Name: Joe Berning

What office are you seeking: Senator for District 45

What is your political party? Democrat

What is your current age? 68

Occupation and employer: Recently retired from my own business, JB Consulting

What offices, if any, have you previously held? None that could really be considered political offices. I was the liturgical coordinator on our church parish pastoral council for about ten years, and choir director for about twelve years.

I was also our local Lions Club Treasurer for two years.

I have been active for more than eight years with our Jo Daviess County Democrats.

City: Galena

Campaign website: www.berningforillinois.com

Education: No college degrees per se, I have completed many online and home office courses with several of the Fortune 500 companies I worked for over the past 45 years, having mostly to do with sales and marketing.

Designation of LUTCF in the insurance industry, and Livestock Production Consultant in the Agriculture/Livestock industry.

Community involvement: At the present time I belong to the Jo Daviess County Galena Historical Society.

I do some promotional work for them, predominantly on Social Media.

My wife and I belong to the catholic churches in the tri-state area of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, where I still do some singing.

Marital status/Immediate family: Yes, my wife Chris and I have been married for more than forty-five years. We have a son and two daughters who are all married with children, giving us a total of eleven grandchildren.

What are your top three priorities for this district in Springfield?

• To represent and advocate for the needs of everyone in this district, regardless of party affiliation.

This became a “default” priority because the incumbent I am running against, has not even tried to communicate with much of our population. Our communities are full of hard-working, thoughtful people, and I want to ensure their voices are heard.

• To promote a fair and progressive tax system which needs to phase out the current flat tax. It would be the best way to accomplish so many other goals for Illinois.

• Begin as soon as possible to implement policies that save and strengthen our family farms.

Again, with a progressive tax system, other taxes such as the “death tax” could be less, which would directly help pass on a family farm to the next generation.

How will you support economic growth and development in your district?

Once again, I have to talk about how a fair and progressive tax system would make it easier for small to medium sized businesses to start up and/or maintain themselves and grow.

The larger corporations should not mind paying more (income) tax, when they realize the money it saves lower to middle income earners will bring more stability and overall business into the/their communities.

Also, money grants to small and medium sized businesses, including farmers, will be helpful for economic growth.

Do you support term limits for state senators, and if so, what limits?

Yes. On my website I have given my own example of how I intend to be a senator for just two terms, and in this cycle, that would be six years. In my own case, I have stated that even if I think that when I have attained the age of 75, I could still do the job for another term (or more), I believe it is a time to step aside and let younger, more energetic candidates come forward to serve.

So, I belive there are two components to term limits: Number of years that are appropriate to serve, i.e. six, eight or possibly ten. And the actual age of the candidate -- which becomes much more subjective to a person’s overall health, and we have to be careful about age discrimination.

How will you address the state’s long-term pension obligations?

Here again, a fair and progressive tax system would allow for more money available to be designated to those funds, even if not directly so, more money coming in overall would allow for reallocations in a changing budget.

How will you address property taxes and school funding reform?

As I understand it now, property taxes are set by the individual municipalities, accordin to the needs within the community/city. As school funding is always a big portion of our property taxes, it is obvious that if more funds are available from the state, less funds would need to come from property taxes.

I think the best and fairest way to have more funds available from the state budget, is to have the millionaires and billionaires pay a higher percetage of tax than the flat rate they are now paying, which is the same rate as lower and middle class workers. (Again, I am promoting a Fair and Progressive Tax System.)

What is your stance on the SAFE-T Act? What changes, if any, would you support?

The reason I am late getting this survey done, is because I tried to get some input on this question from our county sheriff. (It appears he chose not to get back to me.)

I believe some modifications/changes are warranted, based on what I have heard from various news sources throughout several counies within District 45. I do not know if I am currently “in the know” enough to make specific recommendations, so I will just say that at this time it is easy to agree with those who say the arresting officers, prosecutors and judges need to have more say in the handling of each case.

What legislation would you propose to address crime and public safety in your district?

I really cannot answer this without doing further research, including some interviews with law enforcement officials, especially in some of the larger cities, such as Freeport.

In regard to ICE, I will support any legislation that makes it harder for them to come into any of our communities without proper warrent(s).

What is your stance on reproductive rights in Illinois?

Every person is born with free will, and so the decisions as to what each person does with his or her body becomes their own. This includes a decision to terminate a pregnancy, which should be made with education and counseling. (I am both pro-life and pro-choice.)

We have a responsibility to provide adequate health care for everyone living in our state.

Education, Health and Welfare will always be imparative to respect for maintaining reproductive rights.

What is your opinion of the TRUST Act (sanctuary state protections)?

I think it is highly unfortunate that other states, such as Texas, took advantage of our Trust Act, by sending (bussing) many immigrants to us without proper “coordination and cooperation” between heads of state departments.

I do believe that these protections are good and neccesary for the sake of humanity, however, it may be possible that some of the details need to be looked at more closely, and possibly modified.

Should the state expand Medicaid funding?

This is kind of a vague question, so I’m going to give kind of a vague answer and say yes.

If expanded funding means more of our less fortunate, lower to middle class people obtain better health care than what they currently have, at lower out-of-pocket costs, then yes, definitely.

Should local governments have more authority over solar farm development in their communities?

I think that could be helpful... king of like home rule. This is another question I may need to research further.

Should Illinois expand use of nuclear energy, including facilities like the Byron plant? What’s your vision for the state’s energy mix?

Although I have visited with folks in Byron several several times in the past few months, we did not talk about the idea of expanding nuclear energy.

I was under the impression that Illiois is doing a good job of balancing our energy production needs between wind, solar, nuclear, etc... I suppose it’s fair to say I do not have a detailed vision on how much, if any, our energy mix needs to change.

What role should the state play in housing affordability?

We need to have some strict laws on how much landlords are able to charge for or increase rents, based on improvements made to the housing, property tax increases to the landlord, and a few other items.

I’ll use the city of Freeport here, for my example: First of all, I do not yet know if “home rule” would apply to a way to manage the problem I have recently been told about -- that new landlords bought out the old, and immediately raised rents substantially “across the board”, without any real justification.

Also, new housing needs to have certain incentives to be affordable to new homeowners or tennants.

I think the state must have funds available to subsidize housing costs in every community, large or small, based on the qualification needs of the residents, i.e. if a factory leaves town causing a loss of jobs, there needs to at least be some funds available to those who lose their jobs due to no fault of their own.

How should the state balance water rights between communities and industry, particularly regarding data centers?

Wow, again, I don’t know if I’m prepared to answer this question. Based on some very limited knowledge at this time, I will just say I have not even decided if I am in favor of data centers.

And again, would it be totally up to the state to balance these rights, or should that have input from the localities directly involved?

To what level should the state fund a new stadium for the Chicago Bears?

To a very minimal level. Let the rich team owners and other monetarily interested parties do most of the funding.

Should the state regulate the use of AI in the classroom? To what extent?

Yes. I have personally found AI to not be good for our critical thinking skills and our discipline to study, research, and achieve on our own, to improve our capabilities. Also, I have noticed AI can give incorrect or incomplete information.

My daughter, who works as a counselor at our elementary school, would echo me on this.

I would say it must be regulated to a large extent, I just do not know how exactly how to quantify it at this time.

Who are your top donors? How often do you speak with them?

I only have a few private donors, whom I try to speak to at least once a month.

At this time, I have not been officially endorsed by any big organizations or companies. Also, I am opposed to taking large amounts of special interest money from anyone.