IL GOP responds . . . Part 3

(Continued from "IL GOP responds . . . Part 1", Part 2 and now Part 3 . . .)

Chairman McKenna’s opening remarks at Saturday’s convention included a surprise public reprimand of former Governor Jim Thompson for appealing to President Bush for a commutation of former Governor George Ryan’s federal imprisonment and a scolding of the DuPage County chairman Bob Schillerstrom for urging three of his DuPage County senators to vote in support of the RTA sales tax increase. 

“The gloves are off.  We’re being criticized by the DuPage people for not being on message.  It’s hard to have a message of lower taxes when Republicans are pushing to raise taxes,”  Heffley said.  “They want to attack Andy, and that’s what they’re doing, we’re going to push back.  Putting those three on raising taxes kills our message for less government and lower taxes.”

"Those three" Heffley was referring to are DuPage County State Senators Kirk Dillard, Dan Cronin and John Millner, who supported the RTA tax increase this spring. 

“If the DuPage County chairman allow Democrats to take votes off of a $100 million tax increase, and use our Republicans to make the votes instead,  that hurts us in elections, that’s unacceptable,” Heffley said.   

“There’s a very big schism right now with DuPage,” Heffley said.  “They trash Republican leadership in the House and Senate, they trash Andy.  They’re unhappy because they hold no leadership positions.  And the third thing is there’s a big division between Schillerstrom and Brian Sheahan, who’s a personal friend of Andy’s, and who Andy did calls for in the primary.”

Schillerstrom, Heffley said, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get Sheahan off the DuPage County Board this spring.   Both Sheahan and board member Debbie Olsen oppose home rule and have vowed not to raise taxes.  Sheahan was re-elected despite Schillerstrom’s efforts, and the dispute continued through the convention this weekend, resulting in the convention walkout after the committeewoman vote.

“As for Jim Thompson, to go out there and defend Blagojevich and then also and the need to pardon George Ryan after we finally put that behind us – we’ve been getting killed over George Ryan – since 2002, now you’re going to have a Republican governor go out there and talk about doing this?” Heffley said. 

Rather than express displeasure while reading the At Large Delegate Committee’s list of recommended national convention delegates, McKenna chose to include his dissatisfaction in his opening remarks.  If the recommendations would have gone to the floor for a vote, Heffley said, there was concern that the vocal and organized Ron Paul delegates would have moved to have their candidates included. 

And it was the Ron Paul delegation that the IL GOP was instructed by the national convention to keep from taking over the proceedings and why security guards were brought into the convention floor. . .

More tomorrow on Illinois Review. com . . .