Suburban Corruption Forum: What Corruption Tax Are You Paying? CAC and Elmhurst College partner to bring author, professor, and former Chicago Alderman Dr. Dick Simpson from UIC who has written another study on the cost of corruption, this time focusing on the suburbs.

Green Grass and Graft: Corruption in the Suburbs will be held on Monday, October 1, at 7:00 p.m. in the Founders Lounge of the Frick Center. The event is free and open to the public.

After the forum, Simpson and Mixon will sign copies of their book Twenty-First Century Chicago (2011). The book takes a fresh look at metropolitan Chicago today, during a pivotal point in the region’s economic, social, political, and governmental history. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

For more information about the forum, contact Constance Mixon at (630) 617-3569, mixonc@elmhurst.edu; or Terry Pastika at (630) 833-4080, tpastika@citizenadvocacycenter.org.

Read complete information here.

By Karen Chadra    Email the author

Jessica Ahlquist, who sued her school to have a prayer removed from the gymnasium wall,  is speaking to government students Tuesday, during Constitution Week.

What started as muted frustration among some parents of York High School government students over the choice of a speaker for Constitution Week is now a multi-pronged debate—in some cases heated—between educators, parents, atheists and the Illinois Family Institute.

Citizen Advocacy Center in Elmhurst selected this year's speaker for Constitution Week, as they have for the past two years.

"The CAC does the legwork as far as finding and selecting speakers and we make ourselves available that week for the person to come to our school," said Charles Ovando, Research and Social Sciences Division chairman at York.

The speaker this year, 17-year-old Jessica Ahlquist, is an atheist from Rhode Island who filed a federal lawsuit to force her high school to remove a religious banner that had hung in the school's gymnasium for 49 years.

Atheism is a polarizing subject, as Ahlquist found. She won her battle to have the prayer removed, but bullying and threats in her school and community forced her to withdraw from school.

And here in Elmhurst, a predominantly Christian/Catholic community, the polarization continues. The CAC refers to Ahlquist as a "defender of free speech" who stood up against tremendous adversity in the name of democracy. But some parents see the visit as a means to thrust liberal talking points on teenagers.

To read the entire article click here or paste the address below into your browser:
http://elmhurst.patch.com/articles/jessica-ahlquist-athiest-york-high-school

Be sure to check out the comments where a lively discussion is taking place!

Non-Partisan Group Offers Forum on Campaign Finance Laws
posted on WDCB website September 6th, 2012

The influence of money in politics isn’t new, but it is under heightened scrutiny in 2012. This is the first presidential election since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which green-lighted unlimited corporate spending in elections. Super PACs have already spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support their favored candidates. Political Action Committees are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money for candidates, but are supposed to remain separate from the campaigns they support and not coordinate with them. The Elmhurst-based Citizen Advocacy Center will host a forum tonight on the impact the Citizens United ruling has had on politics. Attorney Maryam Judar will lead the discussion. She tells WDCB News the hope is the forum will shed some light on an issue many voters don’t pay attention to. The latest numbers show …the Mitt Romney-associated super PAC … “Restore Our Future” has outraised the Barack Obama-associated …“Priorities USA” … by a five-to-one margin. The Citizens United Forum starts at 7 pm.

http://wdcb.org/programming/newsroom.php