A.D. Q&A with A.D. Quig
32 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 33 ratingsCrain's Chicago Business political reporter A.D. Quig conducts smart, engaging conversations with key newsmakers on the critical issues facing Chicago and Illinois.
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Episodes
A.D. Q&A on the future of work in Illinois
May 30, 2022 17:16 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MBIf you read Crain’s, you’ve probably spent a good amount of time thinking about the future of work – e-commerce, automation and telecommuting. Even if you don’t spend much time thinking about it, it’s abundantly clear that covid has rapidly accelerated those trends. Remote schooling and telehealth became necessities. Online shopping that might’ve been limited to clothes or homewares pre-covid exploded, with more people getting things like groceries delivered much more often. And there’s a hei...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago Reader Publisher Tracy Baim
May 23, 2022 22:08 - 47 minutes - 64.5 MBThe Chicago Reader is one of the city’s best-known free papers and one of a few remaining alt-weeklies to survive the media crunch that killed dozens across the country. Until recently, the Reader seemed like it was about to go under, too. Our guest this week is the Reader’s publisher, Tracy Baim. She’s been in the Chicago media world since she was a kid. Her mother, father and stepfather were all in the biz. Fresh out of college, she founded the LGBTQ publication the Windy City Times. In 201...
A.D. Q&A with new Chicago Inspector General Deborah Witzburg
May 16, 2022 20:17 - 41 minutes - 57.4 MBChicago's Office of the Inspector General has published many blockbuster reports over the years. Its job is to investigate corruption, misconduct, waste, fraud and abuse big and small. In recent years, it's found a culture of sexual harassment in the Chicago Fire Department, blasted the Chicago Police Department’s response to summer looting in 2020, and helped U.S. Attorney John Lausch secure indictments of City Council members. But despite its importance to chipping away at city waste, the o...
A.D. Q&A with AMA CEO Jim Madara on how overturning Roe v. Wade could criminalize healthcare
May 09, 2022 21:10 - 42 minutes - 57.7 MBWhen the U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion leaked suggesting Roe v Wade would be overturned this summer, immediate reaction came from the political sphere. What did President Biden say? Gubernatorial candidates? Pro- and anti-abortion groups? And what did this mean for Illinois as a so-called abortion access oasis? But reaction from the medical community trickled in slower. This episode presents a conversation A.D. Quig had with the CEO of the American Medical Association, Dr. James Madara, la...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago Police Department whistleblower Chad Williams
May 02, 2022 22:35 - 49 minutes - 68.3 MBThe name of this week's guest, Chad Williams, might ring a bell if you’ve followed the lengthy debate about how the Chicago Police Department is meeting its reform mandates as part of the consent decree. Williams made a splash when his letter resigning from CPD’s audit division was made public in the Chicago Tribune in November. In it, Williams accused department leadership of pursuing superficial compliance with the court-ordered reforms. Their aim, he says, was to get better media coverage ...
A.D. Q&A on solving downtown Chicago's problems with Ald. Brendan Reilly
April 25, 2022 20:00 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBThis week, we examine the state of the Loop. If you read Crain’s, you know the recovery is… uneven. Let’s take a quick look at some headlines at chicagobusiness.com about the Loop area office scene, in case you missed them: Downtown office vacancy jumps to another record high... Louis Vuitton's Mag Mile landlord ready to cash out... Chicago Law firm Skadden starting a new lease with about half the space... you get the picture. The Chicago Loop Alliance reports as of March, hotels are only 52%...
A.D. Q&A on Harold Washington at 100: his historic mayoral race and lasting impact
April 18, 2022 21:34 - 42 minutes - 38.7 MBLast week, dignitaries from across the city and state celebrated the late Mayor Harold Washington, whose 100th birthday would have been April 15. Top Washington aides like Jacky Grimshaw and Josie Childs; contemporaries like Congressmen "Chuy" Garcia, Bobby Rush and former Congressman Luis Gutierrez, Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans and the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and top elected officials like Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and current Chicag...
A.D. Q&A on Chicago City Council attendance
April 11, 2022 22:46 - 38 minutes - 35.6 MBWhat if you skipped half the meetings you were supposed to attend for work? A third? A quarter? Could you still be effective? Would you still know everything you needed to do your job well? To earn your full paycheck? That’s what you should ask of your elected representatives, too. On this week’s show, we’re digging into an investigation that Crain’s, WBEZ and The Daily Line published this week about how often members of Chicago City Council show up. There’s good news: aldermanic attendance i...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago violent crime expert Jens Ludwig
April 04, 2022 21:36 - 48 minutes - 44.1 MBAs Chicago emerges from its most violent year since the 1990s, year-to-date crime statistics for March show a slight drop in shootings and murders, according to the Chicago Police Department – with the biggest drops in the city’s 15 most violent community areas. But our guest this week argues something has been amiss in Chicago for about 30 years. Professor Jens Ludwig, who helps lead the University of Chicago’s Crime and Education Labs, and the National Bureau of Economic Research’s working ...
A.D. Q&A with leaders of Chicago anti-violence efforts
March 28, 2022 20:27 - 51 minutes - 47.2 MBAs Illinois lawmakers edge toward the end of spring session and head into campaign season, talk of potential bills to address a rise in crime is heating up. Democratic lawmakers, fearful of polling that shows violence is a top concern for voters, have discussed legislation cracking down on ghost guns, organized retail theft and carjacking. Gov. Pritzker’s budget includes increases to state police and witness protection, as well as grants for anti-violence programs. Republicans, meanwhile, are...
A.D. Q&A with The House That Madigan Built author Ray Long
March 21, 2022 21:00 - 46 minutes - 42.6 MBIllinois’ political world was rocked on March 2, when U.S. Attorney John Lausch announced a 22-count federal racketeering indictment against former House Speaker Michael J. Madigan. The charges allege Madigan oversaw a criminal enterprise to preserve and enhance his political power and finances, reward allies for their loyalty, and generate income for members and associates through illegal activities. Based on other indictments and reporting, it was clear Madigan had been in the feds’ crossha...
A.D. Q&A with Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Larry Rogers Jr.
March 14, 2022 21:44 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBMarch in Cook County this year marks the official start of primary season and, for many, the due date for first installment property taxes. We talk both primary and property taxes with Larry Rogers Jr. In his private life, Rogers is a successful trial attorney at Power Rogers LLP. In public life, he’s a Democrat and the current longest-serving Commissioner on Cook County’s three-member Board of Review. That’s the second stop for property owners looking to appeal their assessments and hopefull...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady
March 07, 2022 22:45 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBChicago is in its second week without an indoor mask mandate or vaccine requirement to get into certain bars and restaurants. COVID cases are under 200 per day. Our test positivity is under one percent - a number we haven’t seen since last summer. We’re in a new era of the pandemic, officials have said, one in which we learn how to live with the virus and work to keep healthcare settings from getting overwhelmed. But at this time two years ago, the city was only testing about a dozen people p...
A.D. Q&A charting Bronzeville's transformation
February 28, 2022 22:45 - 38 minutes - 35.3 MBThis week, to close out Black History Month, we’re talking Bronzeville. The Black Metropolis south of the Loop along the lakefront has a rich history of culture and entrepreneurship. It’s been home to great writers, artists, musicians, politicians and intellectuals. Now it’s the subject of a new limited series from Crain’s. Hosted by Crain's residential real estate reporter Dennis Rodkin, the debut of Crain’s Four-Star Stories takes a look at the neighborhood’s recent real estate transformati...
A.D. Q&A with Obama Foundation executive Michael Strautmanis
February 21, 2022 22:18 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBThis week's guest has been behind the scenes in Chicago politics for years, but just out of the frame. He’s crossed paths with Rod Blagojevich and Jesse Jackson Jr., worked on the Clinton/Gore campaign in the same political organization as a young Don Harmon and Phil Rock. But for the bulk of his career, he’s worked for the Obamas, starting as a paralegal to Michelle Robinson at the law firm of Sidley Austin - not long before she and a hotshot Harvard grad named Barack Obama got married. Abou...
A.D. Q&A with leaders of Kids First Chicago and Big Shoulders Fund
February 14, 2022 22:32 - 46 minutes - 42.9 MBEach fall, Chicago media report a consistent trend – declining enrollment at Chicago Public Schools. Of those who left by the start of the 2022 school year, about 18,000 moved to a school outside Chicago, 3,000 transferred to private schools, 2,000 dropped out and 1,400 opted for home schooling. Overall, CPS’s net loss of students was 10,000. This year’s drop came in the wake of COVID upheaval at the district, including a protracted fight between the teachers union and the district over the s...
A.D. Q&A with Civic Federation President Laurence Msall
February 07, 2022 21:33 - 42 minutes - 39.2 MBIllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s budget proposal likely will be a key plank of his re-election platform. Not only does it contain goodies for everyday Illinoisans – a property tax rebate for roughly 2 million people, plus a one-year break on grocery and gas taxes – the governor says it demonstrates he’s made good on a pledge to dig the state out of the financial morass of the budget impasse during Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration. Here to analyze that budget is Laurence Msall, presi...
A.D. Q&A with the filmmakers of Punch 9 for Harold Washington
January 31, 2022 22:25 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBThis week, we go back in time with the makers of the documentary Punch 9 for Harold Washington. The film examines the incomparable former Mayor of Chicago’s time in office. Pulled from Congress, Washington became Chicago’s first Black Mayor in 1983 thanks to a multiracial coalition of progressives who campaigned hard on his behalf. He took over after one-termer Jane Byrne and after decades under Richard J. Daley’s leadership. The film includes archival footage and candid interviews with a cav...
A.D. Q&A with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle
January 24, 2022 22:19 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MBToni Preckwinkle, president of the Cook County Board and chair of the Cook County Democratic Party, has been at the center of local politics, power and policy for years, so she has a lot of critical issues to discuss, from COVID struggles at the county’s health system and what suburbanites are getting for their federal relief money to three major retirements among county commissioners and what the party might do to replace them, and her worries about big money – specifically Ken Griffin’s mon...
A.D. Q&A with economist Austan Goolsbee
January 17, 2022 22:35 - 41 minutes - 38.2 MBThis week's guest is Austan Goolsbee, a former economic advisor to President Barack Obama, a frequent contributor to the New York Times, and currently the Robert P. Gwinn Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. As the pandemic has surged, Goolsbee’s been keeping a close eye on the major questions confronting our economic future: inflation, supply chain and the future of work. We recorded on the afternoon of Jan. 14, when Chicago and Illinois seemed to b...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago Teachers Union VP Stacy Davis Gates
January 10, 2022 22:54 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBChicago Public Schools families have logged four days of canceled classes and counting this month. Citing the December COVID surge, the botched rollout of take-home testing over the holidays, and low numbers of families opting for their kids to be regularly tested or to get their shot, the Chicago Teachers Union voted last Tuesday to work remotely through January 18. The city called that vote an illegal work stoppage. The district canceled classes and blocked union members from accessing thei...
A.D. Q&A with Susan Lee of Chicago CRED
December 20, 2021 22:53 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBChicago is poised to end 2021 with more than 800 homicides, the most violent year in a quarter century. Discussing the rising violence is Susan Lee, chief of strategy and policy at Chicago CRED – an anti-gun violence organization. CRED works with men at risk – of being shooting victims or becoming a shooter themselves. It connects them with cognitive behavioral therapy, life coaching and job opportunities, conducts street outreach to defuse conflict and broker peace agreements between rivals,...
A.D. Q&A with Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi
December 13, 2021 22:07 - 43 minutes - 40.3 MBAfter roughly three years of upending the Cook County Assessor’s office, Fritz Kaegi is in re-election mode. He’s responsible for setting the values for 1.8 million parcels across the county, which help determine local property tax bills. He came into office on an ethics crusade, pledging to end patronage while also fundamentally rejiggering how the office values big commercial buildings. He’s got early reports that indicate his values are closer to the mark. But politics is never that simple...
A.D. Q&A with Dr. Emily Landon of UChicago Medicine
December 06, 2021 22:14 - 42 minutes - 39 MBOn this week's episode of A.D. Q&A, Dr. Emily Landon, a professor and the medical director for infection prevention and control at UChicago Medicine, describes what we know – and don't yet know – about omicron. "On paper, it looks like a superpredator," Landon says of the variant, which appears more transmissible and less susceptible to vaccines. It will take days or weeks to know how it affects more vaccinated populations. "What we need to know is how fast this spreads and how well it does i...
A.D. Q&A with Congressman Adam Kinzinger
November 29, 2021 21:36 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBCongressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has been a national media fixture for more than a year – a Republican ushered into the U.S. House during the Tea Party wave, he turned into a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and “The Big Lie” about election fraud. He was one of ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump and one of only two to create a special committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. More recently, he was one of only 13 to vote for the infrastructure bil...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago Deputy Mayor Samir Mayekar
November 22, 2021 22:45 - 35 minutes - 32.9 MBWhile we’re thinking about big Thanksgiving meals, few folks in Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration have more on their plates than Samir Mayekar, deputy mayor for economic and neighborhood development, a.k.a. the mayor’s business guy. He’s a Day One Lightfooter who came from the tech world, running a Bronzeville-based lithium battery materials startup called NanoGraf. Now he’s the go-to in the administration on a series of key agenda items: the Chicago casino, the city’s post-COVID ...
A.D. Q&A with Northwestern University professor Jaime Dominguez
November 15, 2021 22:52 - 39 minutes - 36.3 MBIn the latest census, the overall share of the Latino population across Illinois grew to 18.2 percent, up from 15.8 percent a decade ago. Their share of the voting-age population grew to 11.2 percent, up from 8 percent. Meanwhile, Chicago has been solidified as a city roughly equally divided between white, Black and Latino people. With Chicago’s Black population on the decline, Latinos are now the second-largest racial or ethnic group, and could surpass the city’s white population in the comi...
A.D. Q&A with Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez
November 08, 2021 22:37 - 37 minutes - 34.7 MBAfter more than a decade away, Pedro Martinez rejoined Chicago Public Schools as CEO with an overflowing inbox. A safe reopening amid the pandemic was first and foremost, but testing was low, and so was the number of eligible kids who were fully vaccinated. There were kids who couldn’t get to school, thanks to a shortage of bus drivers. And there were dirty classrooms, thanks to a shortage of custodians. A.D. Quig spoke with Martinez on Nov. 3 – before the departure of CPS’ facilities chief o...
A.D. Q&A with Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx
November 01, 2021 20:04 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBAs Chicago closes the book on a pandemic-fueled violent summer, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx explains her progressive approach to prosecutions: fewer felony drug and shoplifting charges, and more emphasis on gun violence. Foxx, the county's lead prosecutor, goes in-depth on the controversies that have kept her office in the headlines, including the sometimes-rocky relationship with city and suburban police, a public disagreement with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Superintendent Da...
A.D. Q&A with Professor Justin Marlowe
October 25, 2021 19:38 - 40 minutes - 37.4 MBAs the Chicago City Council takes up Mayor Lori Lightfoot's $16.7 billion budget proposal, A.D. Quig asks, Does this budget set the city up for a roaring recovery? Are we spending money on the right programs? She discusses the budget's economic implications with Justin Marlowe, Professor at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy and associate director of the school's Center for Municipal Finance. He is an expert with UChicago's Urban Network.
A.D. Q&A with Congresswoman Robin Kelly
October 18, 2021 21:48 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBU.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Matteson), discusses how her leadership of the Democratic Party of Illinois will carve a new path from predecessor Mike Madigan, her relationship with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, the outlook for President Biden’s legislative agenda in the 2022 elections, and her hopes for new congressional maps.
Introducing A.D. Q&A with A.D. Quig
October 15, 2021 21:03 - 1 minute - 1.23 MBEvery Tuesday, A.D. Q&A will bring listeners in-depth interviews with newsmakers, policy wonks and politicians… a mix of the big headlines and the critical issues facing our city and state. The goal is to help listeners understand the inner workings of government, give them context for the hot-button issues dominating the news, and introduce them to the powerful people steering our city and state. We hope it’s entertaining… illuminating… and helps listeners understand what’s going to happen ...