Dear Neighbor,
To summarize the discussion below about the November 2022 general election:
- Vote Republican.
- Vote NO on the Illinois Constitutional Amendment and all Propositions.
- Vote early, and in person.
Four years ago, JB Pritzker was elected Governor, making Illinois a one-party state. He is now running for reelection. It is up to you to decide whether he gets in again.
Pritzker signed into law the so-called “Safe-T Act”, which more truthfully could have been labeled the “No Cash Bail Act.” Effective January 1, 2023, thousands of inmates will be released from jail, many of whom are accused of violent crimes, and many of whom are repeat offenders. The crime and anarchy that have become commonplace in Chicago will now spread outward. And, because of other provisions in this law, our local police and prosecutors will have their hands tied behind their backs.
Two years ago, Joe Biden became President of the United States, unifying the control of Congress and the Executive Branch under the Democratic Party. He quickly curtailed oil and gas leases on federal land, and canceled the XL pipeline. He signed into law trillions of dollars in wasteful and inflationary spending. Recently, and in a cynical ploy to buy votes, he has forgiven up to $800B in student loans, transferring their cost to the two-thirds of the country who never went to college, to everyone who paid back the loan money, and to everyone who relied on the finances of their parents instead.
The greenwashed crony capitalist and spendthrift policies of the Biden administration are now having their effect. Despite Biden’s cynical depletion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices just before the election, the price of gasoline remains almost twice what it was when Biden came into office. Inflation, honestly measured, is in the double digits, effectively delivering a pay cut to American workers and retirees. The balances of your 401(k)s have taken a huge hit, delaying or impoverishing your retirement. As traditional sources of electric generation have been throttled, energy has become more scarce, and blackouts now seriously threaten large regions of the country.
Biden’s and Pritzker’s lockdowns, masking and coerced vaccinations did nothing to curtail the spread of Covid, but inflicted grave harm on our economy, our communities, our children and our liberties. Even as this is being written, Pritzker continues to use the pretense of Covid to prolong his statewide emergency powers.
Biden threw our southern border wide open to fentanyl and human trafficking, with predictable results. In the last two years, hundreds of thousands have died from fentanyl overdoses.
It is time to start firing the politicians responsible for this madness. We can’t fire Biden right away. But we can fire Pritzker and every other Democrat now seeking reelection. I urge you to vote for their Republican opponents, who will fund the police, put and keep carjackers and armed robbers in jail, restore our southern border, reform public education, fight for energy security and sanity in government spending, and return government to its traditional and limited role in our lives.
Among the Republican candidates, two deserve special mention, as they did more than complain about Pritzker’s policies: they sued him. They are Darren Bailey, running for Governor, and Tom DeVore, running for Attorney General.
Your ballot starts with a “Proposed Amendment to the 1970 Illinois Constitution.” This amendment is being marketed as a constitutional right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. But its description on the ballot is misleading. First; because of federal preemption, this amendment will only apply to teachers’ unions and other state and local government workers. Second, the practical effect of the amendment would be to cement the control of our state by the government unions, and to make membership therein compulsory. The amendment would permit, in practice, the repeal or selective enforcement of any laws, already or later passed by the Illinois state legislature that even remotely relates to conditions of public sector employment, which is to say, anything at all. This could simply be accomplished by the self-dealing “collective bargaining” of the teachers’ and other public sector unions, in which union leaders “negotiate” with school board members and other officeholders that they help elect. If this amendment passes, government union leaders will have more power over state and local government, and public schools in particular, than state lawmakers or even voters, and parents will have even less to say about whether and what their children are being taught in public school. This constitutional language is the most extreme in the nation and will make your already sky-high property taxes even worse. I recommend that you vote NO.
None of the propositions at the end of the ballot merits your “Yes” vote either. The proposed 0.15% levy for a Lisle Township Mental Health Board is particularly egregious, in that it is a BINDING REFERENDUM, DOUBLES the Lisle Township tax levy, produces services entirely redundant to those already provided by DuPage County and paid for by your tax dollars, and will be spent mostly on constructing a new building and paying the salaries and benefits of 7 new mental health board members, an administrator, and staff. It is another Democrat self-licking ice cream cone. See: Lisle Township Tax Hike 2022
I attached a sample marked-up ballot for your use. You can take it to the voting booth if you wish.
You may vote in any of three ways.
The voting option is by mail. I recommend that you do NOT elect permanent vote by mail status, because once you do, it will be very difficult for you to change back to voting in-person. In particular, do NOT return the vote by mail solicitation from the DuPage County Clerk you will get in the mail. Instead, go online to dupagecounty.gov/Election/Vote by Mail, and request a vote by mail ballot for the 2022 general election ONLY. After completing it, mail it yourself. Do NOT hand your completed ballot to a stranger. Alternatively, you may merely hold this ballot, not fill it out, surrender it at the polling place, demand that the election judge write SPOILED on it, and take another ballot from the election judge at that time.
You may also vote early. You can do this at the Naperville Municipal Center starting on October 24 and ending November 7. I recommend that you do this rather than either of the other two methods.
Or, you can vote in person on Election Day, on Tuesday, November 8. You may do this in any polling place in DuPage County which is convenient to you. The polling place notionally assigned to your precinct is at Grace Pointe Church, at the corner of Olesen and Chicago Ave., but many of you will find the polling place at Saint Margaret Mary Church, at the corner of Naper and Green Trails, to be more convenient.
Please come out and vote. If you want your opinion heard on how your federal, state and local governments are run, you will need to express it at the ballot box.
Best regards
Jefferson Perkins
Republican Precinct Committeeperson
Lisle Township Precinct 81