Meet the four Republicans on the primary ballot for the 105th House District seat

Four candidates are competing in the Republican primary for the 105th Illinois House District race.

Newly redrawn to include all or portions of nine counties, the mostly rural district includes Pontiac, Chillicothe, Washington and the far northeastern corner of Bloomington. Dan Brady, who has held the seat since 2013, no longer lives in the district and has decided not to run for reelection. Instead, he is running for Illinois secretary of state.

The four candidates vying for the seat are Kyle Ham of Bloomington, Dennis Tipsword of rural Metamora, Mike Kirkton of Gridley and Don Reints of rural Benson.

Kyle Ham

Bloomington resident Ham is senior vice president of ELM Companies, a utility locating service best known for the slogan “Call JULIE.” He was formerly the executive director of the Bloomington/Normal Economic Development Council, served as chief of staff to state Treasurer Dan Rutherford and also served as the mayor of Toulon for four years.

Ham doesn't live within the borders of the 105th district, but plans to move if he’s elected. When the borders of a district are redrawn, residents living in the old district are allowed to run in the election if they agree to move within six months of being elected. Ham would have to move about two miles, as the crow flies. While that may seem like a lot of trouble, Ham said he’s willing because it’s important.

“We need candidates that are going to run and fight back on bad decisions that are being made in Springfield,” said Ham. “We need good candidates that understand finance and spending and small business and bring something to the table to push back on all these bad decisions the state is making.”

High on Ham’s list of things to do is getting control of the state’s budget.

“By constitution, Illinois is supposed to provide a balanced budget. We overspend every year more than we bring in in tax dollars, yet we are one of the highest tax states in the nation,” said Ham. “Whether you're a small business or a farmer or whatever you do in our district, you are being taxed the highest possible rate anywhere else in the nation. At a time with inflation and high gas prices, it's really hard for everyday working families to survive.”

Ham cites his experience in the private sector and working as chief of staff under Rutherford as good training for tackling Illinois’ fiscal woes.

Ham is critical of the mandates dictated by the state during the pandemic.

“We can debate COVID all day long, but you had states all over the country that stayed open and managed way better than Illinois,” he said. “Illinois locked down small businesses and just crushed mom and pop shops for a period of two years. And the mask mandates, the school lockdowns  our children completely suffered during those two years.”

He is also concerned about portions of the criminal justice reform bill passed in 2021 and the rising levels of crime in the state.

“Illinois continues to slide in regards to being safe," said Ham. “The safety act that was passed really didn’t focus on criminals, it focused on what law enforcement can do better. I think there’s a balance there, but certainly the idea of no bail, you can commit a crime, go get processed and walk right out the door again, we have to be tough on crime. I think people are starting to see this is not just in Chicago. ... It’s trickling downstate to Bloomington/Normal, to places like Peoria and Champaign, where violent crimes are up, and we need to live in a society where there is law enforcement and enforcing the law is important."

Ham sees being a legislator as a chance to serve, rather than a career, and he plans to keep his job if elected to the position.

“I think that's what the general population wants to see, is more citizen legislators that are there to serve, not to make a career out of it," he said. “We should have people going down there willing to serve the people that sent them there, not necessarily serving themselves. We all want to get a pay raise in life, but in my business if you're not performing, if you're not making money, if you're spending more than you bring in, you don't get raises. You don't get bonuses. You shouldn't be rewarded for bad behavior, and that's been my whole take with Springfield — bad decisions, bad money management, they keep raising their own salaries. That’s not how it works in the private sector, and I don’t think it should work that way in Springfield.”

Dennis Tipsword

Tipsword has been a police officer for 28 years and the chief deputy for the Woodford County Sheriff’s Department for eight years. Tipsword has also owned several businesses over the years, including AAA Striping and Sweeping, a road and parking lot maintenance company and Zee’s, a seasonal ice cream and food stand in Spring Bay.

Tipsword said the main reason he is running for office is to improve conditions in the state for his three sons and three grandsons.

“Every one of my kids lives within 10 minutes of my wife and I’s house in rural Metamora. Last year 114,000 people left the state, and we would be devastated if one of our kids said, 'We’re going somewhere for a job or better conditions,'” he said.

Another reason he decided to run is to address governmental overreach, something he has witnessed in the last few years.

“I think it's been proven that Governor Pritzker had his authority under the emergency declaration for 30 days, and after the 30 days he no longer had that authority without the Legislature signing a bill putting something in place, and we never did that,” said Tipsword.

He said mandated business shutdowns strained small businesses and will have lasting financial effects on some people, while mask mandates were stressful for children.

“I just feel like the past two years really wasn’t about freedom, it was about political control,” he said.

As a law officer, Tipsword is also concerned about the criminal justice reform act passed in 2021.

“It was passed by a bunch of legislators who had no knowledge of criminal justice, and never asked the criminal justice professions for their opinion on it, which has really devastated our criminal justice system,” he said.

High taxes and the fact that businesses are leaving Illinois gave him another reason to run, he said.

“There are just so many reasons I finally decided that I couldn’t complain any longer if I wasn’t willing to stick my neck out and stand up for what I believe in,” he said. “It’s time for someone other than the career politicians to run our state. It seems to me like once we get some of our politicians in place, they automatically start looking ahead to the next election cycle, not so much what’s best for their constituents. And I think we have to change that by getting some unprofessional politicians in there.”

Mike Kirkton

Kirkton lives on the family’s 110-acre farm in Gridley, where he raises and trains horses, a business his grandfather started in 1928. He is a retired Army infantry lieutenant colonel and a member of the Livingston County Board.

Since getting on the ballot, Kirkton has spent his days meeting with voters and key stakeholders in the district to find out what they want.

“My main focus is talking and calling people to find out what their issues are, and being a voice for them. A loud voice, which will be necessary because, as you know, Republicans are in a super minority in the Legislature," he said.

Kirkton, who has been endorsed by the Farm Bureau, has heard from a lot of business owners unhappy with the business climate in Illinois. Farmers in the middle of spring planting are complaining about the high motor fuel tax.

“The Legislature tied the motor fuel tax to inflation," said Kirkton. “As inflation goes up, the motor fuel tax automatically goes up. It’s law. By this summer it’s expected that the motor fuel tax for the state of Illinois will be close to 66 cents per gallon.”

Business owners are also concerned about the cost of workers' compensation insurance, said Kirkton. The rates in Illinois are about four times higher than the rates in Texas.

“The state of Illinois has the highest workman’s comp insurance in the nation,” said Kirkton. “We can do better in helping these businesses out, to assist them in growing and expanding, because it’s revenue for our state. It keeps people here and brings people back to our state.”

Kirkton also talked about stemming the loss of residents in the state. Livingston County lost 6,000 between 2010 and 2020.

“The voters have left our county, and I think it’s pretty obvious as to why that’s taking place,” he said. “It’s a challenge for everybody in the current environment in the state to not only keep businesses here, but help businesses grow and to keep revenue in the state.”

The state’s unfunded pension system is another thing keeping businesses from investing in Illinois, said Kirkton.

“A lot of businesses don’t want to come to the state because of that big dark cloud called our pension plan,” said Kirkton. “They know that there's going to be a bill come due sooner or later.”

Don Rients

Rients, who grew up outside of Dana and went to school in Minonk, worked as a correctional officer in the Pontiac prison for six years. He later got a degree in electronics and has worked as an infrastructure analyst at State Farm for 30 years.

Rients is the president of the Benson Fire Protection District. He was also the chairman for the Boy Scouts in Benson for more than five years and has been a member of the Christian organization Gideons International since 2007.

This is not Rients' first run for elected office. He has run against U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood in the Republican primaries twice.

Rients says he’s a normal guy trying to make a change.

“The state is out of control. The Democrats are running the place, and some of the Republicans are playing ball with them just to get a piece of the pie,” said Rients. “I think people are finally getting tired of what’s going on with the Democrats, and they want a Republican who will stand their ground. You lose integrity when you walk across the aisle and vote for bad bills that you said you wouldn’t do during the election.”

The gas tax is an example, said Rients.

“They got Republicans to vote for the gas tax,” said Rients. "That's against what I think a Republican is — we don't raise taxes. We're not for large government. We're not always spending."

Rients believes the job of a legislator is to serve constituents.

“We’re supposed to help people in the district, whether their SNAP cards have a problem, or getting their FOID card renewed, or their driver’s license has an issue. ... The first thing is helping the constituents in your district with day-to-day issues,” he said.

As a right-to-life candidate who says abortion should happen only if the life of the mother is endangered, Rients is concerned about what might happen in Illinois if Roe v. Wade is overturned and neighboring states ban abortions.

“If Illinois becomes an abortion center, and if Illinois is supplementing with our tax money, then we’re going to supplement abortions for all the states around us on top of us doing it, and I don’t agree with us doing it to start with,” said Rients. “So that becomes a bigger issue then, with the Supreme Court probably making that decision, control back to state’s rights.”

Another issue concerning to Rients is the teaching of critical race theory in schools.

“Schools should be teaching arithmetic, math, science, not their version of what I call immorality. It should be left to the parents. I sure hope the school boards stand up stronger against this CRT stuff the state has passed,” he said.

Leslie Renken can be reached at 309-370-5087 or lrenken@pjstar.com. Follow her on Facebook.com/leslie.renken. 

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Meet the 4 Republican candidates for 105th House District in Illinois