Can Springfield get to the end zone?
Good Tuesday morning, Illinois. The election is over. The politics, not so much. TOP TALKER BEARS BEAT : The Chicago Bears are heading back to the negotiating table in Springfield, and lawmakers say they want to get a stadium deal done before the end of the year — even as the battle to replace House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch begins to take shape. Agenda item: The Bears legislation is expected to be a major focus when lawmakers return to Springfield for veto session next week. The challenge will be finding a compromise that keeps the team in Illinois without putting taxpayers on the hook, while navigating competing interests between Chicago and the suburbs. State Sen. Bill Cunningham , the Democrat who has been central to the stadium negotiations, said discussions during the legislative break have increasingly centered on a stadium-authority model that would allow a municipality to build a privately financed, publicly owned stadium. “There seems to be a settling on this , trying to move forward with the stadium authority model,” Cunningham said during a legislative briefing with your Playbook host, and presented by Lincoln Forum and the Union League Club of Chicago State and Local Government Subcommittee. Some
