Lake County Gazette

State Sen. Dan McConchie (R-Dist. 26) said he believes that those who hold public office need to focus first on the people instead of themselves.

This comes after complaints from State Rep. Robert Martwick (D-Dist. 19) regarding delayed lawmaker paychecks and Comptroller Leslie Munger’s recent “No Budget No Pay” proposal, in which payments to lawmakers would be tied to whether or not they can pass a balanced budget.

 

“When you run for public office, your responsibility is to first take care of the people and put yourself last,” McConchie told the Lake County Gazette. “This just demonstrates where, in this particular case, the self interests of elected officials who are thinking about themselves first and not really addressing the problems.”

 

McConchie said the current situation the state finds itself in is a result of certain leaders not doing their jobs.

 

“Here is the thing: If the state was doing its job, where we have a balanced budget, we are paying our bills on time, and we weren’t spending more than we get coming in, then there would be no reason for the representative to not get his pay,” McConchie said. “The reason why he is not getting paid is because his party and his leadership have refused to do their job.”

 

McConchie insists that this attitude would not be tolerated anywhere else.

 

"To somehow complain that we didn’t do our job, but we should be paid anyway…nobody else does that,” McConchie said. “If you are in a private business and you don’t do your job, well, you don’t get paid or you get fired. This is something that I find laughable.”

 

McConchie said he believes Illinois can find a way back from its mismanagement and ineffective leadership through fair mapping and term limits. McConchie places particular emphasis on redrawing the state’s legislative map.

 

“There is one thing I tell (voters) is the thing we need which I think can help change things ...and would be my top priority is the remapping because that has the ability to change the way the map is drawn as early as 2021, after the next survey is done,” McConchie said.

 

Fair mapping has the ability to change things quicker, McConchie said.

 

“Term limits is something that would have an effect, but it would be another 10 years before those would start to go into effect,” McConchie said. “So we need to have remap, and that has the ability to have change much quicker, which is why it is my top priority.”

 

The problem with remapping the state is that its fate lies in the hands of the Illinois Supreme Court after it was blocked from going onto the November ballot by Cook County Circuit Judge Diane Larsen.

 

“We’ll have to see what happens,” McConchie said. “The Illinois Supreme Court is reviewing that here in the next few weeks, and we’ll see what comes. That act that the judge did alone angered a lot of people. You had more than 600,000 people sign the petition that they wanted the opportunity to vote on changing the state’s constitution and you had just one judge who just stands up and says 'no, I’m not going to allow you to do that.’”