. Lauzen coasts to victory

Republican Chris Lauzen coasted to an overwhelming victory with nearly 70 percent of the vote to retain the 25th State Senate seat he's held since 1992.

With 206 of 207 precincts counted, unofficial totals show Lauzen had garnered 69,815 votes compared to 30,734 votes for a Democrat Leslie Juby.

Lauzen, an Aurora accountant, said he is grateful for the privilege to serve his constituents again and thanked Juby for running an issues-based campaign.

“I recognize how much difficult work is ahead. I don't think there's a high hurdle to say the state government has to do what families have to do: to live within our means without new revenue,” Lauzen said. “I think my volunteers and I have brought forward specific solutions to these very tough problems. I've demonstrated the backbone to work on those solutions. It's not a partisan thing it's a problem solving thing.”

The race between the two was remarkably civil compared to other contests in the House and Senate that relied on inflammatory mailers, personal attacks and innuendo.

Lauzen campaigned on his record of trying to control spending, reform pensions and being a lawmakers who voted for what was right not necessarily along party lines.

Juby said serving in Springfield was a natural extension of her community service. She would have brought fresh perspective instead of condemning or shutting out ideas just because they came from Republicans.

Going forward, Juby said, she will focus on her position on the Geneva school board.

“The people who came out to vote really felt strongly about their candidate,” Juby said. “I don't know what we could have done different. We knocked on doors for 18 months.”

Both candidates opposed a tax increase to solve the state's budget mess.

Juby said the best way to get the state back on track would be to get people back to work.

Lauzen said he would consider “tax modernization and reform” only if tightening restrictions on Medicaid eligibility, applying pension reforms to future earnings of current workers, cutting the state bureaucracy and creating more jobs failed to get the state in the black.