Endorsement: Illinois State Representative, District 70: Jeff Keicher

Republican Jeff Keicher of Sycamore is seeking his second term as state representative in the 70th District and is challenged by his 2018 opponent, Democrat Paul Stoddard of DeKalb, a retired Northern Illinois University geology professor and longtime member of the DeKalb County Board.

Keicher’s focus is on bipartisan legislation – efforts he said he knows must happen given Springfield’s Democratic majority. He said he wants to focus on growing economic opportunities in his district, citing tax incentive packages he helped secure to entice social media giant Facebook and Ferrara Candy Co. to DeKalb’s South Side this year, bringing with it a promise for jobs and revenue.

“We have worked amazingly well across the aisle,” Keicher said. “Because as Republicans, we are in the super minority in the Illinois House, so there’s 44 of us and 74 Democrats, so by definition, absolutely everything that I want to get done happens through compromise.”

Like Keicher, Stoddard’s goals, he said, include bipartisan efforts – citing a history of bringing Democrats and Republicans together on the DeKalb County Board.

“It’s fair and it works,” he said. “That’s what politics is supposed to be. That’s the type of thinking and action I want to bring down to Springfield.”

Stoddard supports a graduated income tax and a “complete overhaul” of the state’s tax system and said he believes the district’s most pressing issues are the health of its citizens and the health of its small businesses.

Keicher said Illinois needs to learn how to spend “other people’s money” more effectively before heaping on more taxes.

Both candidates said calls for a return to in-person learning must be met with caution, as the health and safety of educators and students must come first.

Both candidates also said they support more funding for social work, especially as it relates to policing, equipping trained health care professionals to respond to calls instead of police. Keicher pointed to House Bill 5009, which is a proposal to establish 11 different emergency medical service zones across the state to allow for trained paramedics or social workers to go on calls instead of police.

Like most candidates in 2020, Keicher said the COVID-19 pandemic and its many impacts on jobs, health care, economic opportunity and safety are a priority heading into a second term, and emphasized local control, but with more readily available guidelines from the Illinois Department of Public Health when deciding whether to open schools or small businesses.

Keicher said he’s pushed for more staff to work in the Illinois Department of Employment Security since so many still struggle to reach unemployment offices to receive financial help.

While both candidates touted bipartisanship as necessary for progress, it’s Keicher’s experience already doing this in Springfield that gives him a leg up.

Keicher can point to the passage of the bipartisan capital bill approved last year that created pro-business reforms that laid the groundwork for Facebook bringing an $800 million data center to DeKalb and bringing 100 high-paying data-center jobs and an estimated 1,200 construction jobs to the district.

He’s been supportive of Gov. JB Pritzker’s efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic but centered his praise around continued calls for better communication from state officials to guide local control, from the IDPH and Illinois State Board of Education to better guide our schools toward a comprehensive and safe return-to-learn plan, and pushing for the reopening of small businesses at the beginning of the pandemic to aid their falling revenue when other corporations, such as big box stores, were able to remain open.

Keicher also is aware of his district’s continued distrust of government stewardship when it comes to handling tax revenue and doesn’t believe more taxes are the way to solve Illinois’ problems. “Those revenues are other people’s money,” he said. “People are sick and tired of how Illinois is spending their money.”

Jeff Keicher is endorsed.