Jim Walsh's Issue Positions (Political Courage Test)
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Jim Walsh has provided voters with clear stances on key issues by responding to the 2020 Political Courage Test.
Illinois State Legislative Election 2020 Political Courage Test
| Pro-life | a) Do you generally support pro-choice or pro-life legislation? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support legalizing abortion when the pregnancy resulted from incest or rape? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support the prohibition of public funds for organizations that perform abortions? | ||
| While I do think that abortion is killing a human, I am sympathetic to the plight of women who have been violated. Also, I see no reason why public funds should be used to kill any human. | |||
| Yes | a) In order to balance the budget, do you support reducing state employee salaries AND/OR pensions? | ||
| Yes | b) In order to balance the budget, do you support an income tax increase on any tax bracket? | ||
| No | c) Do you support additional taxes on single-use plastics like styrofoam, grocery bags or straws? | ||
| I do not think that the pensions of retired employees or employees who are too close to retirement to provide for their own well-being after retirement should have their pensions changed. That said, when a state can't provide services without exponentially increasing debt, the state must change the system. Also, I support an income tax increase to balance the tax burden between property taxes and income taxes when it there is a massive difference between the two. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support a limit on campaign contributions to state candidates? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the regulation of indirect campaign contributions from corporations and unions? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support the use of an independent AND/OR bipartisan commission for redistricting? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support requiring a government-issued photo identification in order to vote at the polls? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support automatic voter registration? | ||
| Corruption in Illinois is rampant. Our representatives choose the voters, money has destroyed the ability of the average citizen to influence representatives. Finally, expecting election judges to be handwriting experts is nuts. So, the government needs to provide a photo ID to every citizen for voting purposes on their 18th birthday. Next, corporations aren't people, and public unions get their money from public employees who are paid by tax dollars. Since there is no guarantee that the union has the same political views as the members let alone tax payers, they should not be allowed to contribute to campaigns. | |||
| No | a) Do you support capital punishment for certain crimes? | ||
| Yes | b) Should an individual under 18 accused of a violent crime be prosecuted as an adult? | ||
| No | c) Do you support the enforcement of federal immigration laws by state and local police? | ||
| No | d) Do you support the use of private prisons in Illinois? | ||
| No | e) Do you support mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders? | ||
| Yes | f) Do you support prohibiting the use of law enforcement gang databases for non-law enforcement purposes? | ||
| A society is judged by how it treats people who have violated the social contract. A violent crime worthy of prosecuting a child as an adult means robbing another person of life, limb or livelihood. Examples include murder, rape, and bullying that leads to loss of life, at a minimum. We need prisons to ultimately be under the control of people elected to represent us. Private prisons are the opposite of that. Finally, time in prison generally makes people commit increasingly worse crimes. We need a system to rehabilitate non-violent criminals, not create them. | |||
| No | a) Do you support state government spending as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| No | b) Do you support lowering state income taxes as a means of promoting economic growth? | ||
| Yes | c) Do you support reducing government regulations on the private sector? | ||
| No | d) Do you support requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test in order to receive benefits? | ||
| No | e) Do you support an increase of the minimum wage of Illinois? | ||
| No | f) Do you support requiring employers to provide paid family leave? | ||
| Yes | g) Do you support providing financial relief to businesses AND/OR corporations negatively impacted by the state of national emergency for COVID-19? | ||
| These questions could go either way. Increasing spending and lowering state income taxes can be used to promote economic growth. However, when the state is over $200 billion in debt, neither is a viable option, especially when it is astronomically high property taxes that are killing economic growth in IL. Since we don't have the ability to spend or lower income taxes, overregulation and increasing the minimum wage kill any chance of people investing in IL. So, less regulations and a minimum wage balancing the citizens' need for jobs with their need to have a decent paying job are necessary. | |||
| No | a) Do you support adopting federal education standards in Illinois? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support state funding for charter schools? | ||
| c) Do you support increasing teacher salaries AND/OR benefits in Illinois? | |||
| No | d) Should immigrants unlawfully present in the United States who graduate from Illinois high schools be eligible for in-state tuition at public universities? | ||
| Yes | e) Do you support allowing college athletes to be compensated for the use of their name, image and likeness? | ||
| Districts' ability to meet Federal Standards should be one of many factors reported to people to help them determine if their district is doing its job. The state's job is to provide quality education for every child in the state. Charter schools are one avenue that can help with that. Individual school districts and teachers should collaborate in creating a competitive package that will allow the schools to remain open without driving people out of their homes. Immigrants unlawfully here should be offered the opportunity to serve in the military including access to the GI Bill to obtain citizenship. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support state funding for the development of renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geo-thermal)? | ||
| No | b) Do you support government regulations of greenhouse gas emissions? | ||
| No | c) Do you support increasing state funding for clean drinking water initiatives? | ||
| The funding of energy must be done in a way that encourages industry and businesses to come to IL. Also, since I haven't heard of any issues with drinking water in IL, I don't see any reason to increase funding. However, I do think that it is the state's responsibility to set and enforce standard on air quality. Local municipalities should be given the freedio to decide whether they want a company that emits unhealthy substances in their municipality. | |||
| No | a) Do you generally support gun-control legislation? | ||
| Yes | b) Should background checks be required on gun sales between private citizens at gun shows? | ||
| Yes | c) Should teachers be allowed to bring guns into the classroom after passing gun safety training? | ||
| No | d) Should a license be required for gun ownership? | ||
| I think that law-abiding citizens should be as free as possible to own firearms. So, people should be able to defend their homes. However, if they want to carry firearms, then I think the state should do background checks for a license to conceal carry. As far as teachers go, that should be between the district and the teacher. | |||
| Yes | a) Should the state government increase funding for treatment facilities to combat opioid abuse? | ||
| No | b) Do you support Medicaid expansion through Illinois' health care programs? | ||
| No | c) Do you support requiring individuals to purchase health care insurance? | ||
| Yes | d) Do you support legislation that grants citizens the right to choose to die through euthanasia? | ||
| No | e) Do you support eliminating religious exemptions for vaccinations? | ||
| Yes | f) Do you support requiring businesses to provide paid medical leave during public health crises, such as COVID-19? | ||
| Yes | g) Do you support limiting the number of patients that can be assigned to a registered nurse? | ||
| Okay. IL is drowning in debt. So, while I do think that it would be nice to be able to increase funding to treat opioid addicts, I am not sure we can. The requirement to provide paid medical leave must be tempered by whether that will put the business out of business. Unfortunately, the same goes for patients per registered nurse. It may be possible LPNs or nurses assistants can ease the requirement while not compromising care. | |||
| Yes | a) Do you support the inclusion of sexual orientation in Illinois' anti-discrimination laws? | ||
| Yes | b) Do you support the inclusion of gender identity in Illinois' anti-discrimination laws? | ||
| No | c) Do you support greater efforts by Illinois state government in closing the pay gap between men and women? | ||
| I support the state doing the work of analyzing research being done on the pay gap and reporting the findings to the public. Also, I think that making paternity leave available and allowing both men and women to have leave for taking care of the children will go a long way to closing the pay gap. | |||
| I think that we need to do more to fight corruption than the questions suggest. Yes we need independent districting and money out of politics. However, I don't think that is enough. Corruption is written into the very fabric of our government. It is designed to make the people accountable to the government instead of the reverse. We need to give local governments the ability to at least censure their representatives. We need to give the people school choice, the ability to remove township supervisors that don't obey their town hall directives and make local budgets more transparent. | |||
| My priority is significantly decreasing property taxes without defunding schools. The state would offer a 1:1 swap of income tax for property tax to school districts that currently set a tax rate higher than the one expected in the current model for school funding. This would decrease property taxes by 20% in my area while increasing income taxes by 30%. The advantages would be making IL more attractive to business by decreasing the fixed cost of property tax and ensuring that people can actually retire in IL, which will slow the out migration. Both increase revenue for everyone. |
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