Dupage Policy Journal

Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan has plowed $300,000 into Terra Costa Howard’s (Glen Ellyn) campaign for the 48th House seat. It is more money, by far, than any of her other donors. 

Yet appearing before the Daily Herald editorial board on Monday with her opponent, incumbent State Rep. Peter Breen (R-Lombard), Howard dodged the near certain blow-back that would come from voicing support for the controversial Speaker.

Board: “You mentioned partisan politics. Would you vote for Mike Madigan as Speaker again?”

GOP incumbent Rep. Peter Breen: "You've got with me a consistent record."

Howard: “I will, I will review every candidate that comes forward. I will vet every candidate that puts their name forward. That's what I, my, is my responsibility to do.”

Board: “Would you be willing to not vote for him, should a better candidate in your mind emerges?”

Howard: “I'm going to review every candidate, yes.”

She covered all bases on education and taxes as well in the hour-long Q&A; she supports more revenue for education but stopped short of calling for additional taxes. Along those lines, she did say that any talk of a property tax freeze “is a joke.”

Additional revenue, she says, will come from an overhaul of the tax structure and spending cuts. Just how exactly, she doesn’t seem to know.

On overhauling the tax structure:

“Well, I do think we have to overhaul our entire, our entire tax system. Not just income tax, not just property tax. All of it. All of it. How does that look, I'll be honest with you, I, I can't give you a diagram of what it looks like, because I, I have to see what all the numbers, what they are. Where are we on our debt? Where are we really on our educational funding, or, or I should say lack there of. Um, but we have to overhaul the whole thing…”

On cutting spending: “Um, where to cut. I'll be honest. Um, that's a hard one to answer because I just, I really would need to sit down and take a look at it. Um, when I talk about when I, when I talked to people um, who are in Springfield and, and really departmental, you know, things that they shared in terms of things like the you know, tollway authority, um, the number of contracts that are in the Illinois Tollway Authority where they don't even know.”

She is clear on one issue. She supports public funding of abortions, as in HB 40, the law Gov. Bruce Rauner signed last September. And she favors doing away with the state law that requires minors to notify their parents before getting an abortion. One of her other big contributors is Personal PAC, the Chicago-based lobby that supports legal abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

“This race is pretty clear in terms of the distinctions,” Breen said at the end of the Q&A “You've got probably for the first time in a long time, Speaker Madigan making a massive, massive investment in a Democratic candidate. He's running against the House floor leader (Breen is Republican floor leader), the lead debater against all of his bills. You've got with me a consistent record of being able to hold the line on taxes and fees. Advocating very strongly with an independent voice. I'm not someone that anyone can say they bought.”