By Cynthia Grau/WJEZ News
The Livingston County Republicans held a candidate forum Friday at Pontiac Township High School with many state and federal candidates attending that will appear on local ballots.
Dan Brady is up for re-election as State Representative for the 105th District. He gave details on some objectives he has for the next term if he is re-elected.
“One of the major focuses I have is legislation that is dealing with trying to revamp higher education in the State of Illinois, in particular, looking to stop the outward migration of high school students leaving to go to other states to seek higher education. Once we lose those students, they don’t come back to Illinois, statistics show. Therefore, we lose a good workforce and tax base. So, some of the changes within the bill, makes it an easier process in which for high school students to apply, kind of a universal app process to all of our 12 state universities. That will be a major focus if I’m re-elected and sent back to the General Assembly, for higher education reform,” Brady said.
Jim Marter is running against incumbent Adam Kinzinger for the 16th Congressional seat and had some ideas on what he would like to do if elected.
“I’m in this race to go to Washington to tackle the problem of spending and the debt. So, we need to cut the size of the scale of the Federal government, eliminate all the waste, fraud and abuse. There’s plenty of it. It’s high time we actually took a look at our debt and stop spending more than we take in. On all fronts, everything is on the table with me – nothing is off the table. We have to stop things like funding Planned Parenthood. There’s just no reason for a Republican Congress to pass a bill for funding for Planned Parenthood. It shouldn’t have happened. Congressman Kinzinger signed that bill more than once now. The leadership in our congress – I’m going to take them to task for a Republican leadership,” Marter said.
Rich Morthland is running for Lieutenant Governor with running mate Jeanne Ives for Governor. He has several things he would like to accomplish if elected to the office.
“The plans for our first term are to actually keep the promises that the incumbent made that he would keep in his first term that he hasn’t kept. He had a great campaign four years ago, but now he said he’s not in charge and he said to give him four more years and he’ll get it done this time. Well, sorry, we don’t believe that. And we’re not happy with the way he’s governed. He has governed like a North Shore – not our kind of person out here, right? I’m from Rock Island County. We live on our farm. It’s been in our family since 1842. I grew up farming and still farm today. My main job is I’m a community college professor, but the fact is someone needs to keep the promises Governor Rauner made. Jeanne Ives will do it,” Morthland said.
Gary Grasso is running for Illinois Attorney General and gave some information of what he would like to do in office if elected.
“Number one is going to be political corruption, starting with the Chicago Cook County Democrats. I’m also, as a priority, going to make the opiod litigation one of the Attorney General’s priorities. I’m going to make sure the money we get from the opiod litigation goes to treatment and education. Third thing is to make sure we have a fair public pension program. I think it has to be addressed. People still are ignoring it. It’s the number one reason our bond rating is basically junk. Those are some of my priorities as soon as I get into office, which includes turning that office into a Republican office after 16 years and revamping it and changing the priorities,” Grasso said.
