ENDORSEMENT: Laura Fine for Illinois Senate in the 9th District

After her husband’s arm was amputated because of an injury in a car accident, Laura Fine had to fight with insurance companies to get hospital bills paid. She studied Illinois’ complex insurance laws and passed the state’s insurance exam. Fine, of Glenview, took that expertise to the Illinois House of Representatives, where she has served for nearly six years.

Last year, she sponsored a law to protect people with pre-existing medical conditions. “Every day you feel like, ‘OK what can we do to protect people in Illinois from really what’s going on in the federal government,’” she told the Sun-Times Editorial Board of President Donald Trump’s attempts to weaken the nation’s health care laws.

Fine, a Democrat, wants to move up to an open seat in state Senate, and we endorse her over Joan McCarthy Lasonde of Wilmette. Fine is in tune with the people of this district, including those who are troubled by the Amtrak Hiawatha expansion project in Glenview and other northern suburbs. The project “would be detrimental to the environment and public safety,” she wrote in her questionnaire.

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SUN-TIMES 2018 ILLINOIS VOTING GUIDE

Ahead of the historic 2018 elections, the Sun-Times is teaming up weekly with the Better Government Association, in print and online, to fact-check the truthfulness of the candidates. You can find all of the PolitiFact Illinois stories we’ve reported together here.