Illinois: A Long History of Underfunded Pensions

By Whet Moser

The state has long had trouble deciding to pay its share of employee pension costs. In the 1990s, representatives of the pension system filed a complaint about it, and were told: the constitution guarantees that the state has to pay the pensions. It doesn't guarantee that it has to fund them. Read more

Lawmakers Gone Wild

By David Bernstein and the Better Government Association

Four-star dining! Luxury cars! European getaways! An exclusive investigation reveals how Illinois politicians are living large on their campaigns' dime. Read more

Pols: We're Not as Piggish as It May Seem

By Bob Herguth and David Bernstein

Here's how lawmakers responded when confronted with questions about lavish expenditures from their campaign funds Read more

The End of the World with Mayor Rahm Emanuel

By Corinne Mucha

Our cartoonist imagines December 21, 2012, at City Hall Read more

Jack Schaap Gives the Creepiest Sermon You'll Ever See, and Maybe the Second-Creepiest

By Whet Moser

A year before the ex-pastor of Hammond's First Baptist Church committed the Mann Act violation he recently pled guilty to, he appeared briefly in an ABC investigation of Independent Baptist churches... and hung hellfire on the network for questioning the idea that women aren't the reason man is fallen. Read more

A Brief, Expensive History of City Hall: History Never Changes, But Inflation Does

By Whet Moser

No, the renovation of City Hall will not cost more than twice what the building originally cost. The current one was expensive enough that the state had to raise its debt limit—in order to replace a terrible building that cost just as much and lasted less than 30 years until it blew up. Read more

Watch the Entire CTA Over 24 Hours

By Whet Moser

A software company used data feeds from public-transit systems around the world to create visualizations of their systems—and all their routes—over a 24 hour period. Chicago, the great grid city, is a lot more comprehensible than its peers. Read more

A Visual History of Chicago Public Transportation: Chicago's First Bus, Its Early Green Technology, Funeral Cars, and More

By Whet Moser

From horse-drawn cars to compressed-air motors to battery powered streetcars to propane buses: what public transportation in Chicago looked like and how it got around, from 1857-1970. Read more

The Geography of Chicago City Employees, and City Layoffs

By Whet Moser

Chicago, like the national government and governments throughout the country, has been cutting back on headcount throughout the Great Recession. Which neighborhoods is that hitting the hardest? Read more

The Math Behind the CTA Fare Increase

By Whet Moser

Besides Rahm Emanuel's comments about how people can just drive instead of buying more expensive CTA passes, the Chicago Transit Authority really is in a bit of a fix, thanks to increased costs, declining federal subsidies, the disappearance of the stimulus, reduced state subsidies, and perhaps the fiscal cliff. Read more

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