Results tagged “joebirkett”

• Sonia Sotomayer has been confirmed to the Supreme Court.
• Gov. Quinn signed the Texting-While-Driving ban into law today.
• DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett has decided to not run against Lisa Madigan for Attorney General next year.

The Doomsday Clock for Roland "The Lord's Senator" Burris just clicked closer to midnight. A recently released Zogby International poll [.pdf] shows that support for Burris in the 2010 senatorial race stands tall at 5.3 percent. In most elections, we're pretty sure Snoopy gets more voter support than that. Alexi Giannoulias is the frontrunner in the senate race with both Dems and independent voters - although Giannoulias leads with independent voters by only 0.3% over Mark Kirk.

She's the woman who could have been Governor. But in 2006, Judy Baar Topinka, longtime Illinois politician and State Treasurer under Jim Edgar and the not-convicted-yet George Ryan, was defeated in the Gubernatorial race by incumbent Rod Blagojevich. And just look where that's gotten us. While most of our day-to-day political thoughts right now are focused on the presidential election, we're also in the beginning of the race for Illinois Governor in 2010. So what does Topinka think about how the state is being run? No surprise here - she isn't much of a fan of Blago - but what about beyond that? Who's going to step up for the Republican party in two years? Who's going to try to replace G-Rod in the Democratic party? And is there any shot at getting him removed before 2010? All these answers after the jump.

While DuPage County State's Attorney (and gubernatorial, state attorney general and lieutenant governor also-ran) Joe Birkett was praising the Chicago police for their awesome work fighting street gangs, Mayor Daley was soliloquizing on the zen art of not getting mad.

"No, I’m not mad at the governor. There's so many good things. You can never get mad at anyone because when you get mad it changes you. You get disappointed in people and these are good things that we bring out," Daley told reporters. "So if I were ever to get mad at anyone I’d just get disappointed because many times what you say can have a huge effect on an issue. You should be careful about what you say at all times."

Tony Peraica, Cook County commissioner and state’s attorney candidate, is having the worst week ever. As if being a homophobe right-winger in Cook County wasn’t bad enough, now the rest of the local GOP combine has turned against him. Joe Birkett, Judy Baar Topinka’s running mate for lieutenant governor, is backing Mary McMahon, an assistant state’s attorney in Democrat Dick Devine’s office, as the GOP candidate for State’s Attorney. This after he spoke at a...

Illinois Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn

Wow. That's all Chicagoist can say about yesterday's indictment of Tony Rezko. We're glad to see that Fitzgerald finally grew some fucking balls and indicted someone that's actually up to no good. When the news hit, we were busy at our day jobs (Chicagoist has to eat too, ya know), but when we got home, let us tell you, we were all over it. Blagojevich (wisely) took some quick action to try to get in...

The primary election results are in, and here are some of the candidates you will see on the ballot in the November election: Governor-Democrat: Rod Blagojevich (70.1%) This was no surprise since Eisendrath never seemed to get his campaign off the ground. We know a lot of people who voted Eisendrath as part of showing their disapproval towards Blago. Governor-Republican: Judy Baar Topinka (38.0%) Topinka held off a late surge from Oberweis, who early on...

When a pimp calls the police for help, then agrees to continue helping their investigation, you know something's gone terribly wrong. Chicago pimp Jesse Miser called police early Sunday morning because he was worried about one of his escorts, 21-year old Kristi Hoenig, who had made a call to a home in Addison. It turns out that he was right to be worried about the haters.

Everyone should stay in their houses and keep to him or herself. That was the lesson Chicagoist and its readers learned last week as it’s the only way you’ll avoid having to spend three hours commuting in the snow, listening to street musicians and bucket beaters, or having to deal with booze hounds and smoking fiends. Though not our most-commented post ever, you had a lot to say about the smoking ban. Chicagoist thinks it’s...

It looks like Judy Baar Topinka, the Republican party’s frontrunner for the governor, has found herself a running mate. Topinka has tapped DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett to be her lieutenant governor. Birkett, who had considered running for governor himself, lost the 2002 general election for attorney general to Lisa Madigan. Birkett has not officially agreed to run with Topinka quite yet, but all signs point to him doing so. Most recently Birkett...

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced on Sunday that she will run for reelection, and so far she is easily in the lead as no one has yet stepped up to run against her. Madigan has released a statement on her campaign website that reads, in part: Whether the issue is protecting women from domestic abuse, protecting our children from sexual predators, protecting seniors from scam artists who are targeting them, fighting unfair pricing...