Q&A with Noland, Rauschenberger
Democratic incumbent Michael Noland from Elgin defends his 22nd District Illinois Senate seat against Republican challenger Steven J. Rauschenberger from Elgin.
Q. What is your Number 1 campaign issue?
Noland. Jobs. During my first term I was proud to have sponsored the Illinois Small Tax Credit expected to create over 20,000 new jobs and happy to support a $31 billion Capital Bill which is creating thousands of jobs throughout Illinois. Specifically the Capital Bill includes; $40 million and 500 jobs back for a building at Harper Community College in cooperation with local businesses; $18 million and 300 jobs for lifesaving access to St. Alexis Hospital at the I-90 Interchange and Barrington; $11 million and 200 jobs for tax credits for businesses that hire new employees in Elgin's Riverwalk redevelopment. I also helped bring back $150,000 and retain 150 jobs at Siemens Energy in Elgin.
Rauschenberger. My number 1 campaign issue is the state budget and its related issues of Pension Funding, state borrowing, paying our schools and providers on time and integrity of financial reporting.
Q. What is your Number 2 campaign issue?
Noland. Tax relief. I have supported plans to double the property tax credit, double the education tax credit, and triple the earned income tax credit. I sponsored a small business tax credit, which provides small businesses with a $2,500 tax credit for each new employee they hired over the next year.
Rauschenberger. My second campaign issue is job growth. In order to reclaim jobs in Illinois and boost the economy, I hope to repeal and eliminate excess regulation, high taxation, litigation and political corruption that are hampering job recovery efforts.
Q. What is your Number 3 campaign issue?
Noland. Government reform. I have been actively pursuing ethics reform as the chief sponsor of a joint resolution constitutional amendment to allow recall of a governor, I pushed through historic campaign finance reforms, and voted to remove former Governor Rod Blagojevich. In 2008, I co-sponsored and voted for historic pay-to-play legislation (HB 824 (2008)). In 2009 before talk of campaign contribution limits began, I filed one of the first campaign contribution limit bills (SB 1406) which was based on previous legislation supported by the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. Continuing to push the issue of contribution limits and campaign reform, I co-sponsored and supported the legislation that eventually became law (SB 1466); however, I know it is far from perfect. We need meaningful contribution limits on what political parties and legislative leaders can give to candidates; that is why I am a proud co-sponsor of SB 2532. I also eagerly await the recommendations of the campaign finance task force regarding other reforms.
Rauschenberger. My third campaign issue is needed structural reform of the state agencies and programs that are so poorly run, and are driving state spending with questionable results
Q. What should be done to solve the state's budget crisis? What specific measures should be cut for how much in savings? Would you support or oppose an income tax increase or a state sales tax increase? Lay out a specific plan of what needs to be done.
Noland. Repairing the budget is going to take serious commitment. Years of borrowing and spending have placed the state in a critical situation. I have supported a plan which would reduce our overreliance on property taxes and bring much needed reform to our revenue generation structure. The plan would have cut nearly $2 billion dollars in state spending. In addition, it would have modernized the state's revenue system and made it fairer, raised approximately $7 billion in new revenue, doubled the state income tax credit Illinois homeowners receive for property taxes, and provide schools with the resources they need to educate our children (HB 174).
Medicaid spending is a large and fast growing portion of our budget that we have to get a handle on, that is why I co-sponsored legislation limiting the amount of Medicaid bills that the State can carry over from year to year (SB 3707). I supported legislation aimed at rooting out waste and abuse and added additional transparency to human service areas (HB 5124, HB 5241, and HB 5242). I also co-sponsored historic pension reform that will save the state billions (SB 1946).
The state has the primary responsibility to fund education. I supported a bill last year that would have help making the state meet its responsibilities. It would have lowered property taxes and increase revenue generated from income. This swap would have allowed for greater funding for our schools, particularly U-46 and D300.
Primary health care needs and infrastructure are also vital to our communities. I will continue to support measures such as consolidating state office space, rebidding state contracts (SB 375), and reducing our energy costs.
Rauschenberger. First, we need a balanced budget which is required by the Illinois Constitution. We should not be spending more than the revenues we are taking in. It is unfathomable to me how the legislative leaders find it OK to ignore the constitution because it is politically convenient for them.
Unfortunately, balancing the budget will not fix the deficit we have created through spending and borrowing. Line item budget cuts will not solve this problem either. We need to make fundamental changes such as:
a. Reform & restructure Medicaid program;
b. Eliminate majority of school mandates and restructure state aid to K-12;
c. restructure prospective pensions;
d. Convert higher education support to student based and eliminate most other higher ed. grant programs;
e. modernize IL Sales Tax to bring into conformance with national Streamline Sales Tax Project and review sales tax base;
f. Launch criminal code review and examine Florida sentencing/prisoner re-entry reforms;
g. Eliminate state aircraft, perhaps retaining single helicopter;
h. close one of two IL Supreme Court Chambers and review closure or restructuring of Appellate Court houses;
i. Study states with nonpartisan legislative staffs for IL conversion;
j. more available on request...
I oppose an increase in the state income tax. Income tax increases are not appropriate during the worst recession in modern history, and tax revenue increases before insisting on budget reductions and spending limits can never solve our problems. We will realize more income tax receipts from supporting job friendly changes to IL policies and politics.
As the former President of the National Council of State Legislatures, I did a lot of work in the SSTP project to modernize and harmonize the sales taxes across all states. Over twenty states have passed a modernized state sales tax. Modernizing state sales taxes in Illinois should give us the opportunity to equalize taxes between electronic and main street transactions and broaden the base of the Illinois sales tax.
Q. What is your view on the pension legislation passed last year? Do you support or oppose lower benefits and higher employee contributions for current state workers? Specifically, how should state officials resolve underfunding problems?
Noland. I supported pension reform because I believe that it will help prevent the state from sinking deeper into debt. I am open to considering other changes to the pension system (but I am very aware of the fact that police officers and firefighters risk their lives in the line of duty – may want to take out, they didn't ask about the locals here or modify to be state troopers and corrections officers, mental health employees). As for current employees, I am persuaded by the respected legal authorities who have stated that reducing pension benefits for current employees is unconstitutional. I also do not support making retired state employees pay more for health care because retirees are living on fixed incomes. If we charge them more, some may be forced to choose between their medical care and groceries.
Rauschenberger. Two-tier pension systems, I believe, are a stopgap solution at best because you are not saving money in the short-term. Also, I think it creates inherent problems because it is not a level playing field for employees. We need to fundamentally change the system and in a manner which is fair everyone.
I believe that the IL Constitution permits the legislature to change all pension benefits prospectively. We need to rein the abuses, establish more affordable pension accruals, increase employee contributions, and FULLY FUND THE STATE'S SHARE, without borrowing.
Q. Do you oppose or support civil unions? Gay marriage? What abortion restrictions do you support? What about parental notification? Late-term abortion? Should there be controls on gun ownership? If so, what would you support?
Noland. With issues related to family privacy, government should be reticent to intrude in the sanctity of family relationships.
I support civil unions. I believe that women should have a right to choose, and that abortions should be safe, legal and rare.
On gun control, while I support the 2nd amendment, I also support reasonable gun control laws.
I support prohibiting the manufacture and sale or transfer of large capacity ammunition magazines of more than 10 rounds except to the military and law enforcement. I support the right of local municipalities to establish laws to address gun violence, and I support measures that would require gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms.
Rauschenberger. I oppose civil unions and gay marriage. I am pro-life. I also support parental notification.
I believe in the second amendment. I would support restrictions on ownership by convicted felons, perhaps some misdemeanors, people with records that show a history of mental illness, drug abuse, or domestic violence. I also acknowledge the government's right to ban certain weapons (i.e. machine guns, fully automatic weapons, etc.). I believe that gun ownership regulations should be uniform (statewide), simple and as nonintrusive as possible.
Q. Where do you stand on campaign finance caps for legislative leaders and parties? Will you vote for your current caucus leader? Do you support an amendment for a different political map system? Why or why not?
Noland. I support capping donation from party leaders during elections, that is why I am co-sponsoring SB 2532. I would also consider public financed campaigns and capping spending for campaigns. I also support limiting the years in which legislative leaders may retain their position as leaders, see SJRCA 25. There needs to be a playing field in which officials and candidates are encouraged to meet and greet their voters. We cannot allow money to be the sole reason someone wins or loses an election.
I do support a different political map process. I support objective, clinical methods of drawing districts to the extent that they allow full representation of all racial, socioeconomic demographics and communities of interests.
Rauschenberger. I believe the capping of donations should apply to caucus and party leaders. I believe they should be treated the same as the rank and file legislators. I continue to be concerned that most of the “reforms” passed over the last 20 years have done little to improve the system, but have served to concentrate power in the hands of a few leaders. We need realistic reforms that don't cripple independent legislators, don't discourage challenger candidates, and don't further empower legislative, caucus, or party leaders. The money is a symptom of the real problem, despotic concentration of power.
Yes, I would vote for Christine Radogno.
I believe the way redistricting is done in Illinois is one of the worst in the nation. I would support an automated computer drawing system like one that is used in Iowa.
Q. Legislation recently passed that exempts the evaluations of all public workers from FOIA. Do you support such an exemption? For a certain class of public employees (e.g. police officers, road workers etc.)? Explain. Noland. I was part of a strong bipartisan coalition who supported this legislation because I am concerned about the consequences of allowing employee evaluations to be made public. If supervisors know that others will be able to read the evaluations that they write, they may not offer honest criticism. State workers would not improve their performance, and the lack of evaluations would make it more difficult to fire bad workers. At the same time, public employees would be unnecessarily disadvantaged if they applied for other jobs. We all know people who have received unwarranted bad evaluations in some cases because they have bad supervisors. Public employees should not be subjected to this level of scrutiny. I fully support allowing other information, like salaries, attendance records, and complaint records, to be subject to FOIA.Rauschenberger. Yes, I think evaluations are part of an employee's personnel record and should be exempt from FOIA requests. I would be open to release of #8220;groups#8221; or #8220;classes#8221; of evaluations with personal identifiers redacted.
Name of Candidate: Michael Noland
Hometown: Elgin
Running for: Illinois Senate, 22nd District
Party affiliation: Democrat
Candidate Incumbent? Yes