The once-every-two-year spectacle is the formal kickoff to campaign season, with candidates for state, federal and judicial offices filing hundreds to thousands of signatures to secure their place on the March 17 primary ballot.

Illinois’ Republican primary for governor is growing expensive as the party's 2022 nominee works to rebuild his campaign fund while another candidate receives support from one of the state’s wealthiest Republican donors.

Dabrowski, the president of Wirepoints, officially launched his campaign on Friday to challenge JB Pritzker, the Democratic incumbent who is seeking a third term in next fall’s election.

Illinois Republicans held their annual events around the Illinois State Fair on Thursday, with former Illinois GOP Chair Don Tracy launching a U.S. Senate campaign and Ted Dabrowski announcing he will launch a campaign for governor in the coming weeks.

Officials are warning that millions of Americans could lose their insurance under changes in the law — including 330,000 people in Illinois who could be impacted by changes to Medicaid. However, Republican lawmakers say the changes are aimed at eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the system.

Illinois lawmakers are finalizing the state’s budget for the next fiscal year. But it’s not happening without some challenges.

States and the federal government jointly pay for Medicaid, which offers nearly-free health care coverage for roughly 80 million poor and disabled Americans, including millions of children. It cost $880 billion to operate in 2023.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to track $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid following the Trump administration’s foreign funding freeze and idling of staffers, a government watchdog warned Monday.

“State and municipal budgets across the nation and here in Illinois are being decimated,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday. “It’s not a blue state problem or a red state problem.”

A Trump administration rule change could leave almost 700,000 people without food stamp benefits by mid-2020. How those changes could impact Illinois residents.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday will deliver her first budget address, with an expected plan to close an $838 million budget deficit. She’s already accounted for $200 million of that with a proposal to refinance $1.3 billion in city borrowing.

A lawsuit was filed by a coalition of major public employee and teacher unions in Springfield today claiming the cost-of-living cuts, salary caps and raising of the retirement age is unconstitutional. Eddie Arruza and his guests discuss how the state can move forward with funding the pension gap. Read the full complaint from We Are One Illinois.