MUNDELEIN - One of Minority Leader Jim Durkin's lieutenants will be facing a primary challenge from conservative attorney Dan McConchie, but it won't be made official until next week.
Six term State Rep. Ed Sullivan of Mundelein, who successfully defeated a challenge in the 2014 GOP primary, will be challenged again in the March 2016 GOP primary, this time by Americans United for Life's vice president of Government Affairs Dan McConchie.
Before joining AUL in 2004, McConchie's bio says he was director of public relations and public policy at The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity. For nine years, he served in the infantry and military police of the Army National Guard. He is currently a member of Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran's Human Trafficking Task Force.
During his career, McConchie has defended religious groups' freedoms in several states. In May 2015, McConchie wrote in The Gospel Coalition:
As recent attacks against religious liberty have demonstrated, it is increasingly difficult for Christians to speak truth in the public square. The temptation is to respond by withdrawing, turning your faith inward, and warming yourself in quiet communion with like-minded faithful. However, even if this were a legitimate response, the purveyors of societal change have demonstrated they will not be satisfied with acquiescence. In the end, they will demand cooperation, which is why the fight over religious freedom and conscience has become so toxic, so vitriolic, so quickly.
It’s easy to point to the culture wars and see them as a proxy for living out our faith. There are real dangers to a nation when the powers-that-be succumb and embrace societal sin. But fighting these battles, while important, is not enough to spread the gospel.The church, having turned in to itself in so many places, no longer provides the moral yardstick by which people measure cultural norms. While we must continue to stand for truth and religious freedom, it is not enough to get us back to a path of societal renewal. We must also return to the basics of personal holiness and care for the physically, morally, and spiritually destitute.
McConchie is Republican precinct committeeman in Lake County's Lake Zurich, and has not yet filed campaign contributions for the to-be-announced 2016 bid. His challenge is to be announced August 29th at former Congressman Joe Walsh's Mundelein home, so Walsh's substantial grassroots are likely to be involved in supporting McConchie's bid.
