Sangamon Sun

This is just the way Herman Senor envisioned it would be when he returned from the military with the idea of serving his hometown.

“I came back to Springfield to make a difference,” Senor, the alderman in Springfield's Ward 2, said during a recent appearance on the "Newsmakers Spotlight" show of his run in the GOP primary for the seat held by Rep. Sue Scherer (D-Decatur) in the 96th House District.

A native of Springfield with plenty of family still residing in the area, Senor said over time he has come to feel too many “good conservatives” are being left out of the equation in determining what’s best for the community. 

Ald. Herman Senor

"We need to draw business here. Decatur is a great area; and we need to build off that and have some satellite business set up over here in Springfield” he said on the program.

Senor, a U.S. Navy veteran, has also been vocal in questioning what benefits local residents got from the record-setting income tax hike that was enacted as part of the new state budget, which Scherer ultimately sided in favor of and banded with Democrats to override Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto.

“I haven’t seen any reforms that came along with that increase,” Senor said on the show. “We got to give our citizens more services and I don’t see any of that.”

Beyond that, Senor said he thinks the person holding the seat as representative should also be serving as the district’s best promoter.

“We have to go out and recruit businesses; I haven’t seen that,” he said.

Senor said he considers himself a supporter of Rauner, but wouldn’t allow himself to become a “rubber stamp” for him the way he says Scherer has become for longtime House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago).

“It’s going to be a give and take,” he said on the show of his relationship with Rauner. “Tax reforms and drawing businesses – if we can get those reforms that could create more jobs, that’s what we’re trying to do,” he said of policies he is sure he could get on board with the governor about.

Senor said he also favors a term limit system, which would seemingly prevent any other politician from being in power as long as Madigan has been.

“The world is ever-changing, sometimes you have to recycle and get new blood,” he said.

An Illinois Department of Transportation staffer for the last quarter-century, Senor said he also has deep concerns about the state’s ongoing pension crisis.

“The pension system is in trouble and I think any new hires should be made (aware) of that coming in,” he said. “We have to do that because of the state our pension system is in.”

In the end, Senor said job creation and pension reform are the state’s biggest issues and the ones he would tackle as soon as he arrived in Springfield.

 The 96th House District includes parts of Christian, Macon and Sangamon counties.