Ajay Gupta: 2026 candidate for Illinois House District 41

Bio

Office sought: House District 41

Party: Republican

City: Naperville

Age: 61

Previous offices held: None

Q&A

What do you consider the three most pressing issues facing the state in the next four years, and how should they be addressed?

First, the unfunded pension liability is still in the $140 billion range. That hole has grown while the incumbent state rep, Janet Yang Rohr, moved from member to vice-chair to chair of House Personnel & Pensions. The Editorial Board was right to have endorsed her general election opponents in both of her prior contested races — 2020 and 2022. I would push a constitutional path to stabilize the systems and have the state assume teacher-pension costs, so local money stays in classrooms. Second, reverse SAFE-T catch-and-release, so high-risk defendants can be detained pending trial. Victims, not the accused, should come first.

Third, Springfield’s spending addiction, which must be continually fed by tax increases. Spending still outruns inflation and population; property and gas taxes rank among the nation’s highest; working-age families leave. Cap appropriations to inflation and population, no new tax hikes, independent audits, and “no metrics, no money” for vendors.

How would you assess the General Assembly's handling, to date, of the various proposals surrounding a Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights? What proposals would you have been willing to support and in what ways, if any, might you have approached it differently?

Springfield has offered tax certainty to a private NFL franchise while homeowners pay some of the highest property taxes in America. Analyses of the megaprojects path for Arlington Heights show a frozen assessment plus a PILOT could mean tens of millions a year the team would not pay — and schools and towns would not collect. I would not shift that load onto families here. Keep the Bears with private capital, honest assessments, and local voters at the table. I would not support multi-decade assessment freezes or a special statute for one owner. If the project needs roads or public safety, price those costs in the open. A stadium is not a reason to punch a hole in everyone else’s tax base.

Now roughly three years into the elimination of cash bail in Illinois as part of the SAFE-T Act, how would you assess the success or failure of the criminal justice reform measure? What changes, if any, would you support?

It has not succeeded on the test that matters: Are communities safer? The legislature ended cash bail statewide. Voters never signed off on that as a blank check. Defendants picked up for one offense are too often released and offend again. I would restore judicial discretion to detain high-risk and repeat defendants, tighten rearrest consequences, and require county-level charge-and-release data. Nonviolent pretrial reform is not the same as treating violent cases like paperwork. Victims and witnesses deserve a process that does not shrug when the same names cycle through.

Illinois homeowners face one of the highest relative property tax burdens in the country. What specific proposals could you offer to ease the burden on state residents?

Homeowners are funding Springfield’s refusal to reform pensions and spending. Cap state spending to inflation and population. Advance a constitutional pension fix so the unfunded liability stops landing on houses. Have the state assume teacher pensions so districts stop raiding the local base. No new statewide swaps that hit homeowners. Kill special assessment deals for megaprojects that shift the bill onto everyone else. Targeted relief only after spending is capped. If we keep raising levies on people who stay, more leave, and the rate on those who remain climbs again.

Gov. JB Pritzker recently paused a state initiative granting incentives to data center developers, and residents statewide have concerns about how such developments are affecting their access to water, utility rates, and the environment. How should the state approach data centers going forward?

The pause on incentives showed that the state wrote checks before it asked about water, rates, and the grid.

I would approve no package without a published local study on water, power, and property taxes. Ratepayers should not subsidize a developer’s load. Local governments should keep a real veto on siting. The state should claw back credits if promised jobs or conservation conditions are missed. Treat data centers like any other heavy user: they should pay for the infrastructure they consume. Illinois can want the investment without giving away the aquifer or shifting utility costs onto District 41 households. Transparency should be the price of admission.

Illinois’ “sanctuary” policies concerning immigration have made it a target for the Trump administration and critics who say they encourage criminal behavior. How do you feel about those policies, and how, if at all, would you change them?

I am a legal immigrant. I followed the rules, became a citizen, and assimilated. Sanctuary rules that block cooperation with federal enforcement obstruct national law, invite illegal migration, and strain safety and budgets. Illinois has spent large general-revenue sums on people here illegally while veterans get a fraction of that attention. I would narrow TRUST Act and Way Forward barriers on serious criminal offenders, end state welcoming-center models that advertise the state, and put cooperation back in line with federal statute. Enforcing the law is not cruelty.

Many women in the legislature complain about a culture of sexual harassment in Springfield. Do you see evidence of this and, if so, what should be done about it?

A legislature that kept its speaker in the chair while a federal corruption investigation was already public does not get to assume the workplace is fine. Complaints should not run through the accused member’s caucus leader. I support independent outside counsel, real deadlines, published aggregate outcomes, and a ban on using campaign or state staff to bury claims. Retaliation should mean an expulsion vote, not a newsletter apology. The same leadership that controls maps, money, and speaker votes should not control the file.

Are you satisfied with the state's existing ethics policies for senators and representatives? If so, what about the policies should reassure Illinoisans that elected leaders abide by high standards? If not, what changes need to be made?

No. Current ethics rules did not stop the Madigan machine, the ComEd bribery scheme, or leadership committees used as personal slush funds. In this district those failures were not abstract. On November 30, 2019, Janet Yang Rohr met Jon Maxson, Madigan’s communications director, and emailed herself notes titled “Disenfranchising Denika” — a plan to knock her primary opponent, Denika McMillen, off the ballot. Madigan — through his personal committee and through Democratic Majority, a political committee he had set up, controlled, and chaired — then put more than $746,000 into her 2020 race. Most of this funding arrived after federal prosecutors indicated on July 17, 2020, that Madigan was the public official whom ComEd had bribed. Yang Rohr voted for him as Speaker on January 10, 2021, after 22 House Democrats walked away.

He is serving a 7.5-year prison sentence. She has not returned any of the money. I would require fast disclosure of leadership transfers, end dual-hat control of House campaign funds, mandate independent audits, and impose real penalties.

What personal qualifications do you bring that would make you an effective legislator?

I have made Naperville home for more than a dozen years. I came to this country as a student in 1988, became a permanent resident in 1996, and a citizen in 2002. I hold a Harvard JD, an NYU LLM in tax, a Yale MBA in finance, a Stanford MA in economics, and an MA in divinity from the U of Chicago. I am a tax lawyer, testifying expert, and fiscal-policy analyst. I have practiced in firms large and small, negotiated complex financing and securitization deals, and handled tax and business cases at trial and on appeal. In the federal government, I served as an attorney-adviser at the U.S. Tax Court and as a Special Assistant United States Attorney in Atlanta, where I prosecuted violent and white-collar crimes. I teach tax policy and administrative law courses as adjunct faculty at Chicago-Kent, DePaul, and the University of Houston. My publications have been cited in court opinions, journals, and treatises. A state rep has to understand statutes and money. That is the work I have done. I am not a Springfield product. District 41 needs someone who treats other people’s earnings as if they were his own and answers to the people who pay the bill, not to a leadership committee.