Kane County Reporter

Veteran state Sen. Dan McConchie (R-Hawthorn Woods) looks at the new $42.3 billion budget enacted by Democratic lawmakers and knows the battle for what he sees as fairness in Springfield is far from over.

“There were definitely some accomplishments for our caucus and our constituents this year,” McConchie said in a video posted to YouTube. “We were able to pressure the governor to keep his commitment to fully fund K-12 education and to keep the tax credit for the Invest in Kids program that allows children from the worst performing schools across the state go to the school of their choice, but there were many disappointments was well.”

McConchie included the budget as one of the disappointments.

“The budget passed this morning spends over $600 billion more than the governor’s introduced budget and includes over $666 million in taxes on job creators,” he said.  “It grossly underfunds the unemployment trust fund and probably a million other things we don’t know yet because the budget was 3,000 pages long and we only had a couple hours to look at it before taking a vote on it.”  

McConchie faulted the Democrats for putting together a budget with little to no input from Republican lawmakers.

“It was put together strictly on a partisan basis in which input from the Republican Party was not even considered,” he added. “ We reached out multiple times to try and partner to make sure that the needs of the entire state were met but it was clear from the majority’s lack of engagement that they didn’t even pretend to care about what’s important to the three million plus Illinoisans we represent. It seems the majority’s version of partisanship is doing whatever they want behind closed doors and allowing the minority to decide whether or not to vote for it.”

 McConchie is also now pushing for a what he sees as a fair process when it comes to the once-every-decade task of map redistricting.

“There’s a way to do it and a way to do it constitutionally and a way we can do it in a bipartisan manner that actually returns the power to the people,” he told WGN News.

As an answer, Republican lawmakers are now promoting Senate Bill 1325, known as the People’s Independent Maps Act. The measure seeks to take politicians completely out of the mix when it comes to map redistricting and instead rely on the state Supreme Court to appoint 16 independent citizens to a redistricting commission that will handle the task.

“Every Illinoisan deserves to be represented in our democracy," McConchie recently told WMBD News. “An independent map drawn by the people for the people and not by politicians for politicians is really the best way to have their voices heard.”