Illinois House, 42nd District GOP primary: No endorsement

Golly. We were all ready to endorse Burt Minor, the Winfield Township Republican chairman, in this open state House race, then he politically blew up.

Minor is the target of troubling accusations made by a fellow Republican, Erika Harold, a candidate for Illinois attorney general. Harold claims Minor used a racial epithet and a slur about gay people in a conversation they had back in October. Minor denies using the slur and says the epithet came up in a conversation about another Republican who has used that word.

Our take? Minor, at the very least, appears to have been horribly tone deaf, a fatal flaw in a politician.

That leaves us with Ryan Edward Byrne of Wheaton, a marketing specialist who has zero experience in public service. Or, conversely, we could go with Amy L. Grant, a member of the DuPage County board, who blew us off for an endorsement interview. Nothing in Bryne’s record gives us reason to endorse him — he’s just too new at all this — while our review of Grant’s views, as revealed in interviews and questionnaires she has done elsewhere, suggest she’s fundamentally too conservative — for us and for moderate Republican voters.

We offer no endorsement.

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