the term republic. I doubt any politico in this state would use the word republic, however, the idea is to go for  a vision.

• Imagine elections where there is more than one name on the ballot.
• Imagine there being many names on the ballot. Imagine there being more than two political parties to choose from.
• Imagine there being three, four or five viable political parties to choose from.
• Imagine that voting for a "third party" doesn't mean "spoiling" an election or having to pick from the lesser of two evils.
• Imagine every election in all parts of the state being competitive, not just in a few swing districts.
• Imagine there not being any gerrymandering.
• Imagine the winning party actually having to enact the platform they ran on.
• Imagine money not playing such a big role in elections.

It's unknown how many of these planks could be achieved, however, some of them I think are somewhat easy to implement.

I would like the idea of having multiple viable political parties and they could get elected at least to the state legislature. And thus the Republicans and Democrats would have to compete a lot better than they do now. 

Competitive elections everywhere throughout the state would be another great idea no one party should dominate in one region or another.

What this blog had discussed during it's brief run was how to compose the IL General Assembly, the state's legislative branch. That is something that I do intent to explore using some of the posts on that blog. Though I want to throw in some of my own ideas.

Another thing under consideration is local governance. For example, I came of the understanding that cities in this state don't have charters. What kind of city charter could I write for the city of Chicago? How is Chicago governed without one or what would be the purpose of a charter.

I look forward to going through this exercise.

Proposed designs for the Illinois state flag

 

[VIDEO] I have my own favorites, but what are yours? Some of these designs catch my eye, I'm sorry it's too late for me to submit my own design.

I think simplicity is key but in keeping with my idea for an Illinois Republic, the new state flag should be something of a Tri-Color like the French flag although not necessarily the same colors and not a mere replication.

Visit this site: www.ilsos.gov/stateflag

I wish I could see the other proposed designs that didn't make the top ten you will see at the link above.

An Illinois Republic

For the moment we're going back to the "Shedd School of Pol. Sci."

I've often flirting with the idea of posting a political platform of some sort. This time my goal is to think about longterm what my vision would be let's say for a particular position within the U.S. gov't. My attention in this case is turned to the State of Illinois.

It's almost fitting given that we've just gotten out of a Presidential Election and the President-elect (Donald J. Trump) is looking to make significant changes to the US Gov't. He even brought in an industrialist and a very vocal, articulate activist to head this new Department of Gov't Efficency (DOGE) to cut as much of the nat'l debt as possible.

Also consider that in this state we're less than two years away from the next Gubernatorial race and we don't yet know who's running. Could Gov. Pritzker run for a third term? We already know his vision since he's been in office since 2018. What could anyone who wants to run for Governor bring to the table once they throw their hat in the ring for 2026?

Well to be honest I'm a long way from thinking I can jump into that ring and be successful. I'm just a citizen and chances are I'm on no one's radar. A blog is something of a soapbox and also in sharing these ideas, the door is open for someone to take advantage of them.

Not worried about it, I have no crystal ball. Besides these are just theories. And I do look forward to sharing them with you all in the near future.

So let's start with this and give you a teaser.

What is my vision for an Illinois Republic?

Illinois was admitted to the Union on this day in 1818

 I almost missed out on marking this most important day for this state and the Governor's post on IG helped to remind me.

Touring the Home of Abraham Lincoln plus his Old Neighborhood

 

[VIDEO] I'm sure another video of a visit to this site in Springfield, ILL was shared here on this blog. Abraham Lincoln's home is a national historic monument located in Illinois' capital city.

The home you see here was where Lincoln lived until shortly before he became President of the United States. As you may know he was a legendary President of the United States often seen as the hero of the American Civil War and the man who freed the slaves.

I look forward to my own visit to this site and other sites down there in Springfield.