ILLINOIS (WMBD) — Striving to be one of Illinois’ newest state senators, Desi Anderson is looking to unseat incumbent State Sen. Dave Koehler (D-IL) come November.
Anderson joined WMBD’s Matt Sheehan this week for an On the Record segment.
She said some major topics she plans to tackle if elected are the following:
1: Crime: Anderson highlighted how the community can engage with law enforcement.
2: Curriculum: Anderson said she wants more parent involvement in school districts’ decision-making.
“Unit 5 is looking to introduce Senate Bill 818. That is the new sex-ed enhancement curriculum. Springfield has decided to adopt the national standards. What that means is you’re gonna have curriculum introduced at a very young age that you normally wouldn’t. Normally, the sex-ed would’ve been geared toward junior high and high school. Now you’re seeing all that curriculum coming down to the Kindergarten level. One of the things they’ll be teaching kindergarteners is consent. This, as you can imagine, does not settle well with parents,” Anderson said. “When I was having a conversation with Unit 5 at the board meeting, the Superintendent opens up the conversation during the public announcement and says, ‘I want to make sure all disinformation stops.’ When you approach parents, and that’s your headliner. You’re not creating dialogue. Parents are asking to have a seat at the table and have the ability to ask questions. What’s being introduced for 2022-2023 curriculum. Giving them a 3-minute timeframe at a school board meeting does not create a dialogue. You saw some frustration with the mask mandates, now it’s spewing into the CRT curriculum and the sex-ed curriculum.”
3: Cost of living: Anderson said Illinois has lost a lot of young talent.
“Small business priorities. How do we help them be successful? COVID really hurt us. A lot of businesses weren’t able to operate. Our business is based around large gatherings of people as a wedding venue. We clearly saw the impact where people were moving their weddings and going out of state where they were open. How do we cut the taxes? How do we make a small business viable where we can pass it down to the next generation? I would love to pass our small business down to our son one day, the way we’re going with taxes, that’s not a possibility. One of the impacts you see, you see a lot of young talent leaving Illinois because of taxes. They’re looking at the end of the day, is this affordable living? Can we actually have a revenue stream that makes sense where we can see growth? In Illinois right now, that’s not a possibility. I have some top universities. Bradley, ICC, ISU, IWU, Heartland,” Anderson said.
You can see the full interview in the video above.
Anderson does not have a June Primary opponent, but will face State Sen. Dave Koehler (D) in the November General Election.
The video above is the preview to On the Record, which aired on WMBD This Morning 5/23.
