Illinois Issues

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Reporting and analysis taking you beyond the daily news and providing a deeper understanding of our state.

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Illinois Issues: Personal Interviews On Being Transgender

By Rachel Otwell • Jun 8, 2015

Over the past few months I have worked on a story about what it's like to be transgender, especially for those who do not have the privilege of fame and plenty of resources. For many, being transgender comes with stigma and discrimination in just about every facet of life.

Numbers Dropping for African-American Students on Illinois Campuses

By Dusty Rhodes • Jun 7, 2015

Cortlon Cofield posed with his sister Chloe at his graduation last May. — Cprtlon Cofield

Cortlon Cofield said Thursday nights were always special during his freshman year at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. That’s because Thursdays were "Food for the Soul" night in the Florida Avenue Residence Hall (known as FAR).

Data Trackers: License Plate Scanning Technology Raises Privacy Questions

By Garrett Brnger • May 1, 2015

Car mounted license plate reader — Garrett Brnger / WUIS / Illinois Issues

It doesn’t take much time at all, fractions of a second, to be marked and mapped, recorded and reported.

The automatic license plate reader cameras don’t look like much — just a pair of strobe lights on the back of a squad car, or maybe a cartoon character, depending on whom you ask.

Should Illinois End Its Retirement Tax Break?

By Brian Mackey • Apr 1, 2015

News Analysis — Illinois continues to be pummeled with bad budget news. The General Assembly’s nonpartisan budget analysts at the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability say income tax receipts will be down $1.9 billion in the next fiscal year. That’s thanks to the tax cut that took effect January 1, lowering the individual income tax rate from 5 percent to 3.75 percent.

Supreme Tort: The Campaign To Fire Justice Lloyd Karmeier

By Brian Mackey • Feb 1, 2015

No justice of the Illinois Supreme Court has lost a retention election since the up-or-down system was put in place 50 years ago. Last fall, Justice Lloyd Karmeier came close. He squeezed into another decade on the bench with just 2,921 votes to spare — less than eight-tenths of a percentage point above the required 60 percent threshold. His brush with late retirement — Karmeier turned 75 in January — was brought about by a nasty, last-minute advertising blitz for which the judge was ill-prepared.

Introducing The 'Illinois Issues Initiative' Reporters And Their Beats

By Jamey Dunn-Thomason • Jan 1, 2015

mattpenning.com 2014 / WUIS/Illinois Issues

January marks a new phase in our journalism. Due to the merger between WUIS and Illinois Issues, we now have a number of journalists that enable reporting on a beat model. A beat allows a reporter to learn events and people more thoroughly than general assignment reporting. Each reporter is focusing on key issues in the state. We're calling it the "Illinois Issues Initiative." Here are the beats:

ILLINOIS ECONOMY
Bill Wheelhouse

Conversation with the Publisher: A magazine like ours exists precisely for sessions like this

By Ed Wojcicki • Feb 1, 2001

It's because of legislative sessions like the one just starting that our founders and the university knew how much our state needs Illinois Issues.

The focus on legislative redistricting will drip with partisanship, and some people might consider that dreadful. I don't. What's so wrong about partisanship affecting what we philosophically revere as a political process? On the other hand, legislators will consider important issues besides new maps this spring. And our staff will be on top of all of them.