I was raised Catholic in Rockford, Illinois. But I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore. Oh God, no.
Illinois Senator Paul Simon, once said "The test for a Supreme Court nominee is not where he stands on any one specific issue. The test is this: Will you use your power on the court to restrict freedom or expand it"?
A study in Illinois in the mid-1990s found that 65 percent of businesses were hurt by the proximity of gambling
Well apparently nothing as of December 13, 1978. There was 20 trained police officers came to the house, with a warrant. . searched the house, and they went down in the crawlspace. . . while I was being held at the jail in Des Plaines, Illinois. They never took anything from the crawlspace other than bringing up lime into the house. There also were no mounds of dirt like what is mentioned in books.
It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to disability pay. We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments.
Vermont is such a small state, and the most money that's ever been spent in the history of political campaigns there is $2 million. That number is going to be surpassed many times. Vermont remains a "cheap state" for the Republican National Committee. So putting $5 or $10 million into Vermont - compared to New York or California or Illinois - that's small potatoes.
The Illinois Senate passed a bill on Wednesday to legalize medical marijuana. The bill was passed after the state senator said, 'Come on, dude, pass it. Come on. '
I grew up in central Illinois midway between Chicago and St. Louis and I made an historic blunder. All my friends became Cardinals fans and grew up happy and liberal and I became a Cubs fan and grew up embittered and conservative.
Tonight Illinois has set a tone for the nation, that we won't stand idle hoping that our economy improves. This is a brand new day for the Illinois Republican Party.
I grew up mostly in Champaign, Illinois. My dad was at the University of East Illinois, so I was always around the music. One of my dad's buddies was the avant-garde composer John Cage, so I picked up on that weird classical and eclectic music.
The comedy for the Democrats is that they're showing off too much. They need to be putting a boring white guy out there to kind of get a hold of things. Once the boring white guy is out there, then you bust out the junior senator from Illinois who smokes and does cocaine.
People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a level of providence to his every decision but he was a cunning and calculating politician; from the cultivation of his image as a hayseed from Illinois, to his ability to keep this country together under dire circumstances.
The official language of the State of Illinois shall be known hereafter as the American language, and not the English language.
But, also, before I even go on the Medicare prescription drug debate, I always tell the folks in rural Illinois, and I represent 30 counties south of Springfield down to Indiana and Kentucky, that in this bill is the best rural package for hospitals ever passed.
We in Illinois are very fortunate to have a number of historic structures that have added immeasurably to the cultural life of the state, to the tourism industry of the state which by the way is our number one industry.
The meetings of the legislature at Springfield then first brought together that splendid group of young men of genius whose phenomenal careers and distinguished services have given Illinois fame in the history of the nation.
I first read [Wendell Berry] short-story collections, "Fidelity" and then "Watch with Me. " They just knocked my socks off. The characters and the fellowship of the small town reminded me of my own small town in Illinois. Then I discovered that, much like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, that all of Berry's fiction was centered in this same town.
I said we are going to balance an $11 billion budget deficit in a $29 billion budget, so by percentage, the largest budget deficit in America, by percentage, larger than California, larger than New York, larger than Illinois. And we're going to balance that without raising taxes on the people of the state of New Jersey.
I'm not one of those who say this is the way. I'm not that opinionated. I can only say this is my way. Even the $1,000 scholarship that my son could have gotten from the state of Illinois to go to college, we didn't want. I'd rather get out and work and have my children know that their money comes from their parents and we have to work for it.
Illinois is the only state where the present governor rides around in a car whose license plate was made by a previous governor.