The choice for voters in Illinois’ 74th state legislative district is between Republican Dan Swanson and Democrat Bill Butts.Both candidates agree on redistricting, or giving political map drawing power in the state to an independent entity.
There are rich areas of disagreement though.
Dan Swanson spent 17 years as a member of the AlWood Board of Education.
As part of a six point pledge that he’s made a cornerstone of his campaign, Swanson has vowed to never vote for a tax increase or “unfunded mandate”.
“Mandates are difficult for school districts to finance through and mandates caused us changes to budgets, caused us changes to our school scheduling just to accommodate some mandate that our state had imposed on our public schools,” Swanson says.
Democrat Butts has his own experience serving in local government dealing with so called “unfunded mandates.”
Butts says when he was on the Knox County Board he came across mandates that were “intolerable and wrong”.
“But there were other times when these unfunded mandates were absolutely for public health and safety,” Butts says. “For example, school safety for children. Those were some unfunded mandates that came from the state and as Rep. (Don) Moffitt will tell you that’s actually saved lives.”
Swanson, also a 27 year Army veteran is concerned that veteran’s don’t know about the benefits available to them, something he thinks Illinois could do a better job of promoting.
Butts counters by saying revenues need to be raised in order to fund veteran’s programs and also wants to see more spent on mental health programs.
Butts tells WGIL Illinois needs to stop “misleading the people”.
“They need to stop saying ‘we can do things the same ole way and we won’t increase taxes or anything’ and yet how are we going to finance education?,” Butts says. “We’ve got to take a strong stand and we’ve got to be honest about it.”
Both agree that the budget is the most pressing issue facing the next General Assembly but have different approaches to the deficit.
Butts proposes a progressive income tax while Swanson opposes any tax increase.
Swanson also says programs the state funds need more consistency.
“When the constitution says a budget must be passed by such a date, that’s the time frame it has to be done,” Swanson says. “The talks are going on in Springfield but not always the right people in those discussions.”
Swanson had spent slightly more than Butts through September, but just in the last month Swanson has gotten nearly $48,000 in contributions from the House Republican Organization.
Butts isn’t worried about the money gap saying Republicans almost always outspend Democrats.