Sorry there were no posts yesterday afternoon. I haven’t quite got the hang of dealing with session and blogging at the same time. We’ll see what today brings, but it looks pretty light on the House side. The House is expected to be in just two hours today and then adjourn for the week. The Senate… well… anything could happen, I suppose. Senate President Emil Jones is still working on a boat bill and lining up votes.

US Senator-elect Barack Obama was given a nice sendoff by his colleagues yesterday. Here is a representative story.

The interim state schools superintendent, Randy Dunn, is profiled today by the Associated Press.

Dunn also addressed education funding, saying that the way public schools are funded in Illinois is a concern but that a proposal designed to shift more of the financial burden to income tax and away from property tax may not be the best solution. Blagojevich has said repeatedly that his priorities include not raising income taxes.

“I am of the mind of the governor, that until we can show that all the costs have been wrung out of the system, that we’ve made the education machine as lean and efficient as possible in the state, I think it’s a very difficult thing … to go out and try to advocate for a tax increase,” Dunn said.

I’m positive that this man will not be happy about that.

The Daily Southtown reports that Lansing officials are cautiously mulling a casino proposal in neighboring Lynnwood. The casino would be run by the Ho-Chunk Nation and is still a longshot to even be built. Some Lansing residents are apparently headed to Springfield to talk to local legislators about their opposition to the idea, which is pretty much a fantasy anyway.

The Southern Illinois has a story today about possible rate hikes for medical malpractice insurance.

As legislators discuss the well-worn issue of medical malpractice in Springfield, Southern Illinois doctors predict another year of extreme insurance premium hikes.

Early premium notices received by some of the region’s medical groups indicate practices will likely see 30 percent, 40 percent or even 50 percent increases in liability insurance costs for 2005, depending on the type of medicine practiced.