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In Illinois, an incumbent will possibly be facing a serious primary challenger for the first time in his nearly twenty-year political career. As reported recently on IVN, Illinois U.S. Rep. John Shimkus of the 15th congressional district announced he was running for an eleventh term, further breaking a promise not to serve more than six. Challenging Shimkus is State Sen. Kyle McCarter of Lebanon. Serving in Springfield since 2009, McCarter, whose term expires in 2018, is not running for re-ele

US. Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), elected in 2010 after five terms in the House of Representatives, may be facing a challenge from within his own party. James Marter, a 52-year-old computer analyst with no political experience, is formally challenging the incumbent. In a campaign leaflet, Marter says he is running because: "Kirk is one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate. He is a full-blown social liberal who supports taxpayer-funding for abortions and the entire gay marriage agenda, i

"The medium is the message." Of the countless theories, concepts, and aphorisms generated by academia within the last half-century, few have been as insightful or as influential as the notion that "the medium is the message." Coined by the Canadian intellectual Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) in the 1960s, this concept refers to the way that the content of any communication is largely shaped by the medium through which it is transmitted. To put it another way, the form that a message takes will g

The latest headlines on nonpartisan voting rights from California and across the nation. Enjoy. Lawmakers, Election Experts Talk Voting Rights At CA Nonpartisan Primary Summit / Elections summit takes stock of California’s nonpartisan, top-two primary reform Sources: IVN and CA Fwd My Take:  Straight forward, these two pretty much tell the story of the Summit, held in Sacramento and co-sponsored by the Independent Voter Project and California Forward. Letter from Nationwide Legislators: We

In Illinois' 15th Congressional District, a candidate once favoring term limits will be running again. Last Thursday, U.S. Representative John Shimkus, a Republican from Collinsville, announced he will be running for an eleventh term. Citing the need to collect sufficient petition signatures, Shimkus said, "It is an honor and privilege to represent the people of the 15th district in Washington, D.C., and I do not take that responsibility lightly." The announcement was unsurprising, but notewor

Update: This article has been updated to include the Independent Map Amendment's response to the People's Map mailer. ILLINOIS - People's Map, a group formed by partisan-dominated interests, is opposing redistricting reform backed by the Independent Map Amendment to implement independent redistricting in Illinois. The reform, resurrected by the Independent Map movement, would place the power of redrawing state House and Senate districts into the hands of an independent commission. People's Map

With the governor's veto of a bipartisan effort to alter existing drug laws, the Illinois marijuana reform movement is left to consider its options. Calling the "criminal prosecution of cannabis possession" a "drain on public resources," Governor Bruce Rauner, a Republican, vetoed House Bill 218, amending the Cannabis Control Act. Although saying, "I support the fundamental purposes of this bill," Rauner still issued his veto, but offered his own amendments for the General Assembly to consider

Prominent legal scholar and political activist Larry Lessig has entered the 2016 race for the White House. Joining Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley for the Democratic nomination, Lessig has an unconventional platform. Aiming to become the first referendum president, Lessig has focused his entire campaign on passage of his Citizen’s Equality Act. The act consists of three fundamental electoral reforms that address the increasingly undemocratic nature of the American electoral

Every politician has a promising career. Unfortunately, most of them do not keep those promises Jokes about politicians are funny, usually because of the glaring kernel of truth they contain. To most who follow politics, our leaders have become stereotypes -- almost cookie cutter images of the people we'd expect to have as a politician. But to social scientists, politicians are a bit more of a quagmire.Take any given profession and there are hundreds, if not thousands of large-scale studies do

The movement to reform Illinois redistricting has faced numerous hurdles in recent years, but may be getting new life. One of those movements came in 2014 when the amendment of a group called Yes for Independent Maps was struck down as unconstitutional by a circuit court judge and by the Illinois State Board of Elections for lack of admissible signatures. Independent Maps, now called the Independent Map Amendment, was organized in late April to engineer a new campaign for reforming the redistri