"Newcomer (Michael) Crawford, 41, had the backing of Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch. ... The race became a proxy for Welch’s power to control his own members. Welch and Democratic-supporting unions backed Crawford, raising a whopping $1.7 million. That’s more than Flowers raised in total over the last 30 years."
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.