* DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick’s Facebook page…

Sheriff Mendrick is running for Governor of Illinois!!!

Today I’m announcing that I will not be running for a third term as DuPage County Sheriff in the election cycle of 2026. This was a very hard decision to make. The legislation changes that have been imposed on Illinois from the governors office are state laws that directly conflict with existing federal laws. The safety act stops us from rehabilitating people in our jails and the sanctuary city laws force federal authorities into our neighborhoods because these state laws deny them access to these criminals while they are in custody within a correctional facility. This is not right. My family and I have decided that we want our State back. We don’t like being fearful of crime that is randomly occurring now in our streets, homes and our retail stores due to soft on crime legislation. We don’t want to move out of Illinois like so much of our population. We really don’t. We love this state. That’s why I’ve decided to run for the Office of Governor of Illinois. I will bring safety, security and fairness to the city of Chicago and the rest of our State. I will bring more than 30 years of law enforcement and correctional facility experience in the second largest county in the State of Illinois to a city that desperately needs it. I will bring State laws back into alignment with law enforcement principles that make rational sense and will once again create an environment in our homes that will make all of us feel safe. An environment where citizens will once again apply to be police officers. Our culture is being eliminated by senseless laws created by our current government that persecutes cops and empowers criminals. I’m here to stop the bleed. To do this we must have strong leaders with actual law enforcement experience. That’s why my current Undersheriff, Eddie Moore, has my full support and endorsement to be the next DuPage County Sheriff. Undersheriff Moore has been with me from the beginning and has helped me create what the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office is today. I feel secure in my home County where I can run for Governor and still have a Sheriff that will keep us safe and secure. Eddie Moore is that person. He has no equal in a race for Dupage County Sheriff. I’ve asked a question to thousands of people over the last 6 years and have only received one response, without question; “do you think that DuPage County should be more like Chicago and mimic their attributes or should Chicago be more like DuPage County and assimilate our attributes?”Take a guess at what every single answer was? DuPage!!!We are DuPage strong. Let’s be Illinois strong! What we have done can be done Statewide. Don’t let them put you to sleep with “it’s always been this way” talk. We need a secure future for our State and we will make Chicago and Illinois safe again.

* Sheriff Mendrick went on Ray Stevens’ WLS program today. Core message…

We have two, I’d say, major problems in this state, and it’s going to be the sanctuary city status, and it’s going to be the SAFE-T Act.

I mean, starting with sanctuary city, you know, you have a safety issue there too. But what, I guess I don’t understand, because, you know, we have a very large budget too, and the sheriff’s office is the biggest, second biggest county in the state. But I get audited all the time. I mean, I get audited probably three, four times a year by all kinds of different entities. I don’t see how you could go so over-budget. And whether you agree with the sanctuary state or don’t, I don’t understand the concept of having a policy that enables something that’s going to blow your budget out of the water. I don’t know how you can say, ‘Hey, I’m going to have a policy. I know it’s going to cost a billion dollars more than the budget that I’m given, but I’m going to keep this policy, and I’m going to still cost money.’ And what a billion dollars was last year will probably be more like $3 billion this year.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

* Regarding Gov. Pritzker’s rhetoric about President Donald Trump and whether that has had an impact on DuPage County…

Well, there have been some things that were staged shortly, nothing that was disruptive, though. I think what they’re trying to do is just to make sure there’s a heartbeat behind the budget request. I mean, when you’re that far again over budget and, you know.

I want to talk really quick about the ICE raids too, you know, I get a kick out of this where we’re hearing all these complaints about ICE raids, ICE raids. But then I want to go back to policy. We have a sanctuary state policy that says we cannot speak to the federal government that’s in charge of a nationwide push for illegal immigrants, and they’re saying that they want to get rid of their rapists and murderers. But part of that is you have no access, ICE has no access to our jail system. So you got to feel bad for the federal government in a way, because they’re charged with the job, the only way they can do it now, they’re being forced to not go to a jail, which is a safe environment where you’re going to get your rapist or murder. I don’t have anybody in my jail, neither does Cook County, that is there just for immigration. They’re there for whatever any other citizen would be arrested for. So they’re in this environment, and they don’t allow access to a jail. So then ICE is forced to go into neighborhoods, find them where they are, and then, yeah, there’s collateral damage now, too, because if say there’s two criminal illegal aliens, and then there’s two people who are just here illegally, if they let those people go, they’re technically committing a crime on ICE laws. I mean, these are federal laws. I mean, so you have a policy that defies federal laws, and it’s also causing your budget to blossom billions over what it’s supposed to be.

* SAFE-T Act…

I gotta go back to the SAFE-T Act, and why it bothers me so bad is it actually promulgates long term incarceration. So you take, before the SAFE-T Act, you take a burglar, you come in. We used to classify like a burglar. We call them low hanging fruit. It’s usually a substance driven crime. We do full detoxification stabilization of your personnel through psychiatric services. We have 200 classes, courses taught by 80 counselors and educators per week. And then we start vocational training. We have welding, tiling, dry walling, horticulture, indoor and outdoor, small engine repair, the tattoo removal, suits for success, they get suits. And then we have a re-entry program, so we bring our recidivism rates down from a 75 percentile level down to more closer to 20%, so that is because we’re stabilizing a personality and getting them a job. And what the SAFE-T Act does is they let them go. They believe they’re just getting a ticket, but that still qualifies as an arrest. So when you get three more of them and finally wind up in front of a judge, you’re a multiple offender, and you can do 15 years in IDOC, so the SAFE-T Act actually pumps them out temporarily, until they go to court, then they’re getting the big charges. So the SAFE-T Act fails. And we have so many people on warrants, we haven’t reduced our population. Nothing in the SAFE-T Act worked, other than demoralizing the police being soft on crime and, you know, taking away, I would say, just the protections from the police and giving those protections to criminals.

* Asked whether he has campaign donors…

So you know, I’ve been an elected official for six years, and we actually ran pretty hard. We ran for preparatory about two, three years prior to that to first get elected. So through the course of my political career, I’ve have thousands of donors. So I do have donors en masse, and I have been starting getting calls just yesterday without announcing, people are hearing rumblings. And these are from some of the bigger guys that are saying that first they want to make sure that a) that I’m Republican. I think a lot of these people don’t want another, and I mean no offense to Democrats, it’s just that the Democrat policies that have led to what I think, the dismantling destruction of Illinois, aren’t popular anymore. I think they want to see conservative values. And when I say I’m a Republican, that means, yes, I am conservative. It doesn’t mean that I’m hardcore and, you know, extremist, no, not at all. In fact, you know, I understand the value of the real business.

In ten years, he’s raised $854K. As of the end of the last quarter, he had $87K in the bank. He had one race, in 2018, which he won. He was unopposed in 2022.

* You’ll likely hear this question a lot from him…

Obviously, I want to protect the police. I want to see police empowered again. I want to see us be tough on crime again. You know, I always ask this question every forum I go. Thousands of people, I’ve never had an adverse reaction to this question other than one answer. Now you’ll see clearly what question this is? So, I would say, so do you think that DuPage County, second biggest county in the state, right next to Chicago, do you think that they would do better by absorbing the attributes and being more like Chicago? Or do you think Chicago could benefit from absorbing the attributes of DuPage County and being more like us?

…Adding… From DuPage County Board Chair Deb Conroy…

MAGA Jim Mendrick’s brand does not match the majority of voters in DuPage County. This is a great day for JB Pritzker, Illinois and DuPage Democrats.

* Related…

* Capitol News Illinois | Audit finds Illinois’ noncitizen health care programs far outstripped original cost estimates: The audit, which lawmakers requested in late 2023, comes one week after Pritzker delivered his annual budget proposal to the General Assembly. The governor’s plan would defund the newer of the two programs, which is aimed at noncitizens aged 44 to 64, while leaving in place the smaller program for noncitizen seniors aged 65 and older.

* Tribune | Audit finds many were improperly enrolled in state health care program for noncitizens, while costs were vastly underestimated: The cost overruns were particularly pronounced in the program meant for recipients ages 42 to 64, with the actual expenditure of $485 million through the three years ending June 30, 2023, the period covered by the audit, coming in at nearly four times the initially estimated cost of $126 million, according to the report. During the same period, the actual cost of the program for those 65 and older was $412 million, nearly double the original projection of $224 million.

* Crain’s | Illinois’ immigrant health plans cost taxpayers much more than projected, audit finds: Auditors found 6,098 enrollees designated as “undocumented” who had Social Security numbers. When that information was presented to the Illinois Department of Healthcare & Family Services, or HFS, the agency provided responses for a sample of 94 enrollees. Auditors determined that 19 of those 94 should have been designated as lawfully present or as being a legal permanent resident — an important distinction because legal permanent residents become eligible for Medicaid after five years in the U.S.

* Sun-Times | Pritzker team vastly underestimated health care costs for adults who lack legal status, state audit finds: At a news briefing in Chicago Wednesday, Pritzker bypassed some of the errors spotlighted in the audit and focused on the fleeting nature of immigration status. He also spoke of his support for universal health care. “I think the thing that is missing from the reporting, and what I would point out to you, is that number one, people’s immigration status changes during the course of a year. You’ve got people who were eligible for the program, who became ineligible for the program,” Pritzker said.

* WTVO | Audit finds Illinois vastly underestimated cost of noncitizen heathcare on taxpayers: Republicans have been critical of the program since its inception. “We’re the only state that puts this burden on Illinois tax on their own state taxpayers taking this on and to not run it properly and to have these large cost overruns, that’s how you end up with a budget deficit,” Senate Minority Leader John Curran (R-Downers Grove) said Wednesday. “That’s what’s crowding out spending on education. That’s what’s crowding out spending on other components of the state budget. That’s why we need an audit.”