North Cook News

Sixteenth House District candidate Vince Romano responded to his loss with a Turkish proverb.

"The forest was shrinking but the trees kept voting for the axe, for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood he was one of them," Romano posted on Facebook.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Democrat Kevin Olickal defeated Romano in the race with 16,490 votes received to Romano's 7,048 votes with 98% of the votes counted as of this writing. Olickal has 70.1% of the vote, and Romano has 29.9% of the vote in this north suburban Cook County district.

During the campaign, Romano shed light on a series of transactions that ended up putting over $50,000 in the campaign coffers of Olickal. The Healthcare Council of Illinois gave to its own PAC. Then, on the same day, this PAC gave the money to another PAC called 16th District Citizens for Ethical leadership. Subsequently, this PAC made an in-kind contribution to the Olickal campaign for $53,445. This was after the Healthcare Council of Illinois already gave Olickal $29,700. Romano believes that there is "coordination between everyone." He added it "looks like it's tied to Amendment 1 stuff with SEIU, Healthcare Control or Health Care Council, the Illinois SEIU Healthcare, which Phil Brown has been part of and seems to be behind all this with. Those people may have some explaining to do." 

Romano was born and raised in Skokie and has had successful careers in real estate and financial services. He opposed the SAFE-T Act and supports parental rights and school choice, pension reform, reducing taxes, and rooting out corruption and fraud in Springfield.

Romano referred to Ronald Reagan's famed "Time for Choosing" speech during his campaign. In a campaign video, he talked about the two roads that Illinoisans can choose. In the video, Romano said he tried to help fix Illinois 10 years ago when he ran for state representative: "I gave warnings of what would happen in the coming years. And here we are 10 years later and everything held true. And we are in a worse position. I haven’t left yet. Democrats, Independents and Republicans ask me to run again. So I’m here to help save the state, to save our families, to save our future." 

Romano also stressed that "This is beyond a left-to-right issue. It’s up or down now. You either vote to go down the same road we have been or you vote to move up to bigger and better things and help save Illinois.” Reagan's speech was an endorsement of Barry Goldwater in 1964, and he said that at the end of the day, politics comes down to good versus bad, not left versus right. Romano was channeling this sentiment as he highlighted the path Illinois is following.

After decades of leading the Illinois House, this is the first general election without former Speaker Michael Madigan and Democrats have held their supermajorities in both houses of the General Assembly, the Chicago Tribune reported. Current Democratic House Speaker Chris Welch (D-Westchester) said, "that when we fight, we win — and tonight, that couldn’t be more true. House Democrats have fought tirelessly for working families and have secured important legislative wins to protect reproductive rights, rebuild our infrastructure, fund critical public safety initiatives, and so much more." The skills of both Speaker Welch and Senate President Don Harmon were tested with the Madigan saga and with redistricting, but they walked away with victories. Harmon said, "The people have spoken. Now it’s time to get to work governing." 

Following the unsuccessful campaigns of the Republicans across the state, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin (R-Burr Ridge) announced he would not seek another term to lead the State House GOP: "It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as leader of the House Republican caucus, but it’s time for the Illinois Republican Party to rebuild with new leaders who can bring independents back to the party that are needed to bring change to the state." Republicans went into the election with high hopes; however only 78 of the 118 House seats were contested while there were only 25 of 59 seats in the Senate that were contested. Republicans made modest gains in the State Senate but were not enough to flip the supermajority in Springfield which Democrats still hold.