Curran eyes ‘balance’ as he prepares to lead Illinois Senate’s GOP minority

Senate Minority Chief-elect John Curran will take over a caucus that’s greater than doubled in measurement by the majority-party Democrats.

His aim: “Carry stability to state authorities.”

“As a result of we’ll produce higher outcomes with that stability for working households all through all Illinois communities,” Curran stated in an interview with Capitol Information Illinois throughout the first week of Veto Session, sooner or later after being chosen because the GOP’s subsequent minority chief.

The Republican from southwest suburban Downers Grove has served within the Basic Meeting since 2017. In January, he’ll take over for Minority Chief Dan McConchie, a Hawthorn Woods Republican who was chosen for the publish in November 2020, however whose caucus selected a brand new route by electing Curran this week.

“There is no pivot,” Curran stated. “All of us sit at one desk, it is a few folks altering seats, simply a few completely different roles as we go ahead. However, you understand, actually, that is about us being a unified caucus.”

Curran brings a monitor document of working with Democrats to his management function because the caucus seems to be to navigate a probable 40-19 Democratic majority.

“Our obstacles are the shortage, at occasions, of the bulk social gathering to respect and embody the minority social gathering in a significant method in public coverage discussions,” Curran stated. “I, as a person legislator, have discovered methods to have some significant participation in that course of and getting members of the opposite aspect of the aisle to respect my coverage goals and getting them included within the final product. We have to try this as a caucus.”

He was the lone Republican standing with Democrats in Springfield when the governor signed a well being care reform backed by the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus in 2021. He was additionally a lead voice in an effort to drastically curtail allowable emissions of ethylene oxide in Illinois, a cancer-causing fuel utilized in medical provide sterilization that’s been tied to an elevated most cancers danger within the Willowbrook space.

“Members of each side of the aisle labored collaboratively to unravel that public well being disaster,” he stated. “When you’re not protected in your group, both from a well being perspective, or a public security, private security perspective, you understand, we’re failing you.”

When Democrats labored to cross a transformative vitality coverage, the Local weather and Equitable Jobs Act, that subsidizes renewable and nuclear mills whereas aiming to take fossil gas producers offline within the subsequent 20 years, Curran was certainly one of two Republicans casting a “sure” vote.

“Dependable, sustainable vitality is without doubt one of the imperatives that now we have,” he stated. “We needed to have these nuclear vegetation on. And that is the place I got here right down to that challenge. We’d like nuclear vitality within the state of Illinois. It’s clear. It’s dependable. And fairly frankly, that is without doubt one of the massive benefits now we have.”

Different benefits, he stated, are transportation infrastructure, clear consuming water, low-cost dependable vitality and a extremely educated workforce.

“We now have some nice advantages that entice employers to Illinois,” he stated. “We now have quite a lot of promise, however we even have some regulatory issues now we have to handle to proceed to develop and entice extra funding and extra jobs to Illinois.”

A former assistant Cook dinner County state’s legal professional and DuPage County Board vice chairman, he was the lead Senate GOP voice on ethics reforms handed in 2021. Whereas Home Republicans shortly referred to as information conferences to name that invoice watered down and ineffective, Curran on the time appeared with Democrats and spoke to reporters individually about how he labored with the bulk social gathering to strengthen the invoice.

He has additionally been an opponent of the prison justice reform often known as the SAFE-T Act, arguing that whereas he’s not against ending money bail, he believes the system that may change it has a number of shortcomings.

“This was an excessive piece of laws,” he stated. “It was weighted vastly in direction of the extremes of their base and it jeopardizes public security. Republican involvement in that course of will assist stability that out. There is no cause we won’t be honest and simply and on the similar time defend public security.”

Apart from a message of stability, he stated he’d be lively in Republican fundraising, aiming to diversify donations from only one or two megadonors. In current election cycles, the 2 main funders of the state GOP have been delivery magnate Richard Uihlein and hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, who just lately moved his enterprise to Florida.

Whereas Uihlein’s cash has ceaselessly been used to raise the social gathering’s extra conservative voices, equivalent to state Sen. Darren Bailey, who misplaced the election for governor by a large margin to incumbent Democrat JB Pritzker, Curran stated it helped the Senate GOP.

“Mr. Uihlein, we have been very lucky, invested closely within the Illinois Senate Republican candidates, and these weren’t excessive candidates. These have been candidates modeled to symbolize the districts they have been operating in,” he stated. “Actually, we welcome Mr. Uihlein’s funding in our trigger, however we actually, as we glance ahead, must diversify our fundraising.”

Curran’s interview got here sooner or later after former President Donald Trump introduced one other bid for the White Home in 2024. The previous president, who’s a topic of a number of prison investigations, misplaced Illinois in each of his elections by 900,000 to greater than 1 million votes.

However Curran stated he didn’t assume Trump’s announcement would make his job tougher.

“Any nationwide determine mustn’t body who the Illinois Republican Occasion is to our residents that we search to symbolize,” he stated. “So, we must be sturdy sufficient and we’re sturdy sufficient to current ourselves in a fashion that that results in significant participation within the state.”

That features reframing the abortion challenge, Curran stated.

“We now have to do a greater job on the abortion messaging,” he stated. “You recognize, the truth is, what else can we do right here in Illinois? The legal guidelines of Illinois are extra weighted in direction of ensures of the rights to have an abortion than some other state within the nation. There is no additional to go.”

Capitol Information Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan information service protecting state authorities. It’s distributed to greater than 400 newspapers statewide, in addition to tons of of radio and TV stations. It’s funded primarily by the Illinois Press Basis and the Robert R. McCormick Basis.