Catching Up

Cross-posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

The ICPR blog has been pretty quiet since before the holidays. Apologies to anyone who expected play by play on D2 day; we’ve been swamped with a few projects. We plan to roll these out in the next few days, but here's some of what we've been up to:

Fifteen people, including Comptroller Hynes, Senators Dillard, Raoul, DelValle, Schoenberg, and Garrett; Representatives Black, Coulson, and Fritchey; and leaders from ICPR, the BGA, Protestants for the Common Good, Citizen Action, PIRG, and the League of Women Voters gathered around the podium last Wednesday to announce a broad ethics and campaign finance package that addresses campaign contributions by state contractors, litigants giving to Supreme Court candidates, and shortcomings in Illinois' lobbyist regulation system.

We've posted replies to our candidate questionnaires from six of the seven candidates for governor. Responses from candidates for other offices will go up on our site soon.

In December, we asked all candidates for statewide executive, legislative, or judicical office to sign the Code of Fair Campaign Practices. The Code was created by the Illinois General Assembly and is administered by the State Board of Elections. It's a voluntary promise to run the kind of campaign you can tell your mother about. But many candidates ignore the Code. We'll tell you who has signed on.

ICPR's blog may continue to be lite for the next few weeks, though we have a few more things in the hopper to announce soon. We hope to pick up the pace when A1s start coming in on Monday, February 20.