Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of stories looking at contested races in the March 17 primary election.
The Republican race in the March 17 primary election in Illinois Senate District 33 is between Danielle Penman and Jessica Breugelmans.
The winner in the GOP primary will face Michele Clark, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary, in the Nov. 3 general election.
Danielle Penman
Penman, 49, of St. Charles, is running for the first time for the Illinois Senate and said voters are talking about taxes and the high cost of living.
“People are tired of the high taxes. On the state level they complain about property taxes and wanting to know what can I do to help lower them,” Penman said. “They want accountability in terms of where their tax dollars are going and why they are being asked for more and more taxes all the time.”
The cost of living is something that residents say includes “gas being too high, groceries are still high.”
“Some people express frustration over having to cover the tax debt in Cook County,” Penman said.
If elected, Penman said her goals include health care reform in Illinois and working on education and affordability issues.
“As a nurse and an elected official I’d like to work on health care,” she said. “Affordability, access to health care – we have a lot of health care deserts, a lot of health care organizations that are closing doors, limiting or ending services because of health care in the state. So, looking at ways to make sure it is affordable and accessible is something I want to do regardless of what ZIP code they’re in.”
In terms of education, “I’m really passionate about providing students more career path opportunities and partnerships,” Penman said.
“I think we need educational reform and school choice, and I think parents should have options about where their children are going and their tax dollars should follow it,” she said. “We need more competition to make sure we’re getting top education.”
“Affordability,” Penman insists, “means trying to limit unfunded mandates and pushing forward for a forensic audit of all programs and departments in the state to see where we can get rid of waste, fraud and abuse that’s costing taxpayers.”
Jessica Breugelmans
Breugelmans, 44, of Geneva, is running for the first time for the Illinois Senate and said that issues in District 33 includes taxes, education and safety.
In regard to taxes, “They are absolutely crushing. the taxes are just causing people to leave the state.”
As far as education, she said, “we shouldn’t be lowering the standards in the state which we just did.”
“We need to, instead, rise to meet them,” she said.
The safety issue concerns “people wanting safe communities to live in.”
If elected, Breugelmans said she wants to work on “making Illinois affordable for families and small businesses, as well as restoring trust in government through fiscal responsibility and strengthening our schools.”
“I would oppose new taxes when it comes to making things more affordable,” she said. “Typically, the budget is passed in the wee hours of the night on Memorial Day weekend and thousands of pages are dumped on legislators’ desks with only a couple of hours to review it. We have to demand more transparency in that budgeting process.”
Restoring trust, Breugelmans said, “Means insisting on responsible budgeting.”
For schools, “We need to ensure our educational system is focused on student success” which includes “first and foremost – not lowering those standards. We need to focus on the fundamentals in the classroom and make sure our kids can do them and stop the unfunded mandates that we’re sending to the school districts.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
