Endorsement: Mathias over Sente in House District 59

The easiest thing for seven-term incumbent Buffalo Grove Republican Sid Mathias, 67, to do after the Democrats put him in a Democrat-leaning district that is 97 percent new, would have been to walk away instead of seeking to raise the half-million dollars he needs to run a competitive race for the District 59 state House seat against Vernon Hills Democrat Carol Sente. But Mathias loves his job, even though he is often thwarted by House Speaker Mike Madigan, whose party is providing the bulk of Sente’s funding. And he comes from a family that is used to challenges: his father was a concentration camp survivor who worked in the Chicago stockyards to put Mathias through school. We agree with Mathias’ positions on repealing the corporate income tax, reducing pension costs, adding slots at the track, and extending Illinois 53 into Lake County. Sente did work hard to pass legislation to prevent attacks like the one on an Elgin teacher stabbed by one of her students and she says she is having some success in challenging the system from within, but we admire Mathias’ gusto and we see a need to keep moderate Republicans like him in the legislature to fight head-on the power structure that has produced our current state of dysfunction.