In January 2024, Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ editors emailed a questionnaire to candidates in contested March 19 primary races for the Illinois General Assembly, requesting biographical information as well as their views on issues ranging from corruption in state politics to Illinois’ longstanding pension crisis. Answers have been lightly edited for typos, minor grammar and consistency in styling, but not for content or length. Age was calculated as of Feb. 6, 2024.
Vidal Vasquez: Over 30 years as a police officer has taught me that the only deterrent to white collar crime is severe penalties and fines. Political and governmental corruption are not crimes of opportunity or passion, but deliberate choices by people willing to betray the public trust, usually for financial gain. Public employees and officials already lose their office or employment, their pensions, their future and whatever positive reputation they previously had. If they traded their public trust for money, the best punishment is to relieve them of their money (however well hidden) through proportionate fines as a deterrent to others.
Vidal Vasquez: I do not support the reduction of past pension commitments to retirees who have planned the remainder of their lives around the funds promised to them after a lifetime of service, especially those too old or infirm to augment their income by any other means. I am a former public employee in a public pension system that is underfunded, so I and my family are directly impacted by both the structural mismanagement of public pensions as well as the increased taxes and reduced services resulting from the increased government contributions made to try to meet the unsustainable growth of public pension debt. My concern over the future of our public pension debt is one of the reasons I personally continue to work. The only solution to the unsustainable increase in public pension debt is to allow for voluntary negotiation between the parties, which would require a constitutional amendment. I support convening another Constitutional Convention to solve this and other problems that require a change in our basic laws.
Vidal Vasquez: Lower property, income, sales and gas taxes. Better criminal justice system administration and law enforcement to lower gun violence, car jackings and organized retail theft. Less paperwork and red tape for businesses to start and operate. Business owners do cost analyses prior to locating their small businesses, and if it cost 20% more in taxes, regulation compliance and political harassment to operate in Illinois versus Indiana or Wisconsin, they will simply go there. National and international corporations are already leaving, downsizing or avoiding Illinois and Chicago. Just as consumers shop for the best bargain, so do business owners.
Vidal Vasquez: Yes. It’s a blatant conflict of interest for legislators to draw their own maps and it’s Illinois residents who are shortchanged and silenced because of it. An independent commission should draw the maps, but I also believe that all elections in Illinois should be nonpartisan (no political party designations or primary elections) to avoid the extremism in the nominees of both political parties which results in either one party rule or legislative gridlock. Since twice as many people vote in general elections as opposed to primary elections, people we elect under a nonpartisan system would be better representative of all Illinois families.
Vidal Vasquez: Crime and the failure of our elected officials to protect our families from repeat violent offenders. The policies forced on police officers to not chase criminals, on prosecutors to not charge felons accordingly, on judges to not detain violent criminals are enacted by state legislators like my opponent, Abdelnasser Rashid. Suburban and Chicago families are at constant risk of gun violence, robbery and car jacking while going to school, church, work and shopping because inexperienced radical socialists want to tinker with a criminal justice system without recognizing potential consequences on future victims — which is all of us. Police officers, prosecutors, judges and public defenders all need to be able to do their job without unreasonable restraint and within the bounds of the law so that everyone’s rights are protected — both honest citizens and accused offenders.
Vidal Vasquez: Rampant, unrestrained crime is the biggest danger to our lives and our economy in 2024. I don’t believe there is a single current, former or retired police officer from Cook County in the state legislature to provide a reasonable and workable alternative viewpoint to the radical policies that are literally putting all of our families lives in danger. I can provide that viewpoint from a lifetime of experience of growing up in a dangerous neighborhood as a youth, then joining the police department to protect my fellow citizens from those same dangers.
