Illinois State Senator Mike Jacobs - who rules over a district out in near the Quad Cities - has himself a dandy of a race against challenger Neil Anderson.
And, things aren't going to get any easier on Jacobs in the closing days of the campaign. He's going to have to answer to voters about how he has - in such a meaningful way - profited directly from being a State Senator.
In fact, the Senator was involved in sponsoring a bill and receiving benefit from it's passage. Senator Mike Jacobs won. But who lost? Local schools. Who got the shaft in terms of funding from property taxes:
From the QC Examiner:
Color me unsurprised that a state senator who sits as energy committee chair while his daddy lobbys for powerful energy companies could be characterized as abusing power because—Illinois! But this is what WQAD/QCTimes is “fact checking” on this ad:
“Specifically the ad claims [Jacobs] used his position as state senator to help his company, Eagle River Investments by co-sponsoring a bill and receiving a TIF, or tax increment financing from East Moline.”Abuse of power with Jacobs is a given as far as I’m concerned, but what really frosts my cookies is that Jacobs co-sponsored and voted for a bill that would extend TIFs for 25 years, which means that QC schools will get screwed out of the money they would have gotten and will have to wait 25 years to get it.
If then.
But you can count on Jacobs getting out on the campaign trail decrying the lack of funding for education and demanding that taxpayers must be reamed even more to finance them.
All the while Jacobs and his wealthy pals get the benefits of the TIF and the schools and taxpayers get the shaft.
