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Issues in Illinois

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Public Safety

We need to repeal HB3653, the so-called Safe-T Act. In fact, this bill has made us less safe, and it is designed to be easy on criminals. We cannot tie the hands of law enforcement and pretend that somehow, we will be safer. HB3653 needs to be repealed. Since the implementation of this bill the 54thDistrict has seen an uptick in crime and the release of many criminals who should be in jail. No cash bail means criminals walk our streets.

Immigration

The “migrant crisis” was created by the Illinois Legislature when they enacted the so-called “Trust” Act in 2017. The Trust Act prohibited law enforcement officers from working with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Illinois is also a “sanctuary” state and has incentivized “migrants” from all over the world to endanger their families to travel here. We need to repeal the Trust Act and renounce the “sanctuary” status that Illinois currently carries. Illinois has spent $2 Billion dollars providing health care and other benefits to illegal immigrants in 2023 and 2024. 

Parental Rights

The Illinois Legislature has continued to take away the rights of parents. Their social issue agenda is so extreme that they have enacted laws that allow an abortion for a twelve year old child without parental notification. Theoretically a child could be impregnated by her abuser and then driven to an abortion clinic to cover up the evidence. At the very least a judge and law enforcement should be involved in these cases so that the rights of parents and their child are fairly represented. Parents should raise children not the government.

Unfunded State Mandates

The Illinois legislature continually produces legislation that creates mandates on local communities and school districts without paying the costs of those mandates. A local example is found in the Prospect Heights School District that is being forced to pass a property tax increase referendum in order to pay for all day kindergarten. State Mandates should be funded by the state not by local property taxes. 

The State Budget

By every measurement, the state budget is a shambles. The Governor points to a couple of up-ticks from Moody’s Investment advisories but we all know that these were temporary and primarily attributed to the covid relief dollars that were given to Illinois. We need to take a hard look at what we are spending tax dollars on, and we need to move to a zero-based budgeting system that requires all expenditures to be justified. Despite rising pension obligations the state has spent over a billion dollars paying for healthcare and housing for illegal migrants while there are citizens and veterans who are homeless and without the humanitarian response afforded non-citizens. The FY 2024 budget is $5 Billion dollars more than the previous budget and includes new taxes and fees.

Jobs and the Economy

We must have a pro-growth agenda in Illinois that reduces our taxes and encourages businesses to set up shop here instead of fleeing to other states where they have policies that support economic growth and job creation. Illinois has one of the highest gasoline taxes in the country now at $.47 per gallon. This is a tax on every citizen and business in Illinois.

Education

The pandemic response taught us many things about how parents need to have a say in their children’s education. On the education front, we learned about the power of the teacher’s union and many parents who pulled their children out of public schools are learning about school vouchers and school choice. The number one responsibility of teachers is to educate our children in areas of science, math, language arts, and social studies, and based on test scores the schools are failing. The issue is not teachers’ salaries but rather the product. We need to work together to solve this problem because our state is failing our children. State mandates on our schools are forcing tax increases and state meddling in the curriculum in our schools is taking away our local control of our school districts. Schools in Illinois are additionally burdened by mandates from Springfield and an influx of migrant children adding to the burden of local property taxes.

Emergency Powers

The legislature needs to take up the issue of “emergency powers”, such as those exercised by the Governor during the Pandemic. Illinois should not brush this issue under the rug because the government’s handling of the situation was met with mistrust. The people of Illinois want to know that next time the legislature will not cede its role to any Governor. We need legislation that will ensure that no Governor, regardless of political party affiliation, is able to wield the kind of authority that JB Pritzker was allowed to do.