As a journalist covering Chicago politics, verifying information is like climbing a mountain of sand. With each step you take, the deeper you sink.

Last week while researching claims from a local Tea Party activist, I found myself asking a family for proof that they had lost an unborn grandchild.

The family, Dan and Midge Hough, of Chicago, spoke in favor of health care reform and in support of U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-3rd) at a Nov. 14 town hall meeting in Oak Lawn.

Their daughter-in-law, Jenny, and an unborn grandchild died recently due in part, they believe, to a lack of health insurance. They said Jenny was not receiving regular prenatal care and ended up in an emergency room with double pneumonia that developed into septic shock. Her baby died in the womb, and Jenny died a few weeks later, leaving behind a husband and a 2-year-old daughter.

Catherina Wojtowicz, of Chicago's Mount Greenwood community, an organizer for a Tea Party splinter group, Chicago Tea Party Patriots, falsely claimed that the Houghs fabricated their story. In an e-mail, she called them operatives of President Barack Obama who "go from event to event and (cry) the same story."

When the Houghs spoke at the Lipinski event, some Tea Partiers ridiculed them. They moaned and rolled their eyes and interrupted. Midge Hough began to cry.

The audience, Wojtowicz later explained, was exasperated by stories of isolated tragedies that cloud debate over the health care bill itself.

"What we are talking about is the bill," she said. "We've all had family members pass away, but would this health care bill really have prevented (Jenny's) death? We do question it."

It certainly was a low mark in a very dark week. What could be more illustrative of our state's political marshland than openly mocking a grieving family?

"I'm very sorry about the whole lack of dialogue," Wojtowicz said. "My reaction to Midge? I don't know what to say."

Neither do I.

The week began with the Tea Partiers. It ended with ballot shenanigans in the 36th and 37th Illinois House districts, where Democrats once again circulated petitions for candidates whose sole purpose is to confuse Southland voters.

Meanwhile, in the 21st House District, the Democratic Party is circling the wagons for freshman state Rep. Michael Zalewski, of Chicago's Southwest Side.

Party warlords handed him the seat in 2008 when former state Rep. Bob Molaro (D-Chicago) retired, and now they're trying to kick Zalewski's sole opponent, Terrence Collins, off the Feb. 2 primary election ballot.

Talk about a cakewalk.

When Zalewski's dad, Chicago Ald. Michael Zalewski (23rd), who's also the ward committeeman, slated his son for the House seat, the younger Zalewski promised to earn the seat going forward.

"I'm not naive. I understand the perception on a lot of this stuff," he told me then. "All I can say is I've worked hard as an attorney, a prosecutor, and I've gone about this as best as I can. Let me earn this one door to door, one vote at a time, because I'm going to."

Last week, Rep. Zalewski distanced himself from the ballot challenge initiated by his pal, Molaro, the objector.

"I will be knocking on doors and going into the election working hard until November, and that's all I can do," Zalewski said.

It won't be too difficult considering that his November opponent, Republican Jeffrey Malinowski, is really a plant for the Democrats.

It's no wonder we get stuck with the same elected officials, decade after decade. Try to run against them, and you're toast before the loaf is even sliced.

Two governors jailed, one likely on his way, a parade of Chicago aldermen and officials and workers charged with bribery and corruption, and where are we, exactly, on the path to reform? To clean elections?

We're at the bottom of the game board headed for a chute, not a ladder - exactly where we've been stuck for the past 30 years.