North Cook News

The upcoming elections will give Illinois residents the opportunity to start cleansing the state of corruption, said State Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst).

"If we really want a new day, we need to vote 'R' for a change," the legislator said.

For years, she never really paid much attention to Illinois politics, Mazzochi said.

"But in 2014 there were news reports about corruption in at one of my local government institutions and that was a real wake-up call for me," she said. "I decided that it was time to stop complaining about it and just start doing something about it, so I ran, I won, and we cleaned up a lot of messes."

In Illinois "corruption has been a national joke for years.," she said, "And this year, sadly, for the third year in a row, Chicago was named America's most corrupt city and Illinois the third most corrupt state"

Corruption is not a victimless crime, the legislator said.

"Year after year we have seen corruption cost our residents in time and money and jobs and justice," she said. "That ultimately led me to state government in Springfield — corruption central. In my lifetime multiple governors from both sides of the aisle and gone to jail. Our current governor was caught saying rather nasty things on FBI wiretaps. multiple legislators have resigned, entered plea deals and agreed to cooperate with the federal government or otherwise pled guilty to crimes involving their abuse of office, including former Democratic house members Louis Arroyo and Democratic senators Martin Sandoval and Tom Cullerton."

Mazzochi served on a committee investigating former Speaker Mike Madigan.

"The current head of the Democratic Party in Illinois, Lisa Hernandez, said there was nothing there to see," Mazzochi said. "The feds have shown that to be a lie and Mike Madigan is now under indictment. Corrupt and inefficient leaders have given Illinois the highest overall tax rate in the nation, including the highest gas taxes and second-highest property taxes."

Many problems remain in Illinois, including "corrupt" red-light cameras, Mazzochi said but progress is stopped by the corrupt influence over the Democratic Party in Springfield, Mazzochi said.

"We have elected officials who are under indictment and can still cash their paychecks, while hard-working, law-abiding Illinois residents struggle to make ends meet," she said. It’s not right. Despite his laundry list of indictments and bad acts, many Madigan supporters are still in office. They're still using his money to spend on their campaigns and the culture that he created continues to live on"

Current House Speaker Chris Welch promised a new day but hasn't delivered, she added.

" He essentially adopted the Madigan rules and as we've seen so far this campaign season he's running the Madigan Playbook, including with leftover Madigan money," said Mazzochi. "We are seeing all the same lies, the same nasty divisiveness, and we're seeing again legislators who don't want to honestly discuss their record in Springfield but want to actually build false narratives about it. and the money is what allows them to resist accountability from the people in their districts."

Federal prosecutors charged the former AT&T Illinois president on Oct. 14 in connection with the Madigan investigation, The Center Square reported.

“AT&T Illinois caused the payments to be made through an intermediary – a lobbying firm that performed services for AT&T Illinois – to conceal the true nature of the payments, which was to influence and reward Madigan’s efforts as Speaker to assist the company with respect to certain legislation,” the indictment said. “Although the members of the conspiracy formulated a pretextual assignment for Madigan’s ally to disguise why the ally was being paid, the ally performed no actual work for AT&T Illinois and had no role in advancing the legislation, the indictment states.”

Mazzochi was first elected to the Illinois House in 2018. A Republican, their legislative experience includes serving on the Housing Committee and Judiciary-Civil.  Mazzochi is a state representative who resides in Elmhurst, according to the Illinois House.