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Sharon Chung looks to retain 91st House seat in race against challenger Desi Anderson

Desi Anderson and Sharon Chung headshots
Courtesy
/
WGLT
Democrat Sharon Chung, left, who was elected to the newly-drawn 91st Illinois House District in 2022, is facing Republican Desi Anderson, in the November election.

Two candidates who made their first bids for elected office in 2022 are vying for the same House seat this election.

Republican Desi Anderson, who launched an unsuccessful bid for state senate in 2022, is seeking to unseat Democratic incumbent Sharon Chung in the race for Illinois' 91st House seat. The district includes much of Bloomington-Normal and stretches northwest through parts of Peoria and Bartonville.

Chung won the seat in 2022 against Republican and Normal Town Council member Scott Preston with 52% of the vote, becoming the first Korean-American elected to the General Assembly.

Anderson, as was the case during the primary elections earlier this year, declined to sit with WGLT for an interview — an invitation extended to all candidates seeking to represent McLean County.

In an interview for WGLT's Sound Ideas, Chung said she believes two key differences between the candidates include stances on reproductive rights and public education.

"It's very clear that I am for women's rights, reproductive freedom. It's clear that my opponent is not. If we're talking about that issue, that's very stark," she said. "I also have been a really big proponent of public schools and funding public education. ...I do not think my opponent has that same love of public education."

Chung was referring in part to a split between the two candidates on the Invest in Kids Act that sunset in 2023. The 2017-era legislation gave private donors a tax break equivalent to 75% of their donation to a fund that provided scholarships to low-income families seeking to enroll their children in private school. Lawmakers declined to extend the program during the last weeks of the 2023 legislative session.

"For me, what it came down to was I will not divert money away from public education for private education. That's just what it comes down to and I don't think it should be that way," Chung said. "So, we didn't renew the Invest in Kids Act and she came after me on that."

Anderson indicated support for the scholarship program on social media and in comments published by the McLean County Times, one of 30 websites owned by a company now being sued by the state attorney general for the release of voters' data — including names, birthdates and addresses — earlier this year. At the scholarship program's peak before it ended, it had provided funding for around 9,700 students.

Higher education and general budget funding

Whoever represents the 91st House District will count Illinois State University among the district's constituency: Among various points of messaging shared about a potential budget deficit ISU is facing this year, was a reiteration that ISU receives less money per student from the state than any other public university.

In his annual address to the ISU community in September, President Aondover Tarhule said state support for the university has fallen significantly since 2002 — and the buying power of the state appropriation has fallen 45% in that period.

Chung, who sits on the House's Higher Education Committee, said she has not yet gone through a proposed higher education funding bill submitted by Democrats Carol Ammons and Kimberly Lightford earlier this year, but agreed more equitable distribution of state dollars is needed.

"I think we're going to have to look at all of that and we're trying to figure out how we can come up with the money," she said. "I do know that this next year will be a tough budget year, so we'll have to see what might have to possibly be cut or where we might have to make sacrifices in other areas. We can talk about trying to fund public education, public higher education, but if there's no money behind it, it's not going to work."

Earlier this year, Chung voted to approve the state budget, but voted against the revenue bill that would fund it, a move that Anderson said on social media was due to Chung "lov[ing] spending taxpayer dollars but won't take responsibility for the consequences of that spending."

"The truth is, while these important budget negotiations were going on, our Representative spent more time communicating with constituents about her outfits and snacks each day than the importance of what was contained in the budget itself," Anderson wrote in the post.

Chung said the revenue bill vote was "really tough" because she didn't agree with the funding mechanism included in it.

"For me, what it came down to was that we knew it was a tough budget year. We know that next year is going to be an even tougher budget year. [We were] trying to come up with revenue in ways that seem to be taxing normal people, trying to find money here and there for different things," she said.

"What I would like to see, and have a feeling this will happen more next year, is having a really serious discussion about where [we] can possibly cut. ...We're doing a lot of great things, we just have to figure out how to pay for it. I think finding different, small ways to tax people here and there was, for me, not the best way about it."

In the same post, Anderson also noted she does not support "outlandish spending on some program like benefits for illegal immigrants" that were included in the budget lawmakers voted to approve.

"It's true: We are funding programs like this, but again, we're also funding so many great things and that's all in the budget," Chung said. "We've seen the number of undocumented people go down here in the state. ...It was a manufactured crisis when people were being bused here by the governor of Texas. ...For us to be able to find some funding, to help them get on their feet and help them get some healthcare... to me, it's the humane thing to do. The budget is sort of a blueprint of our priorities and I sometimes say it's a moral blueprint to say what we care about as a state."

Farm Family Preservation Act's progress

Anderson has also critiqued the stalled progress of legislators in advancing the Farm Family Preservation Act, a bipartisan effort to reform estate tax law to provide relief to farm families. The bill was sponsored by Chung in the House and championed by the Illinois Farm Bureau that also also endorsed her.

Chung said the bill stalled due to funding; during a press conference earlier this year, state Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, told WGLT he believed the fight over the bill would come down to the budget, since neither the bill Chung sponsored in the House nor the one he sponsored in the Senate at the time included provisions for replacing any generated income for the state from the tax reduction.

"This is a message that got a lot of traction this year and it was something that had never really been discussed in the General Assembly. For us to be able to get this much attention for it, this much support for it, was really great," Chung said. "It did stall out because it just all came down to funding. I'm going to see what we can do to keep pushing for that. We introduced it last spring and it takes awhile for legislation to get passed, so we're going to have another go at it."

Chung said both she and Koehler had communicated the bill's significance to farming families to progressive Democrats, the governor and peer legislators across the aisle — building a coalition of support they hope will carry the bill through the next session.

The act would have marked another successful joint effort from the two legislators, who also collaborated on a battery recycling bill that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law earlier this year. The two were also chief sponsors in their respective chambers of a bill that required insurance companies to cover the costs of hearing aids; that bill was signed into law in August.

Endorsements

In addition to the Illinois Farm Bureau, Chung has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood of Illinois, the Sierra Club, Stand with Children for Illinois, AFSCME Council 31, the Retired Teachers Association, Equity Illinois and several unions and members of the McLean County Board.

Anderson has received endorsements from several law enforcement groups, including the sheriffs of all four counties in the 91st district, Bloomington's Policemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association Unit #2, the Sheriffs of Illinois political action committee and the National Federation of Independent Businesses PAC, among others.

Early voting is underway. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Lyndsay Jones is a reporter at WGLT. She joined the station in 2021. You can reach her at lljone3@ilstu.edu.