Dan Ugaste will focus on the state's financial issues.
Dan Ugaste will focus on the state's financial issues.
Newly elected Republican state representative Dan Ugaste heads to Springfield looking for common ground.
“I’m looking forward to doing my best to help get the state back on track and will work with whoever I have to in order to do that for the people of Illinois,” Ugaste told the Kane County Reporter. “One thing I know for sure is we’ve got to change the way we’re doing things right now. The past has shown us it’s not a recipe for success.”
With the votes counted late Tuesday night, Ugaste scored 25,201 votes for 52 percent to Democrat Richard Johnson’s 22,879 votes for 48 percent in the 65th District.
Ugaste, an attorney, said his first order of business is to focus on the state’s financial issues, including looking for unnecessary programs to cut in state government.
“Pensions are at the top of list of things that need to be trimmed,” he said. “We’ve got to do something about that and do it fast. Right now, what we’re doing just isn’t sustainable over the long run. I’m willing to listen to what any other lawmaker has to say, but at the end of the day only one person I’ve talked to in all my campaigning has said to me they are willing to pay more in taxes.”
Ugaste said a state leadership team of longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and newly elected Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker concerns him.
“Pritzker has repeatedly pushed the idea of additional taxes and it truly concerns me that he believes raising taxes is the right way to go,” he said. “All the out-migration you see in Illinois from families and businesses stems from our out-of-control tax system.”
The 65th House District includes Batavia, Burlington, Dundee, Elgin, Geneva, Grafton, Hampshire, Plato, Rutland and St. Charles.
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