South Cook News

GOP challenger in the 29th House District Jeff Coleman is calling on voters to consider Republicanism in the face of overly high taxes in Democrat-heavy Illinois. 

Coleman believes people should be able to identify who is serving them effectively. They should consider looking at results that have been delivered by the same people they have been electing to government offices – vigilance and active participation are needed. 

“I want to shed light to my community that we need to stop being so blind – we need to spread our options, open our options up to other possibilities and not just blindly follow one party that necessarily doesn't work for us,” Coleman told South Cook News. “Our property taxes, our infrastructure is just running more people away from Illinois. And we just keep electing and doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And that's not happening. So I think more people should get involved politically and most of the political intelligence and get away from the emotional part of it and hold these elected officials accountable and actually give them a threat of maybe possibly losing their positions if they don't perform. I'm not running against anybody. I'm running for the district. So I can hopefully try to come in, [and] at least assess the problems before we even try to fix it. You see, our bigger, bigger mess we really have is obviously we're not getting the whole story because it doesn't add up.” 

He thinks running for the district can give people options, and if elected give more value to the trust that Illinoisans put in their elected officials.

“I've talked to a ton of people, I've been a Republican all but most of my adult life. And my dad was co-chairman of Chicago Republican Party, and he's also 34th Ward committeeman for 38 years," Coleman said. "More and more people there are opening up to the fact that you know, they're basically starting to wake up saying, 'OK, this is just not working.' I just want to make a difference for real. I know that's cliche, but I just want to go in and assess the problem, and I want to see firsthand what type of mess we're really in. And then I want to get to some conclusions. I'm not into debating or anything like that. I'm not running against anybody. I'm running for my district. I'm running the Hope to Know subcommittee to reduce our criminal property taxes. It's just insane.”

Coleman will take on incumbent State Rep. Thaddeus Jones (D-Calumet City) and serves double duty as mayor of Calumet City. Jones beat Democrat challenger Moment Wilson in the June 28 primary 77.9 to 22.1% with a vote count of 7,851 to 2,230, according to Ballotpedia.

In the lead-up to the primary, Wilson questioned Jones' power in the district given his track report did not indicate improving the lives of his constituents. 

“People hold these seats, but they don't make the changes that the people need," Wilson said, South Cook News reported. "We have crime that it just didn't start overnight and we see state legislators that go down to Springfield and they brokered deals for themselves and don't really think about the constituents throughout the district. We had an opportunity, and we still have an opportunity, for serious crime reform, serious criminal reform and serious opportunities to bring life sustainability to the people of the 29th district."

Coleman is a businessman. He started Barbershop News Network in 2003. Barbers and stylists have access to more than 200,000 merchants through the Barbershop Network News Association, which may help them grow both professionally and personally, Suburban Marquee reported.