Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis assured public school parents on Monday that an April 1 action threatened by her union in response to CPS furlough days and possible pay cuts won’t drag out.

“I wish I could tell them, ‘Look at it like an extra holiday,’ right? Look at it that way. That’s the only thing I can tell them to make them feel better,” Lewis said after speaking at a parent conference in Woodlawn. “But they shouldn’t be nervous, they shouldn’t be upset. There should be no anxiety around it, it won’t be something that’s open-ended. That’s something that they need to understand.

“I’m talking about April 1,” she clarified. “Now May 16, I can’t promise how that’s going to go,” she continued, referring to the first possible date on which her 27,000 members could legally launch a contract strike.

Chicago government officials are scrambling to justify spending millions in city- and state-backed dollars to construct a brand-new DePaul University basketball arena and accompanying hotel in the South Loop.

The latest news on the controversial project came when Chicago City Council last month waived $2.6 million in construction fees after Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, or McPier, leadership complained of a “tight budget.” McPier is the public-private hybrid managing the DePaul project in addition to controlling Navy Pier and McCormick Place.

It’s also served as a patronage haven with a poor record of transparency.

Illinois politicians like to extol the virtues of democracy, but avoid practicing it as much as possible.

Look no further than the Illinois General Assembly, a fiefdom of political insiders determined to protect their political behinds. They do this by curbing political competition in any way possible.

President Barack Obama stood before his former colleagues last month and talked about politicians choosing their voters rather than voters choosing their politicians.

He was talking about you, Mike Madigan.

Illinois’ budget war today broke out on a new front: in federal court.

After months of complaining, Cook County and four county officeholders filed an action in U.S. District Court alleging that the state has failed to provide money promised to operate the county’s child-support enforcement program. The suit asks that the state be required to provide the money, even though the funds are in the portion of the budget that has not passed and is not covered by other consent decrees.

Cook County has been funding the program on its own, out of its its operating budget. But, said State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez in a statement, “The unanticipated financial burden on the county has reached a critical juncture, and budget cuts are not imminent.”

The small basement room of the Willie T. Wright Apartments in Newark’s Central Ward was standing-room only, packed with men of all ages, from guys barely in their 20s to men in their 50s and 60s. I scanned their faces and saw looks of hope and humility. A few seemed beaten down by circumstance but definitely not broken. If they’d been broken, they wouldn’t have been there.

As they walked in, some eagerly shook my hand. Men older than me called me “Sir” or “Councilman,” treating me with a level of deference that made me feel uncomfortable. I didn’t want any man to elevate me in even the slightest way—and especially not under these circumstances. I owed them humility and respect. What’s more, I felt an uneasiness bordering on shame about the circumstances of our meeting. But here we were, a bunch of men in a basement, hoping to defy the odds in a fixed game.

I loosened my tie, took it and my jacket off, rolled up my sleeves.

Accused of driving on a suspended license, Bart Johnson had his truck seized. But when prosecutors decided to dismiss the charge, the government refused to return it. Johnson’s bizarre case highlights the injustice of civil forfeiture laws, which don’t require criminal convictions or even charges before letting police permanently take property.

His ordeal began last summer, when Johnson, then underage, was pulled over for driving under the influence. He soon entered Illinois’s complex, two-track system for DUIs. A criminal conviction revokes a driver’s license (for many first offenders, it’s for at least a year), while an arrest triggers a “statutory summary suspension” that automatically suspends someone’s license.

But as part of a plea agreement, Johnson avoided both fates. In July, he pled guiltyand was put under court supervision and charged more than $2,400 in fines and court costs. In exchange, the court rescinded the suspension and deferred prosecution, meaning Johnson, like many first offenders, wasn’t convicted for the DUI.