Lake County Gazette

Republican state Senate candidate Chris Kasperski thinks Illinois voters are finally getting to know the real J.B. Pritzker.

“Gov. Pritzker made a lot of promises of independence with the $171.5 million dollars he spent to win his election,” Kasperski told the Lake County Gazette during a June 20 interview, where he also took the governor to task for not focusing on the reasons he believes he was elected to serve the state.

A new WBEZ report finds that over his first roughly 18-months in office the governor has made at least 35 hires from a so-called “clout list” compiled by longtime House Speaker Madigan.

“His actions in office have proven that he is beholden to the Madigan machine,” he said. “For decades, this type of pay to play politics has ruined the reputation, creditworthiness and overall performance of the Illinois government. Pritzker's unwillingness to stand up to Speaker Madigan is par for the course within the Illinois Democratic Party.”

Challenging longtime incumbent state Sen. Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) in the 31st District, Kasperski argues it all adds up to a disregard of voters and he thinks they regularly tell him they want to see most in Springfield.

“Gov. Pritzker has the resources and the power to stand up to the culture of corruption that Speaker Madigan has sewn into the fabric of the Illinois Democratic Party that permeates throughout the state government,” the Republican candidate said. “His unwillingness to listen to the pleas of the republicans who represent interests outside of Cook County demonstrates that he is as blindly partisan as Speaker Madigan. Rather than filling his administration with the best possible people for the job, he dutifully fulfilled the marching orders that Madigan had given him.”

Kasperski said he’s hoping the November 2020 election will mark the point and time voters finally take a stand against everything Madigan’s reign has stood for.

“The only way that we can rid ourselves of the unprecedented power that he has accumulated is to remove the oxygen that fuels him by voting out all the politicians who prop him up by taking his donations and following his orders,” he said. “Sadly, we have yet another governor who is unwilling to stand up to Madigan and save our state from the greed and corruption that has become engrained in the culture in Springfield.”