Democratic candidate for Illinois House in the 38th District: Cecil Matthews Jr.

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Cecil Matthews Jr., Illinois House 38th District Democratic primary candidate. | Rich Hein/Sun-Times

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On Feb. 2, Cecil Matthews Jr. appeared before the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board. We asked him why he’s running for the Democratic nomination in the Illinois House of Representatives in the 38th District:

Hi, my name is Cecil Matthews Jr. I’m currently a finance supervisor. I have over 15 years of finance experience. I received a bachelor degree and masters degree in accounting from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.  

My top priorities: My No. 1 priority when I talk to residents is that they are looking for a property tax freeze. Our property taxes in the south suburbs are too high compared to other districts in the north suburbs and even compared to the city of Chicago. So, I’m looking for a property tax freeze to help us, to help keep people in the south land.

My main cause is for government to get back to looking at their citizens and responding to the needs of its residents. If I’m elected I want to be known in the community and I want people to have my phone number to be able to contact me at all times.  


The Chicago Sun-Times sent the candidates seeking nominations for the Illinois House of Representatives a list of questions to find out their views on a range of important issues facing the state of Illinois. Matthews submitted the following answers to our questionnaire:

TOPIC: Top priorities

QUESTION: Please explain what your specific cause or causes will be. Please avoid a generic topic or issue in your answer.

ANSWER: Achieving a property tax freeze, legalizing recreational use of marijuana and generally being responsive to my constituents are the causes and concerns I will achieve.

Every person I come across in the district thinks we are paying too much in property taxes. We need a property tax freeze for districts like mine.

We are leaving millions of revenue and jobs on the table by not legalizing recreational marijuana like they have successfully implemented in Colorado.

I’ve talked to many residents that feel their local leaders are not being responsive to their needs and are impossible to reach. I want to be the elected official that people can feel they can call in the middle of the night if warranted. As I was going door-to-door gathering signatures, I gave people my person phone number and told them I wasn’t changing it if elected—feel free to call me anytime. I personally have never been able to get in contact with our current Representative—phone calls and emails go unanswered. I don’t want to be that elected official.


Cecil Matthews Jr.

Running for: Illinois House of Representatives 38th district

Political/civic background: Never held elected office

Occupation: Finance Supervisor – Winston & Strawn LLP

Education: MS Accounting / Tax – University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign;

BS Accounting – University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign

Campaign website: cecilmatthews.com


TOPIC: Top district needs

QUESTION: Please list three district-specific needs that will be your priorities. This could be a project that is needed in your district, or a rule that needs to be changed, or some federal matter that has been ignored.

ANSWER: Property Tax Freeze

Economic Development / Jobs

School Choice and Funding

TOPIC: Pension debt

QUESTION: In 2017, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability ballooned to at least $130 billion. Do you support re-amortizing this debt? Please explain your answer. And what is your position on a constitutional amendment that would reduce the liability of the pension debt?

ANSWER: I would support re-amortizing the debt. This is the best way to pay down the liability while smoothing out the impact over a greater number of years. Without doing so would cause a greater percentage of the budget to be directed towards pension payments instead of providing services –the basic job of government.

I would not support an amendment that would reduce the liability of the pension. Reducing the liability generally means not paying workers what they were promised and that is wrong. Workers have showed up to work and done their job and it is up to the state and elected officials to figure out how to pay them. The state should honor the agreement made when a worker was hired. What we can do is focus on what benefits new workers receive and potentially move them to a 401(k) style plan like most private sector workers receive.

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TOPIC: Minimum wage

QUESTION: Cook County and Chicago are on their way to paying a $13 hourly minimum wage. Many suburbs in the county, however, have opted out of the wage increase. Should Illinois raise its minimum wage from $8.25 an hour? Please explain. And if you favor an increase in the state minimum wage, what should it be?

ANSWER: I believe Illinois should raise the minimum wage to $10 per hour for people over the age of 18. I would support a tiered system that grants a $10 minimum wage for people 18 and older. An increase in the minimum wage across the board would be a disservice for teenagers first entering the job market because employers may favor more experienced workers. By having a system where 16 and 17 year olds have a lower minimum wage (keep it at $8.25), this will enable them to enter the job market and decrease teenage unemployment. I first heard of this concept when I visited Australia a few years ago where their minimum wage is different by age group. A higher minimum wage across the board may accelerate the automation / replacement of many jobs (think how you can check yourself out at the store now).

TOPIC: Marijuana

QUESTION: Should recreational marijuana be legalized in Illinois? Please explain.

ANSWER: Yes, Yes and Yes. I believe that 70 years from now, people will look back at this time period and ask “what were they thinking?” when it comes to marijuana—the same way we look at the alcohol prohibition period now. Although, I personally don’t agree with smoking it, people of sound mind and judgement should be able to do so if they choose. Legalizing it will enable them to do so in a safer way. Many argue that alcohol is worse on the body. Legalizing marijuana can reduce the violence among drug dealers. It can create jobs that we need. Most importantly, the state and local communities need the tax revenue. Things seem to be working just fine in Colorado.

TOPIC: Casinos

QUESTION: Would you support more casinos in Illinois, including in Chicago. What about racinos? Please explain.

ANSWER: I would support additional casinos and one (or more than one) in Chicago. We need a casino every place where people from out of town will gamble. A couple of places I can think of are at McCormick place, which will attract the convention crowd or downtown in the heart of the loop. Another is at the airport. They have slot machines in the airport in Las Vegas. Why can’t we have one at ORD or MDW? This is a much needed source of revenue. I work downtown and during the summer there are thousands and thousands of visitors that would love to gamble. We could create a mini entertainment district downtown near McCormick place that can feature casinos.

People are still going to Indiana to gamble and we need to place casinos in a strategic place to prevent revenue from leaving the state.


CHECK OUT THE CANDIDATES IN THE SUN-TIMES 2018 ILLINOIS PRIMARY VOTING GUIDE


TOPIC: Property tax freeze

QUESTION: A property tax freeze in Illinois has been proposed frequently since Gov. Bruce Rauner took office. What’s your position? If you favor a freeze, how many years should it last? Should the freeze exclude property tax increases to service the debt, make pension payments or cover the cost of public safety? Again, please explain.

ANSWER: We need a property tax freeze. When residents pay their taxes, they care about the bottom line number they pay—they are not interested in discerning between debt service or pension payments. The local governments need to figure it out by reducing administration costs. We need a freeze across the board. In the 38th district, this is a huge problem in the south suburbs. My house is worth approximately $260,000 and the property taxes are approaching $10,000 per year –and my taxes are on the low end of my subdivision. People are just about at the breaking point in my district when it comes to property taxes. We need a freeze for five years minimum.

TOPIC: School funding

QUESTION: A revised school funding formula was approved this year by the Legislature and the governor, but a bipartisan commission has concluded that billions more dollars are needed to achieve sufficient and equitable funding. Should Illinois spend more on schools, and where would the money come from?

ANSWER: The legislation was a starting point, but we have far to go. I would support legislation from taxing recreational marijuana and additional revenues from expanding gambling that can go directly to schools. However, we need to reign in the administration costs of our schools across the state as well. There are too many administrators across the state with six-figure salaries that can easily be eliminated. Teachers are what impact the quality of education, not administrators. I had very good teachers, and very bad teachers in elementary and high school. Regardless of how many or how much administers were making, they had zero (or very close to zero) impact on the job that the teachers were doing in the classroom.

TOPIC: Opioids

QUESTION: How can the Legislature best address the problem of opioid abuse and addiction? Please cite specific laws you have supported or would support.

ANSWER: The seriousness of the opioid epidemic has increased due to the misuse of otherwise legal drugs (OxyContin, etc.).  Laws that I would support are those that go after pharmacies, doctors and pharmacists for overprescribing these drugs. A state-wide database (shared with all states) tied to someone’s driver license or social security number should be created whenever these addictive drugs are prescribed. This would prevent addicts from “doctor shopping”. If a doctor, pharmacist or pharmacy was at risk for losing their license permanently by not checking these databases, they will be less likely to over-prescribe and would double check all possible databases. There

TOPIC: Guns

QUESTION: Do you support a state ban on gun silencers? Please explain.

ANSWER: Yes, I would support a stat-wide ban. I cannot think of a case where there is a legal need for them. Guns do make noise—and they should. As a FOID card holder and owner of Glocks, if there is a situation that I needed the sound of a gun to be suppressed (like in a gun range), I would wear ear protection. Other than this, concealment of a crime is the only purpose of a silencer.

QUESTION: Should all gun dealers in Illinois be licensed by the state? Please explain.

ANSWER: Yes, I would support legislation. States should be allowed to make their own rules in regards to the sale and transfer of firearms in the state. With a Democratic controlled General Assembly, it is astonishing that nothing can get done on a topic we should all agree on. If you have to have a license to sell a car, buy liquor or be a barber, why shouldn’t you have to be licensed by the state to sell guns? I am a gun owner, and to protect my right to own guns, I am willing to pay extra for increased regulation on gun dealers (because the cost is always passed on to the consumer). The writers of the second amendment could never have imagined a day where guns are as powerful as they are. We need to use common sense.

QUESTION: Should family members be empowered to petition courts for the temporary removal of guns from emotionally or mentally disturbed people who may be a danger to themselves or others? Please explain.

ANSWER: Yes, they should be empowered to petition the court. The people close to you are the ones that know the person best and can see a change in demeanor in a person. People can have a change in demeanor and not know it—but family will notice. Part of a law should allow for anonymity on the part of the petitioner but also put in place a mechanism to penalize malicious intent on the part of a petitioner. We need to do everything in our power to live together and look out for each other. Although it may be a minor inconvenience for a gun owner, we should understand that laws like this are for the greater good of the community.

TOPIC: Medicaid

QUESTION: What would you do to ensure the long-term viability of the state’s Medicaid program? Do you support continued Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act? Should the state continue on a path toward managed care for Medicaid beneficiaries? Should everyone be permitted to buy into Medicaid?

ANSWER: Getting costs under control by weeding out fraud is one way we can regain control of the viability of Medicaid. I do support the expansion under the ACA because it reduces the number of people who are uninsured and provides preventive healthcare, which can reduce costs in the future.

The state should be cautious in the path towards managed care expansion. Rates need to be set at a rate that will allow for service providers to provide adequate services for participants.  If the rates are too low service quality will suffer but if too high will inflate program costs.

Everyone should not be permitted to buy into Medicaid because many people can get insurance through work or afford to get insurance through other means.

TOPIC: College student exodus

QUESTION: Illinois is one of the largest exporters of college students in the country. What would you do to encourage the best and brightest young people in Illinois to attend college here at home? Does Illinois have too many state universities, as some have argued?

ANSWER: I do not think we have too many colleges and universities. There is a state college here for everyone in Illinois across the state across all academic levels. The reason that college students are leaving is because of price. We need to work to bring the cost of college down. My freshman year at the University of Illinois Urbana – Champaign in 1999 only cost $10,500 per year. Less than twenty years later, the cost has more than tripled to over $30,000. Part of the reason for the rapid increase is because of the guaranteed tuition law, which drove up costs at a faster pace. This is one of the laws I would like to see repealed.

TOPIC: Gov. Rauner

QUESTION: Please list three of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s principles, or decisions he has made, with which you agree. Also please list three of the governor’s principles, or decisions he has made, with which you disagree.

ANSWER: Agree

School funding reform (more work is still needed).

He understands that we need more jobs in Illinois.

Term limits.

Disagree

He supported the new federal tax legislation that was signed into law.

Put the state in deep financial debt by not having a budget for multiple years.

Tried to override Debt Transparency Act

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