From The Chairman
The IL Consolidated Election will be held on Tuesday, April 4th. Please vote on Election Day if you haven’t already voted early or cast a Vote By Mail (VBM) ballot! Your vote is critical for ensuring our local units of government in St. Clair County follow common sense, conservative principles. In an article below, Chris Susser, the Republican Madison County Treasurer, tells us why he believes it’s so critical for Republicans to turn out for IL’s April elections.
It’s also time to begin considering running for office in the November 2024 Presidential Election. Below, we highlight all of the offices that will be on the ballot, and the timeline for getting petitions signed and submitted to the County Clerk. If you want to see change in St. Clair County, the State of Illinois, and/or the United States, becoming an elected official is the single best way to make that change happen!
It’s also time to put your foursome together for our 3rd Annual Chairman’s Golf Tournament on Friday, May 19th. Please see the article below for all of the details on the Chairman’s Golf Tournament!
Thanks for all you do in helping us turn St. Clair County red!
Cheryl Mathews
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St. Clair County Republican Party Core Values
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Republicans Need To Vote In IL Consolidated Elections – Madison County Treasurer Chris Slusser
As the Madison County Treasurer, I constantly hear people complain about how high their property taxes are. And I agree with them. Yet, almost no one votes in the April municipal elections in Illinois. Voter turnout is always a fraction of the turnout in a November election. Did you know that the people running in the April 4th election are directly responsible for determining 90% of your property tax bill? Candidates for school board, city council, village board, community college board, library board, fire protection district board, etc. are all on the April 4th ballot on Tuesday. Early voting sites have been open the past two weeks, yet only 1,885 people had voted countywide in Madison County as of March 30th. That’s a 1% turnout so far of registered voters in Madison County.
So, please get out and vote early (today, tomorrow, Saturday or Monday) or on Election Day, and encourage your family, friends and neighbors to do so as well. If you’re not registered to vote, you can now register at the polling place. You can even view a sample ballot to see who is running for office on your ballot. You can print it out and take it with you to the polls if you’d like. If you’re a St. Clair County resident, you can find your sample ballot at the St. Clair County Clerk’s Voter Resources Webpage. Click on the Address Lookup tab and enter your address to see your basic voter registration information, including your sample ballot.
If you have any questions about the candidates on your ballot, please reach out to Cheryl Mathews, Party Chairman, at chairman@scilgop.com or Tonda Van Hoose, Party Secretary, at 618-416-7370. We also do have the publicly available voting history of the County’s school board, SWIC Board, and Regional Board of Education (BOE) candidates at School Board Candidates.
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Petition Circulation For The 2024 Presidential Election Starts In Five Months!
Candidates running for office in the 2024 Presidential Election will begin circulating petitions in early September 2023 with the signed petitions being due in late November 2023. Republican candidates are needed for the following offices:
US House of Representatives
IL 13th Congressional District
IL State House of Representatives
IL State 112th Legislative District
IL State 113th Legislative District
St. Clair County Countywide Positions
County Chairman
State’s Attorney
Coroner
Circuit Clerk
Auditor
County Recorder
Board of Review (x2)
St. Clair County Board Districts
District 1
District 6
District 7
District 9
District 10
District 11
District 16
If you’re interested in running for one of these offices, please contact Michael Butler, our Vice-Chairman for Elections, at elections@scilgop.com.
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Springfield – IL Representative Kevin Schmidt
I did not know what to expect when I took the oath of office to serve as the State Representative for the 114th District. Being in the minority, I knew it would be tough to get legislation passed and life in the minority would not exactly be a pleasure cruise.
One of the GOOD aspects of serving as a State Representative is the opportunity to do something good for the people I represent. Since being in office, I have been able to visit with seniors, school kids and local officials. I am working to secure money for Cahokia Heights to address their sewer and water issues. I also am working with Washington Park to help them rebuild their municipal building which burned to the ground in 2021. Helping people and solving problems is one of the things I enjoy most about this job.
The BAD is what just recently happened on the House floor. The Democrats were only allowing one proponent and one opponent to speak on any bill up for debate because of time constraints. One bill that came up for a vote fairly late at night was a measure (House Bill 3957) involving prescription drugs and expanding the power of the Attorney General’s office to force price controls.
One Democratic lawmaker rose to speak in opposition to the bill, but there was one problem – he actually ended up voting FOR the bill. Clearly, it was an orchestrated move to call on a Democrat who was for the bill to speak against it. The move was meant to silence the opposition so that the majority party could get the bill passed.
Then the Republicans requested a verified roll call on HB 3957, which means for any ‘YES’ votes to count, legislators had to be in the chamber. In the end, there were not enough Democrats present in the chamber to pass the bill. At that point, I joined the entire Republican caucus and walked out, shutting down the legislative session. We left to protest the abuse of power, and I am told this is something that has not been done in a very long time, which is indicative of how partisan Springfield has become.
The UGLY is my office in Springfield. The Stratton Building has to be one of the ugliest buildings in Illinois and the offices are colorless, drab office spaces. But it is an honor to serve the people of the 114th despite the ugly office space.
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St. Clair County Republican Party 2023 Sustaining Membership
At our recent 2023 Lincoln Day Gala, Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy congratulated the St. Clair County Republican Party for flipping the Illinois 56th State Senate District seat to Erica Conway Harriss and the Illinois 114th State House District seat to Kevin Schmidt. St. Clair County was one of the few places in Illinois where Republicans made gains at the state level in the 2022 Midterm Elections. In St. Clair County, we had the strongest slate of candidates on the ballot in our Party’s recent history with candidates for all but one countywide position and all but three County Board seats. We came very close to flipping three countywide positions and winning new County Board seats.
In large part, these successes were attributable to the financial support that we received in 2022 from Republicans in St. Clair County. That support allowed us to host monthly Candidate Table events across the County in order to introduce our local candidates to County voters. We also hosted Illinois Governor and US Senate Forums to introduce our statewide candidates to voters in southern Illinois. Donations allowed us to mail out tens of thousands of voter education cards to County voters to ensure they knew the Republicans running for office at the County and State levels. Our new website, stclaircountyrepublicans.com, was built with funds donated by County Republicans.
As we look ahead to the 2024 Presidential Election, we have a lot of work to do in 2023 to prepare for the 2024 Presidential Election. Our goal is straightforward, we want to increase the number of votes for Republican candidates from St. Clair County voters in order to win seats at the County, State, and National levels. Specifically, we will be focused on creating an effective Vote By Mail (VBM) program in St. Clair County, on expanding our outreach to independent and soft Democrat voters in St. Clair County, and on broadly communicating our Republican value proposition.
In order to ensure we’re able to accomplish these goals, please consider becoming a 2023 Sustaining Member of the St. Clair County Republican Party. Our website’s Sustaining Membership Page describes our nine different Sustaining Membership levels and the gifts associated with each.
We’re making progress in St. Clair County. However, we have much more to do to stop the attack on our southern Illinois values from Chicago Democrats. We can do this if we work together and stand for what we believe. Thanks for your continued support in turning St. Clair County red!
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3rd Annual Chairman’s Golf Tournament – May 19, 2023
Please join us on Friday, May 19th at Tamarack Golf Course for our 3rd Annual Chairman’s Golf Tournament, sponsored by Lou Fusz Motorsports. Tickets are $320 for a foursome or $80 for an individual and include greens fees, cart, chicken dinner, range balls, and drink tickets. Contests will include longest drive, closest to the pin, and hole-in-one – a hole-in-one wins you a side-by-side! Sponsorships are available.
Tickets and sponsorships can be purchased on our website at Chairman’s Golf Tournament. We hope to see you on the links!
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Barr blasts Trump Indictment As ‘Abomination’
Former Attorney General Bill Barr on Friday blasted the indictment of former President Trump as an “abomination.” “Obviously, we don’t have the indictment, so there’s a little bit of speculation involved. But based on the news reports, if they’re accurate, this is an abomination,” Barr told Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow.
“It’s the epitome of the abuse of prosecutorial power to bring a case that would not be brought against anyone else,” he continued. “They are going after the man, not a crime.”
Barr, who served as attorney general in the Trump administration, also criticized the presumed legal theory behind the indictment as “pathetically weak.” “The case is held together by chicken wire and paper clips and rubber bands,” he added. “It’s a lousy case … It’s a shameful episode in our history where this local prosecutor is trying to affect the political process by bringing this case.”
A New York grand jury indicted the former president on criminal charges on Thursday for his role in a $130,000 hush money payment that his former personal attorney Michael Cohen made to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
While the indictment remains under seal, legal experts have previously suggested that Trump could face charges for falsifying business records by improperly marking down reimbursements to Cohen as legal payments. “I actually don’t think that’s a valid claim in this case because the statute actually requires that it be done with the intent to defraud,” Barr said on Friday, adding, “I don’t understand the basis for a fraud claim here.”
“But then they take this misdemeanor, which also has a problem with the statute of limitations, and they try to shoehorn into a felony by claiming that the reason the documents were falsified was to cover up another crime. Barr noted that the Manhattan district attorney, who convened the grand jury in the case, seems to be assuming that the hush money payment was effectively a contribution to Trump’s campaign and represents a campaign finance violation.
“I can tell you that’s not the law,” he added. “I don’t think that’s how the Justice Department would view it.”
The former attorney general, once a staunch ally to Trump, has become a frequent critic of the former president since leaving his administration and has previously sided with those investigating Trump in other legal matters. Barr said last fall that the Department of Justice probably had a “basis for legitimately indicting” Trump over the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
“If the Department of Justice can show that these were indeed very sensitive documents, which I think they probably were, and also show that the president consciously was involved in misleading the department, deceiving the government, and playing games after he had received the subpoena for the documents, those are serious charges,” Barr said at the time.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE HILL
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Do You Have Information That Is Of Interest To Our Members?
If so, please send it to us at marketing@scilgop.com so that can publish it in an upcoming issue of the St. Clair County Republican Party Membership Newsletter.
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