Cindi Canary joins us today to talk about how new campaign finance laws will affect the municipal elections, come January 1. She’s director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, and she tells us that, especially in the runoff election, finance limits could play an important role.

Also on the program –  Tribune reporters Hal Dardick and John Byrne, both of whom cover City Hall for the newspaper and for the Trib’s Clout Street blog.  With so much focus on the mayor’s race, we take a look down the ballot at some of the more contentious battles going on at the ward level.

And when we asked the panel whether they could find one reasonable, logical argument for knocking Rahm Emanuel off the ballot for residency reasons, it got a good laugh. “How can you base the question on reason and logic?” asked the grizzled veteran Mr. Byrne.