Kevin Schmidt, Republican candidate for state representative, 114th District in Illinois
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More on the Republican primary for the 114th House District
Read all the questionnaire responses from candidates in the Republican primary for the 114th House District. Candidates are listed alphabetically.
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Name: Kevin Schmidt
Political party: Republican
Age as of June 28, 2022: 40
Campaign website or social media page: https://schmidtforil.com/
Office seeking: State Representative 114th District
Are you an incumbent? No
Have you run for elected office before? (Please list previous offices sought) Yes. I ran for state representative in 2020
Occupation: Chiropractor
Education: I attended Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and received a Doctor of Chiropractic and Bachelor of Science in human biology at Logan University in Chesterfield, MO.
Please list highlights of your civic involvement: I ran for state representative in 2020. I am involved in the St. Clair County Republican party as a precinct committeeman. I am past president of the Jaycees and Millstadt Optimist Club. I am also a member of the Millstadt Chamber of Commerce, and I am a Shriner and a member of the Masons.
Who are your top three campaign contributors? My top three donors are me, State Representative Chris Miller, and George Obernagel, a small business owner.
Why are you running? The state is taking too much in taxes and too much of our freedoms. Illinois is one of the highest taxed states in the country. Every budget J.B. Pritzker has signed into law has set a new record for state spending. We need to reduce spending so that we can provide meaningful tax relief to Illinois residents – not the insignificant, temporary tax relief lawmakers approved last spring. The policies coming from Springfield are hurting working families. I am running to be the advocate Illinois families need and deserve.
What is the top issue in your race, and how would you address it? Voters are concerned about rising inflation. They are concerned about the high taxes in Illinois, and they are concerned about where we are headed as a state in light of the lockdowns and the mandates during the pandemic. I think more than anything, voters want someone who will listen to them and advocate for the issues important to them.
We have to make our state more attractive to potential employers. We have to stop the exodus of people from our state, and we have to stop pretending that the bad policies coming from the House and the Senate are nonfactors in the exodus. People are tired of the status quo, and they want real change, and they want it now. I will push for spending reform, pension reform, tax reform and meaningful ethics reforms to root out the culture of corruption in Springfield.
Why should people vote for you? We have serious problems in Illinois, and we need innovative solutions to solve them. One of the things I have done in my business is charge my patients a flat $19 fee for services.
I decided early on that I wanted to lower overhead by eliminating the voluminous paperwork required for insurance claims and so I simplified things by charging a flat $19 per visit. I did not need a government program to figure out how to lower healthcare costs for my patients. I did it on my own. We tend to complicate issues like healthcare and education and make the cost of government greater than it should be. I intend to take the same common-sense approach I have successfully used in my private practice to state government. We can’t keep ignoring the structural problems facing our state. We need meaningful solutions now.
This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 6:00 AM.