2026 Election Questionnaire: Jeff Keicher, Illinois State Representative 70th District

Name: Jeff Keicher

What office are you seeking: Illinois State Representative, 70th District

What is your political party? Republican

What is your current age? 53

Occupation and employer: Self-employed insurance agent

What offices, if any, have you previously held?

President, Sycamore Public Library Board; State Representative, 70th District; House Republican Conference Chairman (third-ranking House Republican); Chairman, Illinois Legislative Ethics Commission; Ranking Republican Member, House Insurance Committee, House Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies Subcommittee, House Data Privacy and Analytics Subcommittee, House International Relations, Tourism, and Trade, House Social Media and Content Moderation Subcommittee, House Gaming Committee

City: Sycamore

Campaign website: keicherforrep.com

Education: Northern Illinois University, BS Political Science 1996

Community involvement:

Marital status/Immediate family: Married with three children

Stop piling unfunded mandates onto cities, schools and counties that then show up on the property-tax bill. Restore the Local Government Distributive Fund to the historic 10 percent share of income-tax collections — it sits at about 6.47 percent today — so local governments are not forced to lean harder on homeowners. End grants to organizations that cannot show how the money is spent. Ease the regulation and reporting burden on small employers so job creators will locate, grow and stay in Illinois. Affordability is not a slogan; it is fewer Springfield costs dumped onto families.

The cleanest way to take pressure off the property-tax levy is to put state income-tax revenue back in local budgets. Restoring LGDF from 6.47 percent to 10 percent reduces the need for communities to raise property taxes. Tax Increment Financing districts also need real reform: I filed HB 1142 to require a voter referendum before a new or expanded TIF, and HB 1222 to cap TIF life at 35 years instead of 47. Americans for Prosperity–Illinois recognized that work with a 2025 Prairie State Policy Champion award. I also support a mandate-waiver process: if Springfield does not send the dollars to pay for a mandate, and it is not a life-safety requirement, local taxing bodies should be able to vote it off. That is how you cut property taxes without shifting the same bill onto another levy.

Look at the Meta campus in DeKalb. They contracted for off-site renewable power, their water use is modest compared with other large users, and they paid for most of the infrastructure they needed to open. That is the standard: cover your own water, sewer and power interconnection, and do not hide behind a 47-year TIF. The rate pressure families feel on the PJM grid is not coming from Illinois projects. It is coming from unconstrained demand in other states that can pull power while Illinois ties its own hands. Require developers to pay their freight and keep Illinois competitive on generation — especially nuclear — so we are not exporting both jobs and megawatts.

Local control first. Communities should decide their own land use and their own future. The state can set a short list of baseline principles — siting guidance, energy source, water use, noise and who pays for infrastructure — so every town is not inventing the wheel. What we should not do is what Springfield has done on solar, wind, battery siting and the proposed BUILD Act: pre-empt the people who live next door. I will vote for statewide guardrails. I will vote against statewide overrides.

I chair the bipartisan Legislative Ethics Commission. Republicans have filed ethics bills for years that still have not become law: faster public release of founded reports, real consequences for members who stonewall an investigation, and an Inspector General who can do the job without political interference. If I learned of misconduct, I would send it to the Legislative Inspector General immediately and recuse from any matter that involved me personally. The Commission's work is confidential by statute until a report is voted for release — as we did unanimously in the Benton matter this summer. Voters deserve a process that publishes the facts and does not protect the powerful.

Yes. Nuclear is the only carbon-free source that delivers strong baseload power 24 hours a day. I was a primary House sponsor, with Democratic Rep. Lance Yednock, of the original bill to allow new nuclear in Illinois. That language was folded into a larger measure the Governor vetoed. He then asked for small modular reactors; we delivered. He later asked for a full repeal of the moratorium, which is the position I started with. I supported keeping Byron online, backed the later SMR and full-moratorium work, and welcomed the Governor's 2026 executive order advancing new nuclear projects — one of the few areas where we agree. Illinois already leads the country in nuclear generation. Expanding it is how we keep the lights on and the bills down. Nuclear is the only proven way to put strong, carbon-free baseload power on the grid, and I'll keep working to expand it in Illinois.

No. Every budget the Governor has signed has layered on another tax or fee, often on the people least able to pay. That lets Springfield spend more without ever disciplining the base rates. I have counted dozens of so-called "revenue enhancements" since he took office. We should stop writing blank checks to unaccountable programs — including violence-interruption grants that lack real oversight — and fund the obligations we already made to seniors and people with disabilities. Meals on Wheels still has a wait list. That is a choice, not a revenue problem.

Competency-based learning lets students move when they have mastered the material, not when the calendar says so. Huntley High School's program is a local proof point. The state has not funded schools at historic levels, and homeowners have been covering the gap through property taxes. Restore state funding, strip unfunded mandates, and leave curriculum and operations with local boards. I opposed adding still more school mandates this session — including a voter-registration bill that schools would have to run with no money attached — for that reason. Fund the classroom. Stop managing it from Springfield.

As the ranking Republican on the House Insurance Committee, I see this up close: year after year, Springfield piles new mandates onto what health plans in Illinois must cover, even though the state can only touch about 22% of health plans here — the rest fall under federal ERISA law. I sponsored SB 3114, signed into law and effective January 1, 2028, which stops insurers from using automated systems to override a doctor's clinical judgment and downcode claims without ever reviewing the patient's actual record — a practice that shortchanges providers and threatens access to care for patients with the most complex conditions. Beyond that, means testing, real pricing transparency, and more consumer choice would do more for affordability and rural access than another mandate.

Roughly 60 percent of the SAFE-T Act was language law enforcement agreed was needed. The rest created problems, including 48 hours a week off electronic monitoring, that have produced bad outcomes. Violent crime is concentrated. A small number of repeat offenders drive most of it. The Crime Guns Task Force work in Chicago, with ATF and local partners, has shown what happens when you go after that handful of shooters instead of rewriting the whole code. Fix the parts of SAFE-T that put monitors on vacation. Keep the parts that were actually negotiated with police. Focus resources on the people who keep cycling through the system, because the data is clear, a small number of repeat offenders drive most violent crime. Focus enforcement and consequences there, and you solve most of the problem.

Prioritize the people we already promised to help. We've walked away from obligations to our most vulnerable while funding programs that make headlines instead. Home-delivered meals is a good example — my own inquiry to the Department on Aging turned up 710 older adults on waiting lists statewide, a gap of roughly $1 million that would fully clear it, and it went unfunded again this year. Illinois also has a 5-to-7-year backlog on the PUNS waiting list 9000 adults with disabilities waiting for services, plus more than 50,000 whose caregiver is over 60 years old. This year's budget offered a 60-cent-an-hour raise for the direct support workers who care for them, well short of the $2-an-hour increase the state's own Guidehouse report said was needed. Meanwhile, the state spends roughly $200 million a year on largely unmonitored violence interruption grants. Fund the obligations we've already made to seniors and people with disabilities before funding new programs. Feed grandma. Reduce the disability wait list. Audit or end the grants that cannot show results.

Ask anyone who has tried to open a business in a small town: the paperwork or permit is often the first "no." Downstate and collar-county communities need a real economic-development capacity — someone whose job is to hunt for employers instead of waiting for a project to fall in their lap. Pair that with fewer mandates, TIF rules that do not raid the school levy for decades, and power that is cheap and reliable. That is how DeKalb landed major distribution and data-center investment when we got the package right. Proactive local development plus a lighter state footprint beats another Springfield incentive with strings attached.

Almost all of the day-to-day decisions: operations, local services, zoning and siting, and school curriculum. If Springfield forces a community to spend money on Springfield's priority and does not send the cash — and it is not life-safety — locals should be able to waive it. Solar, wind and battery siting pre-emption and the proposed BUILD Act are examples of what not to do. I want statewide standards where they prevent a race to the bottom. I do not want Springfield choosing what is in the neighbors' backyard.

No, I don't think the current balance is right. Most people, myself included, are proud of their family's immigrant roots, and most also agree there's a legal process that should be followed. There is still a process, and we stopped enforcing it. A non-citizen who commits a crime should be removed. A non-citizen whose household is on public assistance should not be a long-term ward of the state. People who come here to work, follow the law and build a life should have a real legal path. Sanctuary rules that block local police from talking to federal immigration authorities after a crime do not strike that balance. Cooperation after a criminal arrest is not hostility to legal immigration. It is public safety. And for those working within the law to build a life and contribute here, there should be an earned path forward.

This is a $3-to-5 billion private investment opportunity, the largest in Illinois history, and it shouldn't be a binary choice between economic development and protecting taxpayers, we can and should deliver both. I laid out taxpayer guardrails months ago and discussed them in Shaw Local coverage and on my site: a real minimum assessed-value floor tied to investment; a PTELL fix so districts cannot levy against value they are not collecting; a hard floor on annual special payments; independent governance; an independent fiscal-impact study before any deal is signed; and no suite-and-skybox deals for elected officials. I'm a yes on a megaproject framework that protects property taxpayers, and a no on any version that lets a frozen assessment and phantom valuation shift costs onto surrounding homeowners and small businesses through the back door. I am a Bears fan. I am also a yes only on a framework that protects property taxpayers. Indiana did the work. Illinois can too — without writing a blank check.

Affordability, Ethics and Transparency, Taxes

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