Osmond keeps state House seat

Republican JoAnn Osmond will carry on with her duties in the representing the 61st district in the Illinois House of Representatives.

With all 70 precincts reporting, unofficial totals show Osmond, of Antioch, with 24,513 votes and Ed Erwin, a Democrat from Lindenhurst, with 18,871 votes.

Osmond has been a state representative since 2002. A call to Osmond Tuesday night was not immediately returned.

The district covers all of Winthrop Harbor, Zion, Newport Township, Wadsworth and Old Mill Creek. The newly configured 61st House District also includes parts of Gurnee, Antioch, Lake Villa and Lindenhurst.

Both candidates during the campaign offered ideas on how they’d pursue cutting the state budget.

Osmond said she’d favor seeking cuts by focusing on fraud and making sure overdue bills are paid. She also said officials must look for duplicate state programs and seek consolidations in all departments.

Erwin, a semiretired attorney and business man, meanwhile, said while Illinois government may be bloated in some areas, it’s thin in others. For example, he said, key positions remain unfilled at the Illinois Department of Revenue.

He said a lack of staffing at the revenue department inhibits the state’s ability to fully enforce current tax laws and collect legitimately accrued tax liability. While positions in all departments should be audited, he said, the IDR is among those that should always have full staffing because it takes in more than it spends.