Lake County Gazette

Republican state House candidate Chris Kasperski doesn’t mince words when voicing his reservations about an ethics reform package now being pushed by Democrats in Springfield.

“The ethics reforms proposed are shallow, weak and worthless if they do not gather for another General Assembly session before the November election,” Kasperski told the Lake County Gazette. “They put forward a plan to attempt to cover for their years' worth of kowtowing to the corrupt IL Democratic Party machine. I think it is too little and too late.”

With Madigan now at the center of a widening federal corruption probe involving utility giant ComEd and a pay-for-play scheme, a group of Democratic lawmakers is now pushing a package of nine reform measures they insist will quickly lead to the kind of culture change in Springfield most agree is critically needed. Topping the list of proposals are measures that would ban legislators from becoming lobbyists, require greater financial disclosures, establish a censure process, make the legislative inspector general more independent, and institute term limits.

“As long as Madigan has control of the House and all the legislation that is to ever pass in Illinois, I am afraid that we will never see the reforms that we desperately need,” added Kasperski, who is running against state Sen. Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake) in the 31st District. “The Democrats need to call for not only his resignation from the speaker's chair, they ought to call for his complete and total departure from the state House as well as the chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party.”

Kasperski reasons there’s a good reason why many Democrats like his opponent have been slow to take a stand against Madigan.

“The way that he has dumped millions of dollars into the campaign of my opponent and the two state representatives, Joyce Mason and Sam Yingling, should give everyone concern as to whom they are answering,” he said. “It doesn't seem like it is the people that they represent, especially given how aloof they have been throughout this pandemic.

Kasperski said the time to take a stand is now.

“The General Assembly should have remained in Springfield and worked to resolve the systemic issues that are plaguing the state government agencies,” he said. “We not only need them down there to reform our ethics laws and rebuke Madigan, we also need them to fix the broken (and unconstitutional) FOID system and the unemployment system, among many others. Gov. (J.B.) Pritzker has failed to call the General Assembly back to Springfield for a special session, mainly because they have delegated so much of their legislative authority over to his administration to do their jobs for them.”