This is already shaping up to be one of the 2012 races to watch. more ›

Meeks has been mulling retirement for months and said in an April WLS-AM interview it was ""probably time to concentrate on the church and give them that kind of exclusivity that I was willing to give the office of Mayor." more ›

Illinois State Senator James Meeks is thinking about fleeing the sinking ship that is Springfield to return to his true calling as head of the Salem Baptist Church holding court in the 10,000 seat House of Hope in the Pullman neighborhood. more ›

Congressman Danny Davis penned a sometimes rambling editorial for the Chicago Defender explaining the reasons why he put an end to his mayoral campaign. The editorial starts to get to the heart of the matter once he gets past reminding readers that he was the original choice for "consensus" Black candidate and getting down to what he called "class warfare" within Chicago's African American community. more ›

Now that Carol Moseley Braun is standing tall as the so-called "consensus Black candidate" for mayor, the field for the mayoral campaign's final weeks is starting to take shape. One question we still have after Danny Davis's late Friday announcement that he was dropping out and backing Braun is - "Carol Moseley Braun? Really?" more ›

There's burying news during the holiday news cycle, and then there's throwing news down the well. Danny Davis tried to do the latter. Just before 7 p.m., reports surfaced that Congressman Danny Davis was dropping out of the mayoral campaign and throwing his weight behind former Senator Carol Moseley Braun. Davis is holding a press conference right now to formally make the announcement. Davis, Braun and state Senator Rev. James Meeks, who dropped out of the race last week, are expected to be at Davis's news conference. more ›

Mayor Daley’s announcement that he wouldn’t seek a seventh term rocked the city to its foundation. But almost immediately after Daley uttered the words that would lead to the first truly open mayoral election in a generation, speculation began as to who would run and who would drop out. And then Rahm Emanuel moved back to Chicago and rendered all that moot within a few weeks with a campaign that could have been lifted directly from Daley’s playbook. more ›

Looks like State Senator Rev. James Meeks answered Kevin's question, although he did tried to bury it by doing so in an e-mail released to media late yesterday. more ›

The Sun-Times reported on a meeting between mayoral candidates Carol Moseley Braun, Danny Davis and James Meeks yesterday. Ostensibly a meeting to make a last-ditch effort to unite behind a single consensus black candidate for mayor, Davis told the Sun-Times that they discussed “factors that will contribute most significantly to victory for whoever is running and their chances of being successful,” and the timing of the meeting - one day before the deadline to withdraw from the race - is fueling speculation that Meeks may withdraw his candidacy. more ›

Carol Moseley Braun, the Rev. James Meeks, Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle, four of the five primary politicians trailing Rahm Emanuel in the mayoral election polls, gathered at Walter Payton Magnet High School to debate education reform last night in a forum moderated by Better Government Association President Andy Shaw. None of them said that the Chicago Public Schools system was performing well, campaigning as much against the recent record of Mayor Daley as each other. more ›

The Rev. James Meeks has been a state senator for over seven years and he's blurred the line between politics and preaching long before he was elected to serve in Springfield. So why does it seem like he's only being asked about how he strikes a balance between rendering unto Caesar and God what is theirs now? We're guessing his mayoral campaign has something to do with it. more ›

Rahm Emmanuel isn’t the only mayoral candidate whose candidacy faces residency challenges. more ›

Mayoral candidate Rev. James Meeks paid a visit to Ann Sather's on Belmont on Wednesday, part of his "50 wards in 50 days" tour. The visit was part of Meeks's ongoing outreach to Chicago's gay community. Ann Sather's is owned by Tom Tunney, the first openly gay alderman in Chicago. "I'm reaching out today," Meeks told the Sun-Times before entering the restaurant. more ›

Mayoral candidate James Meeks is seeking support from the city's corporate community, according to a report by Crain's Chicago Business. Several weeks ago Meeks had breakfast with a group of corporate heads to talk about school vouchers, cuts to city spending and his experience as arguably the largest employer in Chicago's Roseland neighborhood. more ›

In what could soon become a full-blown scandal, Illinois Secretary of State police are investigating allegedly false signatures by notaries public in nominating petitions for four candidates. Nominating petitions for James Meeks, Carol Moseley Braun, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins and Rob Halpin, who withdrew from the race yesterday, are all under scrutiny now after two notaries public charged that their signatures were forged on hundreds of petitions filed for several candidates gathered by paid circulators. more ›

Rahm Emanuel has been pressing flesh and listening to people bitch about what's wrong with the city pretty much from the moment he came back to town to kick off his mayoral campaign. James Meeks is going to take the listening tour concept further. more ›

More petition troubles for James Meeks, along with fellow mayoral candidates Carol Moseley Braun and Particia Van Pelt-Watkins. A Park Ridge notary public is claiming that his signature was forged on election petitions filed by all three candidates. Meeks, Braun and Watkins filed a combined 1,913 petitions supposedly notarized by Alex Caplan, but the Sun-Times copies of the notary signature doesn't match Caplan's previous signatures of record. Matter of fact, they don't look close. more ›

Sun-Times columnist Mark Brown sat down and had a nice chat with Arthur Hardy, Jr. Hardy is the homeless man who allegedly gathered signatures for the mayoral campaigns of James Meeks and renter of Rahm Emanuel's home Rob Halpin. more ›

Both the Chicago News Cooperative and the Sun-Times are reporting that some of the people who collected signatures to get mayoral candidates on the ballot might not be Chicago residents, or have residency backgrounds that suggest their support may not be everything that the candidates claim their campaigns are. more ›

On Friday, prominent election law attorney Burt Odelson filed his residency challenge to Rahm Emanuel's mayoral candidacy. Nine similar challenges were filed Friday, along with the five that were filed the day before Thanksgiving. more ›

The saying goes, "Variety is the spice of life." But in the race to replace Richard Daley as Mayor, the list of candidates is just slightly to the left of overkill. more ›

Coming on the heels of critical statements from James Meeks and Rahm Emanuel that Daley also had a hard time brushing off, we have to ask how May Day will be reacting when we reach the election, or once he has to start packing up his things to make way for his successor. more ›

The deadline to file for the mayoral election is next Monday, but James Meeks, Danny Davis and Rahm Emanuel all formally announced their candidacies for the seat being vacated by Richard Daley over the weekend. Each candidate said that they were the best choice to unite Chicago's residents lead the city into the future. None of the candidates offered specifics as to how they would do that. more ›

State Senator James Meeks criticized the Chicago Coalition for Mayor that was charged with finding a "consensus" African-American candidate for mayor in an interview with Crain's Chicago Business' Greg Hinz. Meek said the process was too focused on race and stacked against him from the start, although it didn't stop Meeks from actively seeking the group's blessing, even going so far as to give up his ministering duties at Salem Baptist Church in order to curry favor with the coalition. more ›

After a two-month long decision, a coalition of African-American political, religious, and community leaders in Chicago has chosen Congressman Danny Davis as its candidate for mayor. The coalition chose Davis over the two other finalists that were announced last month, former Senator Carol Moseley Braun and Board of Review Commissioner Larry Rogers. It appears that Congressman Davis was chosen over the other finalists because he impressed the coalition with his ideas, and the coalition also saw Davis' potential in attracting a wide range of voters come election time:

The coalition chairman, Ald. Walter Burnett (27th), said Davis impressed members during a sit-down Friday. "Carol was highly considered," he said. "But with Danny's interview, his grasp of city government, his international relationships -- dealing with Chicago as a global city -- it gave him some different appeal." more ›

"Chicago voters need to know that my priority is with all the people of Chicago and not just a segment," Meeks said in a statement released to the press Monday morning. more ›

Even with Tom Dart taking his name out of consideration, the list of candidates and prospective candidates vying to replace Richard Daley as mayor still resembles the mysterious tumbleweeds that plague Bridgeport during Christmas. The group of politicians, clergy and community leaders that make up the "Chicago Coalition for Mayor" have narrowed their candidates for the "consensus" Black candidate for the February election to former Senator Carol Moseley Braun and Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Larry Rogers, Jr. more ›

The wide open field of Mayoral candidates narrowed today when Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announced he would not run for mayor. Dart cited family commitments as the reason he was not running, but Dan Mihalopoulos, reporting for Early and Often, writes that Dart was faced with the grim reality that any money he could raise for a mayoral campaign would pale in comparison to the money pipeline Rahm Emanuel will have at his disposal. Mihalopoulos's source said Dart's consultants, Joe Trippi and Tom Lindenfeld, couldn't find a scenario where Dart could raise even half as much as the war chest predicted for Emanuel. more ›

Gov. Pat Quinn continued to make like Pontius Pilate and wash his hands of incendiary comments State Senator Rickey Hendon made about Bill Brady at a campaign rally Saturday. Hendon said of Brady, "I've never served with such an idiotic, racist, sexist, homophobic person in my life. " more ›

The Rev. James Meeks raised the hackles of some local politicians last week when he said that he would not step down as the minister of his Salem Baptist Church if he was elected Mayor next spring. Saying that stepping down was "non-negotiable," Meeks said he could run both the church and carry out the duties of mayor. Some critics, such as 34th Ward Alderman Carrie Austin, countered that Meeks has to consider stepping down, citing the grueling responsibilities of being mayor and saying that doing both is a violation of the Constitution's separation of church and state. Although, to our knowledge, none of these folks ever raised that issue during Rev. Meeks's tenure as a State Senator. more ›