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It's a major election campaign season, and that means a lot of money is flowing in Illinois.

The cost of contested races in the state is soaring. In 1994, the most expensive Senate race — Grace Mary Stern vs. Kathy Parker in the 29th —topped $1.3 million. Twenty-four legislative races exceeded $300,000, whereas only four had topped that amount four years earlier. While some say this is just a fact of life, many others don't like it but aren't sure whether enacting contribution or spending limits in Illinois would solve the problem.

That's why Illinois Issues is in the midst of a two-year research and citizen education project dealing with campaign finances in Illinois. Together with Kent Redfield, a professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, and staff of UIS's Institute for Public Affairs, we have researched campaign finance data for all statewide and legislative elections in 1994.

Our polling shows that nearly nine in 10 Illinoisans are "concerned" or "very concerned" about the flow of money in Illinois politics. Maybe that's one reason the topic has generated a surprising amount of attention this spring in the General Assembly. A new House Republican task force has taken up the issue, and numerous campaign finance bills have been introduced.

We'll release our project's first major research report this month, and then go to several Illinois cities later this year to conduct public forums on campaign finance issues. At the end of the year, the project's task force will issue some recommendations for change.

The issue deserves careful study and lots of debate, so we'll keep you posted about what we find out.

In January we asked in our Question of the Month whether the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois should do whatever is necessary to keep the Chicago Bears playing in or near downtown Chicago.

The response was the biggest ever to any question we have posed. Almost three out of four readers answered "no." Many opposed the use of tax money to help a private company like the Bears, while some said it might be OK for Chicago to kick in some money, but the rest of the state should not have to pay for this Chicago enterprise.

There were few pure anti-Bears responses, but as one reader put it, "Taxpayers should not have to subsidize a business whose rank-and-file workers are paid $500,000 a year."

Many who answered "yes" commented that the Bears are just too important to the city. But one wrote "yes" and added: "Get it [this discussion] over with so Springfield can focus on the lack of funding for education."