Differences with Gov. Bruce Rauner has led Sen. Sam McCann (R-Plainview) to decide not to run for re-election in 2018.
McCann said in a statement that he does not think the Illinois Republican Party is the same party he used to know, according to an article posted Monday on State Journal-Register website. McCann said he enjoyed representing the 50th District but he can’t support a governor who does not support the working class.
“I am unable to continue on with a party or a governor who continually attack working people; who support forcing taxpayers to fund abortions; who have turned Illinois into a sanctuary state; who have advanced the most liberal standards in the nation giving transgender individuals the ability to alter their birth certificates; and who have destroyed Illinois’ Right of Conscience Act so as to force pro-life doctors, nurses and other providers to violate their consciences and be denied their constitutional rights,” McCann said, according to the article. “This is no longer a Republican Party that is recognizable to me.”
The American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), which states on its website they are the nation’s original conservative organization, gave McCann a 27 percent rating in 2016. Rosemarie Long, Sangamon County Republican Party chair, agreed with ACUF in an August article in the State Journal-Register, stating McCann no longer represented the core principles of the Republican Party.
The August article also said the Sangamon County GOP’s central committee voted to back Steve McClure of Springfield for McCann's seat.
Despite his frustrations with the current state of the Illinois Republican Party and Rauner, McCann told the State Journal-Register that he would back whomever is the Republican candidate for governor.
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