Illinois Valley Times

It was a hard-fought battle, but Republican candidate Jerry Long took the District 76 state House seat by approximately 600 votes.

 With all 120 precincts reporting, Long had 50.7 percent of the vote while his opponent, state Rep. Andy Skoog (D-LaSalle), had 49.3 percent.

The 76th District was a Democratic stronghold for 40 years, with Richard Mautino (D-Spring Valley) holding the seat from 1974 until his death in 1991. Democratic leaders appointed his son, Frank Mautino, to the seat, which he held until he resigned in 2015 to take the state auditor general position. Mautino nearly lost the seat to Long in 2014, when he received only 337 votes more than the challenger. Skoog was appointed to finish Mautino's term in the House.

The race to victory was filled with misleading and deceptive mailers. While the GOP accused Skoog of voting to raise taxes and tried to link him to a child pornography case, the Democrats accused Long of being soft on crime, including opposing funding for sex-offender tracking and warning criminals of impending search warrants. All the accusations in these mailers were untrue.

"The strategy for campaigns is to attack their opponents on their opponents' biggest strengths," David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, told The Times in September. "If someone is environmental, you can accuse them of not being an environmentalist. Campaigns try to jack up their opponents' negatives."

While these state races were seen as proxy battles between GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner and state House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago), both Long and Skoog distanced themselves from their party leaders in the weeks leading up to the election. The probes into Mautino's campaign spending by federal and state authorities cast a shadow on the District 76 seat as well.

Skoog once worked for Mautino Distributing, but said he rarely had contact with Mautino. In addition to distancing himself from Mautino, Skoog hinted that he would support another candidate for House speaker, which would end Madigan's 31-year regime.

Long also separated himself from Rauner, particularly on the right-to-work issue. Rauner supported that change; Long did not.

Long sacrificed his seniority as a truck driver to run for the $68,000-per-year position. He was refused a leave of absence to run, just as he was in his previous run for the House, so he resigned from USF Holland. He found a part-time job for support until after the election.

With his victory, Long will have the opportunity to work on the issues that he views as the will of the people. During his campaign, he expressed his support for term limits and fair maps.

"My colleagues and I stand united for term limits and redistricting reform," Long said. "Both of these ideas have overwhelming support from the voters and would be good first steps toward ending the culture of corruption in Springfield. This is the will of the people."

The failure of voter-initiated amendments such as term limits and redistricting reform was laid at the feet of Madigan. The state Democratic Party leader is closely associated with attorney Steve Kaspar, who brought the lawsuit that led to the courts' decisions that the amendments were unconstitutional. Bills presented in the Madigan-controlled House either failed to garner support or died in committee.

"Both ideas have been blocked by Speaker Michael Madigan and his supermajority rule over Illinois," Long said. "In order to actually pass reforms like these, we must take away Madigan's power one seat at a time. That starts right here in the 76th District."

As Long and his supporters waited for the election results last night at Boxseats Sports Pub and Grill, he said legislators must stay in contact with the people. He promised a monthly town hall in the municipalities within his district, where his constituents will be able to express their concerns to the now-elected representative.

Editor's note: Due to an editing error,  David Yepsen's quote was originally attributed to the wrong publication. The story has since been updated to reflect that the quote came from The Times.