Two GOP foes are vying for Illinois Senate seat in 35th district

The primary election race for Illinois Senate District 35 features incumbent Republican Sen. Dave Syverson, a member of the Senate since 1993, and challenger Eli Nicolosi, a former Winnebago County Board member and chairman of the Winnebago County Republican Central Committee.

The 35th District includes sections of Winnebago, Boone, DeKalb, Kane and McHenry counties.

The primary will occur on June 28. The general election is Nov. 8.

The candidates were asked to share their thoughts regarding health care, taxes and crime. Here are their responses:

Eli Nicolosi

Age: 43

City of Residence: Loves Park

Education: Rock Valley College; bachelor’s degree in art and design, Columbia College, Chicago, Illinois (2001)

Work Experience: Astute Web Group — a web and graphic marketing agency that I have owned for over 20 years. I am the president and creative director and my team and I have served many different industries around our state, including local government, manufacturing and nonprofit groups. Past jobs include: UPS, Rockford Map Publishing (mapmaker), Creative Pig Minds (illustrator).

Political Experience: Chairman of the Winnebago County Republican Party. Winnebago County Board member from 2014 to 2018, serving on the operations and administration committee, vice chairman of the public safety committee and chairman of the legislative affairs committee.

Organizations and Memberships: Holy Family Church, Winnebago County Republican Central Committee, Knights of Columbus, Boone County Republican Club. Past affiliations include: Next Rockford, BNI (Partners in Success), Family Peace Center community board.

Family: wife, Jennifer; children Luciana, 13, Bianca, 13, Gianni, 9, and Francesca, 3.

Healthcare costs continue to soar. What proposals do you have to address the escalating costs of healthcare including prescription drugs?

My first proposed step is to greatly reduce lobbyists’ influence in healthcare. Healthcare providers and hospitals should be focused on healing the sick, not on profits. Lobbyists get in the way of that. This also includes banning legislators like Dave Syverson from sitting on healthcare boards like Mercyhealth here in Rockford, a clear conflict of interest to our community.

Mercyhealth was supposed to be the region’s beacon of hope and a not-for-profit Children’s Hospital when built. In a bait-and-switch move that many local elected officials felt betrayed. Hospital executives and Syverson increase their profits as he uses state political connections. We the people have a right to know where our tax dollars are going — and have become — as well as the ability to take them back. As a senator who will represent people over profits, I will demand a better job of enforcing these promises.

Illinois has been ranked as the least tax-friendly state for the middle class in the nation. How will you try and help ease the burden on taxpayers?

Property taxes in Illinois are a major problem. There is no reason why we should be leading the nation with 8,923 taxing districts when absorption into other bodies of government and utilizing attrition can reduce this number significantly without sacrificing people’s jobs.

The second step should include a property tax freeze — without raising other taxes —which would force greater efficiencies in government. This would make our overall tax burden workable and show constituents that we are partners in this together.

Violent crime continues to plague Rockford and the state as a whole. What legislation will you introduce or support to combat violent crimes?

My family has lived in Rockford for six generations, and crime has never been as bad as it has been today. In this time, we must first look at solutions to reducing crime by emphasizing the role of parents and the community, rather than implementing top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions forced onto us. The state also needs to do better collaborating with private businesses who have a financial stake in our community instead of pushing more unfunded mandates or worse yet, raising taxes for more programs that have done very little for our community. It is essential as we invest in education on all levels — including working with building trades — to bring hope that there are high paying opportunities in Rockford for those who may feel crime is the only option.

Finally, we need to work with law enforcement to keep our communities safe while respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. One of the most dangerous and frustration-provoking bills we've seen in years is SB 3653 that systematically neuters police in Illinois. We need to reformulate this legislation so it does not take away qualified immunity for police officers that protects them from lawsuits, unless their actions meet criminal standards or negligence levels already set forth.

Dave Syverson

Age: 64

City of residence: Cherry Valley

Education: Rock Valley College

Work experience: Financial field

Political experience: State Senate

Organizations and memberships: National Association Financial Planners, numerous chambers of commerce, NFIB, and miscellaneous boards

Family: Married

Healthcare costs continue to soar. What proposals do you have to address the escalating costs of healthcare including prescription drugs?

We have many pressures on our health system that most other countries do not have including litigation and malpractice costs. Then the U.S. has higher levels than most of violence and substance abuse, mental health, obesity, aging and a large increasing undocumented population that all lead to higher costs.

Any one of these items puts pressure on healthcare costs, but when you are the only country with all these pressures it is not surprising we see these cost results. Then you add to that a reducing number of people actually paying for the program and that leads to where we are today.

Important to note, we are blessed with the best healthcare system in the world however, if leaders do not address these core problems driving up costs the quality of our healthcare is at jeopardy. 

Illinois has been ranked as the least tax-friendly state for the middle class in the nation. How will you try and help ease the burden on taxpayers?

Illinois does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem. We need to understand government is not the solution to all our problems, in fact, in many cases they are the problem.

We have a government that is bloated with duplication, they never do costs analysis of the programs already in place; and they continue to spend beyond its means. Raising taxes should be a last resort, not the first.

We need to elect leaders at every level that understand it is your money not the governments. The fix is easy; improve the jobs climate, reduce taxes and you grow you way into prosperity like other states have shown that works.

Violent crime continues to plague Rockford and the state as a whole. What legislation will you introduce or support to combat violent crimes?

I have joined in with like-minded legislators to try to reverse the ill-conceived "defund police' initiatives democrats have passed the last few years in Springfield. The governor and his party's ideas of not holding criminals accountable for their action has lead to the largest increase in crime in our history.

It is very simple, if there are no consequences for your actions you are going to get this kind of behavior. We are seeing the same results in our schools when they don't hold students accountable for their actions. Look at the counties and municipalities that hold criminals accountable for their actions vs those who don't, it's so clear.

I have also sponsored legislation that increases penalties for those who assault or murder anyone in law enforcement. If there is no respect for the law, you have chaos that leads to the kind of results we are getting today.

Chris Green: 815-987-1241; cgreen@rrstar.com; @chrisfgreen

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Two GOP foes are vying for Illinois Senate seat in 35th district