Ray LaHood

The two came together at Braden Auditorium at Illinois State University for a question-and-answer session moderated by WGLT's Charlie Schlenker, in the first of a series of Democracy Dialogues.

U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Richard Durbin and former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood will kick off a “Democracy Dialogues” series on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, at 7 p.m. in Illinois State University’s Braden Auditorium at the Bone Student Center. This free, all-ages-welcome event is hosted by the McLean County Museum of History in collaboration with Illinois State University, WGLT, the Dirksen Congressional Center, and other community partners.

The ideal of bipartisanship has dwindled in Congress and in Washington over several decades. The Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin is holding an event to highlight the importance of that quality in helping government work well.

Amid Republican party efforts to gain congressional seats through off-cycle redistricting in Texas, there's an effort to revive a push for an Illinois state constitutional amendment to make political redistricting less, well, political.

It took more than 30 years to bring 110 mph passenger train service from Chicago to St. Louis. It could take that or longer to get true high-speed rail along the same corridor.

You should not expect any big transformational project to be straightforward. That's a takeaway from Part 2 of our series "Hard Things" about the heavy lifts and big dream efforts our society and community achieve.

How does society do hard things? In this first part of our new series "Hard Things," WGLT unpacks the generational project that brought faster passenger train service to Illinois.

Former U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood will be discussing civility and bipartisanship as keynote speaker of the League of Women Voters of McLean County annual fundraising event Tuesday in Bloomington.

Americans have rarely been as polarized as they are today, but Brad McMillan, chief of staff for former Republican Rep. Ray LaHood, believes the country…

Ray LaHood spent more than two decades in Congress and served another 4 1/2 years as President Barack Obama's first Secretary of Transportation. Next…