On behalf of the people of Illinois, I congratulate Senator Don Harmon on being elected to serve as the next President of the Illinois State Senate. With 17 years of experience in the upper chamber, I am confident that Don will ably serve and lead the Senate with a steady hand and hold integrity above all else. A staunch advocate for working families, Don was instrumental in shepherding the most sweeping and consequential legislative agenda through the state senate this past year. Because of Senator Harmon's leadership, we advanced the historic Fair Tax amendment which will change the trajectory of our state's finances forever, and I was proud to sign his legislation requiring gun dealers to be state-licensed and creating a new parole system for youth facing long sentences. I look forward to working with Senate President Harmon to build on the progress we made last year and continue to move our state in the right direction.
I commend Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford on a historic run and am proud of her work tackling big challenges for working families. Without Kim’s leadership we could not have raised the minimum wage, lifting more than a million Illinoisans out of poverty and I know she has more important work to do as Majority Leader.
Now is the time to come together and continue working on our shared goal of moving Illinois forward.
