Dwight Kay says he’s willing to go to any lengths in Springfield to get lawmakers back on the track he thinks they should be on.
“I would go to the General Assembly floor every day and have questions about what we’re going to do about this,” Kay, the Glen Carbon Republican running against Rep. Katie Stuart (D-Edwardsville) in the 112th District, told the Metro East Sun regarding the inspector general post in Springfield yet to be filled on a permanent basis.
In 2017, when news broke that the post had been vacant for more than two years, during which time at least 27 complaints of sexual harassment languished in Springfield, lawmakers moved to install Julie Porter in the post on an interim basis. With Porter’s contract now slated to expire in late June, a permanent solicitor has yet to be lined up despite more than 300 women signing a #MeToo letter detailing the culture of sexual harassment in the state Capitol back in 2017.
“The idea that you’re just going to turn your back on an issue because you don’t want to deal with it is insanity to me,” Kay added. “It’s not acceptable that (House Speaker) Mike Madigan can just choose to stonewall what appears to be a legitimate set of complaints. No one should be able to do what he and his colleagues are doing.”
In many ways, Kay said Madigan continues to be the state’s worst enemy.
“This state continues to be so divided because he continues to control everything,” he said. "Right now, we’re seeing good legislation being tied up and good ideas never being heard. I believe Madigan needs to leave and we need new blood, maybe on both sides of the aisle. In Springfield, longtime tenure comes to mean adopting a philosophy that anything that comes from across the aisle automatically has to be a bad idea.”
The 112th House District includes parts or all of Edwardsville, Glen Carbon, Collinsville and O'Fallon.
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