Pankau Wants “24 or More”

by George Kocan, Communications Director, TAPROOT (WESTMONT, IL)

A contender for the Republican leadership in the Illinois Senate has set as her goal increasing the number of senators to at least 24. Currently, 22 GOP senators serve in Springfield.

Carole Pankau (23rd District) made her comments at TAPROOT’s monthly breakfast meeting in Lombard, at the Old Country Buffet, off Roosevelt Rd. She began her talk with some good news for Republicans, 58 million persons did not vote for Barak Obama for President of the United States.

She then provided an analysis of the power structure in the Senate. Members of both parties will select their leadership for the coming term. The Republican incumbent, Frank Watson (51st Dist in southern Illinois) will not seek reelection because of a stroke. With therapy, he is making progress has not recovered enough to go back into politics, Pankau said. The Republican senators will hold their caucus November 19 to elect their new leader.

Four candidates stepped up to fill this job: Carole Pankau (23rd Dist.), Christina Radogno (41st Dist.), Kirk Dillard (24th Dist.), and Dale Risinger (37th Dist.) A candidate must receive 12 or more votes to win.

She noted that the Democrats have more factions and more friction than do the Republicans. They aggregated into a number of mini-caucuses. Some of players do not even talk to each other. James Meeks (15th Dist.), for example, opposes Emil Jones (14th Dist.) the majority leader. Among Hispanics, Iris Martinez (20th Dist.) vies with Tony Munoz (1st Dist.)

Rumor has it that Jim Claybourne (57th Dist.) is in line to succeed Jones. Pankau described him as greatly different from Jones, “steadied, studied…a gentleman and a scholar.”

As leader of the senate Republicans, Pankau wants to add more Republicans to the Illinois senate, her slogan being, “24 or more.”

Money, she said, will be the overriding issue—surpassing even prolife and family issues—in the legislature. “Comptroller Dan Hines is sitting on $4 billion of bills that he cannot pay. By March of 2009, the bills will amount to $5 billion.”

Some good news also came out of the discussion period. Attendees learned the Republican Ray Wardingly came close to beating Emil Jones in the 14th legislative district, which encompasses the Beverly-Evergreen Park and Palos Park area, on the far south side of Chicago. If he had some support from the regular party organization, Wardingly could have beaten him, it was said.

Also, the elections in three states showed that the U.S. is not a left of center country. Three states passed amendments to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. In California, 70% of the black vote went to protect marriage, even though the majority voted for Obama, who advocated a socialist agenda.