Lake County Gazette

In her campaign to represent a swathe of right-leaning suburbs in the Illinois State Senate's new 26th District, Maria Peterson isn't afraid to admit she is "proud Democrat." 

More daringly this election year, she's also been enthusiastic in defending what's perhaps the most polarizing law passed in decades by the Democrat-controlled legislature, the so-called SAFE-T Act.

State prosecutors complain the law forces them to let an estimated 400 Lake and McHenry County jail inmates with violent criminal histories into the public on Jan. 1, 2023.

Peterson says that, violent or not, it is wrong to hold accused criminals behind bars while they wait for trial.

“No one should sit in jail because they don’t have the finances for bail,” Peterson told the Lake County News-Sun.

She supports releasing even violent criminals and "electronic monitoring" them with ankle bracelets, an approach increasingly used in Cook County under its State's Attorney Kim Foxx.

That includes inmates with violent criminal histories, Peterson says, accused of offenses including second-degree murder, drug-induced homicide, aggravated battery, arson, kidnapping, burglary, robbery and aggravated driving under the influence (DUI).

"Ankle monitoring... needs to be improved and overseen by a system that holds accused defendants accountable," she told the Kane County Chronicle.

Peterson has backed pro-"Defund the Police" groups including George Soros' Indivisible Illinois, which prominently backed Foxx's re-election campaign. They oppose efforts by prosecutors and GOP legislators to repeal or even amend the SAFE-T Act.

Protestations by McHenry County State's Attorney Patrick Kenneally that letting these offenders out would lead to more crime and even retaliation against victims are "frivolous," Peterson said.

"Accused defendants are treated as if they are guilty... even though the law says 'innocent until proven guilty," Peterson said.

To be sure, Illinois jails today are almost exclusively populated by violent offenders; "non-violent" and low-level drug offenders are rarely, if ever, held behind bars.

An analysis of Lake County Jail found that 175 of 190 inmates who have been held more than four months have extensive violent criminal histories. 

And the 15 exceptions also have long rap sheets for crimes including drug dealing, like accused fentanyl dealer Markeece M. Muhammad and his brother, Kwantrell Williams, accused separately of more than 60 burglaries across Lake and McHenry Counties.

Climate change, not crime

But Peterson says her campaign, challenging incumbent State Sen. and Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods), isn't centered upon crime but other issues, like abortion, gun control, "divisiveness" and "climate change."

She says Lake County is "an area vulnerable to climate change" and that "southern states are grabbing more money" than Illinois is to fix it.

"We have increased flooding, infrastructure breakdowns (roads buckling or failing), trees uprooting and falling on major roadways, and so on. Let’s remember that Lake County has its given name in that it was mostly lakes at one time," she said.

If elected, Peterson says she will "work hard to bring home infrastructure funds to improve the availability of electric charging stations, bike lanes and electric public transportation."

She also opposes continued residential and commercial development of land in the collar counties, arguing Lake and McHenry counties need more farming.

"Growing and selling produce within our district does so much good; and, once land is developed there is 0% chance of it ever returning to forest or farm," Peterson says.

The 26th district includes the communities of Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Ivanhoe, Sylvan Lake, Hawthorn Woods, Lake Zurich, North Barrington, Deer Park, Long Grove, Forest Lake, Kildeer, Barrington, Wauconda, Port Barrington, Island Lake, Oakwood Hills, Holiday Hills, Cary, Trout Valley, Algonquin, Fox River Grove and Barrington Hills