Metro East Sun

The Dec. 17 announcement that state Rep. Dan Beiser (D-Alton) was stepping down may have had more to do with his ability to be re-elected than his stated reasons, according to one area Republican official.

Although the official reason for Beiser's resignation was to spend more time with his family, as reported in the Chicago Tribune, Jersey County Republican Central Committee Chairman Gary Krueger said there may be more to it.

“You always have to wonder if there’s a job being offered somewhere,” Krueger told the Metro East Sun. “But I think in some ways he was a little too conservative. I know he was pro-gun, and so I think he might have been having some eroding support from a lot of the power in his party.”

Springfield, Illinois | (WT-en) Mark at English Wikivoyage

The election last year of Republican Benjamin Heitzig to the first district in the largely Democrat-controlled Jersey County Board, as The Telegraph reported, may signal a new trend.

“He (Beiser) saw a chance to get out and they like to get out when they can appoint someone so they can be, in effect, an incumbent,” Krueger said.

Beiser’s replacement, Monica Bristow, announced her agenda would focus on finding more money for breast cancer screenings, Meals on Wheels, and combatting opioid abuse, according to Nathan Grimm’s report in The Telegraph.

Bristow, former president of River Bend Growth Association, made her comments during a Dec. 18 transfer-of-power ceremony. She has never held elected office and avoided mention of one of the hot-button issues: the Illinois fiscal crisis.

“Everybody is for more money for cancer screening, for women, for Meals on Wheels, but the state has a severe financial problem and there’s going to have to be a day of reckoning,” Krueger said. "We can’t just keep increasing and expanding programs without some way of fund them.”

The financial problem Krueger mentioned is multifaceted. First, as reported by the Illinois Policy Institute, the state ranks No. 1 for its tax burden and faces a $111 billion unfunded pension liability. Organizations like Intersect Illinois and the Illinois Manufacturing Association have suggested the state’s burdensome taxes and regulations may be pricing it out of reach for companies looking to relocate, according to the Prairie State Wire.

“The cost of doing business in Illinois is too high and we’re losing business,” Krueger said. “There’s going to have to be meaningful reforms in workers compensation laws and liability insurance.”

Those reforms would be part of other changes Kruger said need to take place, such as school funding. He said Springfield is quick to mandate local programs but pulls funding once they get going.

“It’s going to take everybody statewide working together,” Krueger said. “The pension crisis something going to have to be dealt with. If somebody wants to do a multiyear plan and say, ‘we’re going to address it for a while and in the future make it all come together,’ well those future days are here.”