Jessica Tucker is an outsider who does not consider herself part of any affiliation in Springfield -- and she believes that it is this outsider perspective that may change Illinois.
“I’m an outsider here,” Tucker said. “I’m not part of the political class in Springfield to really have an insider view of what is going on but I have seen enough from the outside to know that the current status quo is not working for the state and that it needs to change.”
Tucker, a Republican running for the Illinois House in District 18, asserts that any change, no matter how small, is a shake-up to the status quo.
“If all else stays the same but my district changes and I am elected, that changes the super majority in the house,” she said. “You probably know that House Speaker Michael Madigan has a super majority by one representative. So that could be a sea change right there: that he won’t have that reliance on the super majority.”
She has heard some state reps and senators downplay the concept of the super majority, insisting that it doesn’t exist because of the differences between Democrats in Chicago and elsewhere. She feels that while Democrats may feel that a super majority is not an issue, the party still falls behind Madigan.
“It’s quite difficult to go against him at the end of the day even though you might hear, ‘Well, it’s not really a super majority,’ or ‘Well, we don’t really have to do what the Speaker says,’” Tucker said. “At the end of the day, I think they do (follow Madigan). You can see from their voting records and you can see my opponent’s voting record. She voted in step with Madigan and voted to override the governors’ veto on taking away the collective bargaining authority that he has with he public employee unions.”
Tucker’s opponent is incumbent state Rep. Robyn Gabel, who is serving her third term in the office and who, according to Tucker, has not deviated from Madigan’s shadows.
“My opponent voted for that terrible budget -- or what Madigan called a budget -- that was put out there that was $40 billion unbalanced,” Tucker said. “So at the end of the day, I think they all line up behind the speaker and it’s difficult until we change the status quo and get new people in there with fresh perspective and fresh ideas; people that are not so entrenched.”
She acknowledges the difficulty of changing the trajectory of the state.
“We’re at the bottom,” Tucker said. “We have been spiraling down for some time and this didn’t just happen overnight when the new governor came into office. This has been happening for some time now.”
The state’s financial mess is the focus of Tucker's platform.
“It’s a fiscal focus and socially moderate,” she said. “Really, for me, I want to work on a balanced budget. That’s the constitutional mandate of the general assembly: it’s to adopt a balanced budged by July 1st. We’ve been waiting since at least 2001 for a balanced budget but people say it’s been longer because of the fuzzy political map. You move funds around, you borrow and then you consider that balanced when … that’s not really considered a truly balanced budget because you are not bringing in what is going out the door.”
Tucker believes that once the fiscal house is in order, the rest of the state’s problems will fall in line.
“Really, the fiscal focus is my priority number one because if you get your fiscal house in order then there is stability and there is predictability -- the other units of government such as the municipalities and the school boards will then have some predictability,” she said. “They also have to balance their budget and plan for their years and if any of them have a portion of their budget that is state funded, they need that predictability.”
Social services are a vital area that Tucker hopes to revitalize, especially after many had to cut down their hours, reduce their staff or close down completely.
“If you don’t have your fiscal house in order, how can you fund social services?” she said. “You can see how (the budget crisis) has decimated those groups that help our most vulnerable citizens. You see how it has hurt higher education. So the focus needs to be getting the fiscal house in order whether that is a one year budget or a two year budget.”
Tucker concluded that the state can be made great again with a laser focus on balancing the budget.
“We need a true balanced budget so that everybody is on the same page and that we can fund what we need to fund and start getting our state back on track so that we can improve our economy, improve our job situation and help stem the tide of the outward migration that is going on,” she said. “It will change our state tremendously.”
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