•September 13, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

Former Illinois governor Jim Edgar (1991-98) has developed a bipartisan program for up-and-coming leaders in our state. It has the potential to take our politics from the gutter up toward constructive, problem-solving give and take.

The recent concord on state school funding, for example, a topic riven for years by regional and partisan rancor, may have resulted, in good part anyway, from bonds forged earlier in the Edgar Fellows Program.

Every summer since 2012, Edgar has gathered a new crop of 40 young mayors, fresh-faced state lawmakers and others for an intensive week-long crash course on how to get along and think about how to make Illinois better.

Leadership programs, all valuable, are today so-everywhere. Yet, the Edgar Fellows Program is different, really different.

“I wanted something that was diverse, bipartisan and drew people who were already committed and successfully involved in government and politics,” the moderate, one-time GOP governor told me recently. “People who are likely to make it big in Illinois.”     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.