Burns announces GOP endorsers

Six township Republican Party chairmen and several Kane County Board members have announced in the last week that they want Kevin Burns to be the next Kane County Board chairman.

Township Republican Party chairmen in Batavia, St. Charles, Elgin, Geneva and Dundee townships endorsed him.

So did Kane County Board members Mike Donahue, John Hoscheit, Tim Haley, Tom Van Cleave, Mark Davoust and Mike Kenyon, who is chairman of the Kane County Republican Party.

In October his opponent, state Sen. Chris Lauzen of Aurora, announced that county board members Jim Mitchell, Barb Wojnicki, T.R. Smith and Drew Frasz had endorsed him. Smith is chairman of the Western Townships Republican Organization, which covers the less-populated Hampshire, Rutland, Burlington, Plato, Virgil, Kaneville, Blackberry, Big Rock and Sugar Grove townships. Wojnicki is chairman of the Campton Township Republicans.

Neither Burns nor Lauzen will get the Aurora Township Republican Organization’s endorsement, according to that group’s chairman, Gregory Meyers. And that’s despite the fact Sarah Lauzen, Chris Lauzen’s wife, is vice president of the group.

Meyers said no members have suggested an endorsement be made, and that he doesn’t believe it is right for party officials to do so.

“We do not believe it is appropriate to endorse a Republican candidate (over another Republican) in a contested primary,” he said. “We want to get behind the person (the winner) after the primary.”

He likened it to favoring one son over the other, and suggested the practice could have consequences after the primary.

“I’m kind of surprised people are endorsing,” Meyers said.

The winner of the March primary will face a Democrat, either Sue Klinkhamer or Bill Sarto, in the general election in November 2012. Klinkhamer is a former mayor of St. Charles and former aide to ex-Congressman Bill Foster. Sarto is the former president of Carpentersville.