For Senate Dist. 25, GOP: independent, consistent Lauzen

The Republican primary for the 25th Senate District pits Chris Lauzen, who's held the office for 17 years, against Sean Michels, who has been mayor of Sugar Grove for 10 years.

Lauzen, of Aurora, has seen a mixed bag of endorsements from the Daily Herald over the years. We favored Jim Oberweis in 2008 over Lauzen in the GOP primary for Congress, noting that Lauzen is often a voice in the wilderness, too detached from others in the Senate - even in his own party. We did pick Lauzen over Democrat Frank Craig in the 2006 state Senate race. But we picked Lauzen's GOP rivals in both the 2000 and 2002 Senate primaries.

Lauzen's often quixotic tenure in the Senate has made us dyspeptic, but at the same time given us comfort. He is not a great consensus builder, but at the same time he's as consistent as they come and always answerable to his constituents. He is endorsed.

He is the senator fighting to have voters elect the GOP's central committee rather than have it named by party insiders. Michels scoffs at that, saying it's Lauzen's pet project because after 17 years in the Senate Lauzen is not one of its leaders. But, we ask, who doesn't want the voters to decide? Party insiders, that's who.

Lauzen's hallmark has been challenging the status quo. And that takes some guts. It's especially important with the state clearly broken. We appreciate that and his efforts to control spending and his fervent support of a two-tiered state pension system.

Michels, like Lauzen, is conservative on all social issues, both more than we're generally comfortable with.

Michels states emphatically that he would not support any increase in the state income tax, but he does not offer much in support of alternatives other than belt tightening.

Lauzen is less emphatic on that point but at least points to the need to request greater flexibility in the application of federal funding in Illinois.

On the issue of gambling, Michels says he's fine with the expansion of video gambling and believes it can easily be policed locally. Lauzen, however, feels that the state must find other sources of revenue. He calls it "the crack cocaine of gambling."

The 25th District includes much of Kane County and portions of Kendall and LaSalle counties.