Monroe County Representation

Waterloo, my hometown, is the county seat of Monroe County (originally it was Harrisonville, but now that place is underwater). I found this quaint little tag-line on their website: "Monroe County is a vibrant community known for its quiet neighborhoods and bustling business districts. With many community groups, places to worship and cultural activities, we offer something for the entire family." Don't let them fool you, it really is Hicktown USA. The largest two cities sit five minutes apart: Columbia and Waterloo (each has a population of about 8,000), and the rest are villages and "unincorporated communities."

Here is some neat Monroe County historical brain food to chew on. Did you know that Monroe County was carved out of the Illinois Territory in 1816, and was named after our fifth president, James Monroe? Suffice it to say that I did not. The county also suffered some severe losses from the Great Flood of 1993 (we moved to Waterloo that year because our house in Fults was eaten by the Mississippi).

My elected State Representative is Dan Reitz (Democrat). Reitz would frequently visit my elementary and high school, so it didn't surprise me that he was still our representative. And David Luechtefeld (Republican) is my State Senator (I don't believe I've ever met this guy). Dan Reitz only possesses a high school education, yet has been re-elected continuously since 1997. He is the Chairperson of the Agriculture & Conservation Committee and the Vice-Chairperson of the Environment & Energy; Ethanol Production Oversight Committees. When looking at his chiefly sponsored bills, wildlife and natural resource conservation is heavily stressed in his agenda. As for interpreting the statuses of the bills, I'm not really familiar with the lingo presented. I'm going to take a guess and say that "Session Sine Die" means the bill died while "Public Act . . . . . . . . . xx-xxxx" means that it has been made an official act.

David Luechtefeld has been the 58th district's senator since 1995, and possesses a Bachelor's degree from SLU and a Master's degree from SIUE. The majority of his bills have the status "Session Sine Die," which may be a bad thing. However, I do realize that it is probably a much more difficult task to get things passed in the Senate than in the House. He did, however, get the "Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail" extended -- that's something, right? On a more serious note, however, a lot of his bills appear to deal with medical issues involving health care, medical malpractice, etc... He states on his website, and seems like he is trying to take personal credit for, "the Illinois Senate passed a $28 billion capital infrastructure plan today that will put thousands of Illinoisans to work." The majority of which will be spent on repairing roads, bridges, etc... which is a very good thing.

I really wish my Representative would have their own website. It is very difficult to clearly see their agenda from their IGA web space. And also "Dave" Luechtefeld's website isn't very informative and doesn't appear to be real; however, I did learn that he is the Assistant to the Minority Leader... which is pretty sweet.

While Monroe Countian politics is the epitome of the uninteresting; McClean County politics is much more relevant to my current lifestyle. And since I'll be here for another two years, it may be worthwhile to see what is going on here... because right now, I'm pretty ignorant of the local political scene. I just hope that uptown normal gets fixed soon... it impedes my walking.

Sources:
http://www.elections.illinois.gov/districtlocator/selectsearchtype.aspx
http://luechtefeld.senategop.org/
http://www.ilga.gov/house/Rep.asp?MemberID=960
http://www.monroecountyil.org/