Given recent headlines, it’s hard to imagine characterizing Illinois government as efficient or forward-looking.

But the Illinois Constitution approved 50 years ago this week contained a credo for environmental protection that was a national harbinger. It afforded equal protection of the laws — prohibitions on rules that arbitrarily discriminate — as well as due process of law. With little discussion, it protected the rights of women in sharp contrast to the bitter fight over ratification of the federal Equal Rights Amendment a decade later.

Members of the Illinois House Special Investigating Committee looking into House Speaker Michael Madigan’s conduct in the ComEd bribery scheme will push to subpoena the speaker on Monday, the first hearing since a trove of emails were released.

Last summer, federal prosecutors entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) they entered with utility ComEd, where the utility agreed to pay $200 million in fines for its role in a nine-year bribery scheme to influence Madigan, D-Chicago.

Ward 1 Ald. Chuck Redpath was cited last week for violating the city’s mask mandate.

The citation stems from the Springfield City Council’s Dec. 1 meeting, where Redpath took off his mask for prolonged periods of time while seated at his designated spot around the horseshoe.

A campaign contributor to Mayor Lori Lightfoot landed a $1.6 million no-bid deal with Chicago Public Schools after the mayor personally vouched for him, then delivered computers that in some cases didn’t meet district purchasing standards or work for virtual learning.

District officials said they bought the used computers in April to meet an “urgent need” as schools scrambled to get devices to students and the district’s traditional vendors faced backlogs. Yet more than a third are still sitting in a district warehouse as backups, a Chalkbeat/Better Government Association investigation has found.

The Illinois House Veterans’ Affairs Committee will meet Tuesday to provide more oversight into the COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home last month that killed at least 33 residents.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Friday that lessons have been learned and that he “bears responsibility.”

Two of the CTA’s busiest bus routes — the No. 79 that runs along 79th Street and the No. 49 on Western Avenue — have recorded the most coronavirus cases among bus drivers, with nine drivers on each run falling ill over a six-month span, records show.

Three other routes — the No. 4, No. 8 and No. 22 — each saw eight CTA drivers infected with COVID-19 over the same period.

An anonymous letter to the New York Times ethicist about a city agency avoiding budget cuts has been referred to the city of Chicago’s Inspector General.

The letter, from an employee in Chicago whose name was withheld, tells NYT’s ethicist, New York University’s Kwame Anthony Appiah, about trying to resign from the city agency where he or she works.

Illinois regulators are scheduled to decide the fate of Mercy Hospital on Tuesday, about five months after the historic medical center on the Near South Side announced that it wanted to shut down during a pandemic.

Mercy — the first chartered hospital in Chicago — says it has been treating fewer patients and operating in the red for years. Located in the Bronzeville neighborhood, Mercy tried to merge with three other South Side hospitals. But Illinois lawmakers wouldn’t help foot the billion-dollar bill, so the deal ended.

A pair of North and Northwest suburban Cook County commissioners have proposed an ordinance aimed at safeguarding an estimated 245,000 apartment dwellers in the suburbs — new rules they say are a long time coming.

But they face pushback from groups representing landlords who fear the regulations would stifle the housing market and cause rents to rise.