Bill Hauter's seven priorities, in his own words

Campaign summaries have a way of smoothing out what a candidate actually said. This article does the opposite. Bill Hauter's Goals page opens with the question "What can you expect from the candidate?" and answers it with seven issues. Below, each one gets a short section, with his words in quotation marks and nothing added.

Second Amendment

Bill writes: "Hunting and self-defense are important to the people of the 87th district. I am a proud member of the Illinois State Rifle Association and I believe that there needs to be more guns in the hands of good people. I will be a strong supporter in protecting our second amendment rights, and eliminating the unnecessary and outdated FOID card."

Agriculture

"The number one industry in this district is agriculture. I will be an advocate for small family farmers and large agribusinesses like Precision Planting in Tazewell County." He adds that he supports the Farm Bureau's views on the energy bill and shares farmers' concerns about eminent domain for private companies. The third article in this series is devoted to this priority.

Education

Bill's Education statement is the longest of the seven. He writes: "I will advocate for fact-based tried-and-true education methods, school choice and more local control with high levels of parental involvement." The same section states his opposition to what he calls "woke, radical and immoral indoctrination in our schools," and says he opposes sex education being taught in Kindergarten and will not tolerate Critical Race Theory curriculum in Illinois schools. Those are his words, and readers will agree or disagree on their own terms.

Mandates

Bill draws on his medical background here: "As a board certified and actively practicing physician in two specialties, Emergency medicine and anesthesiology, I am in a unique position to speak with clarity and credibility against these authoritarian and counterproductive mandates." He concludes: "Illinois was one of the worst lock down states - I will work to never let that happen again."

Ballot integrity

This section is a short list of three positions. Bill writes that "We need to institute mandatory voter I.D." and that "No non-U.S. citizens should be able to vote in our elections." He also writes: "Election authorities cannot be allowed to change rules shortly before elections and must strictly adhere to statutory election law."

Spending and taxes

Bill's argument starts with the budget, not the tax bill: "The only way to reduce heavy tax burden on Illinoisans is to stop chronic and out of control overspending." He writes, "it's no secret that Illinois has a spending problem, not a revenue problem." Figures such as the number of tax increases over the past decade appear on his page as his own claims, and anyone wanting to rely on a number should check current state sources.

High energy costs

The energy section ends with a sentence that points to the heart of Bill's view: "It is imperative that we maintain abundant and affordable domestic energy production from all sources, including ethanol." In a district surrounded by corn and soybean country, the mention of ethanol is not accidental, and it ties this priority back to agriculture.

How the seven fit together

Read side by side, the priorities have a few threads running through them. One is local control, which shows up in education and in farmers' concerns about eminent domain. Another is a skeptical view of government spending and rules imposed from above, which connects taxes, mandates and energy. A third is a focus on the everyday life of the district, from hunting to farming to schools.

Notice also what the page does not do. It does not list bill numbers or promise outcomes, and this article does not either. A candidate's published goals tell you what he cares about and which way he leans. They do not tell you how every future vote will go. For that, ask him directly.

Read the originals

Every quote above comes from Bill's published Goals. If one of the seven matters most to your household, read that whole statement in context rather than relying on any summary, this one included. Then bring your questions to a candidate forum, where Bill says voters can meet him in person, or call the campaign at (309) 840-0969. You can also email bill@billhauter.com.