The State Rep's Report

I’ve been known to attract some online criticism from time to time. However, one of the more perplexing reasons I have caught grief while serving in elected office is the reaction I often receive when mentioning a term I talk about a lot - “Northwest Illinois Values”.

We don’t talk about values enough as a society, in my humble opinion. We talk about it so little, in fact, that my use of the term has often brought forth a fear that my values may not match your values and that is a reason to distrust that we can have shared values. Instead, I insist that there is a set of shared values upon whi...