Outgoing GOP Leader Durkin: Republican Party Has "Lost its Way"
Outgoing House Republican Leader Jim Durkin speaks with The Illinoize Tuesday at the statehouse.
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Just hours before vacating his seat at the end of the General Assembly last night, now former House Republican Leader Jim Durkin sat down with The Illinoize one-on-one for 30 minutes Tuesday to discuss the GOP’s political and legislative problems.
After House Republicans were kicked around in the November election, Durkin announced he would step aside as Leader and announced earlier this week he would sign off at the end of his current term.
He says a combination of money, political unrest, and Roe vs. Wade changed the narrative against the GOP.
“Before the Supreme Court [abortion] decision, I felt like we had a lot of momentum,” Durkin said. “After that, it really changed the focus and attitudes in the suburbs and collar counties that we were competing in.
He says voters simply didn’t find Republicans to be a viable alternative.
[We had to deal with] the continuing drama from the former president, January 6th, election deniers, and having a candidate at the top of the ticket who had no appeal at all to the areas which we had to compete in. We did everything we could to raise money. We couldn’t compete financially. At the end of the day, people were more fearful for democracy than they were for safe streets.”
The House Republicans have been fractured between a governing wing of the party and a far-right group known as the “Eastern Bloc.”
“I gave the [Eastern] Bloc opportunities to participate, but they really didn’t want to,” Durkin said. “I wish they stood for something more than just saying no to everything. And if you don’t follow their recipe for success in Illinois, they think you have no place in the party.”
Durkin says the party needs to reevaluate itself and stop hemorrhaging voters.
“I believe this party has lost its way,” he said. “So many people have just left the party and are true independents. That means they don’t vote in a primary. Look who’s left, it’s the far right.”
Durkin says many conservatives have spent too much time and money to pull it off limiting the size of the GOP paste.
“I hope the ultra conservatives understand that, at the end of the day, you can slap each other on the back about who is the most conservative, but this is a game of addition, and they forgot that, They’ve been playing subtraction,” Durkin couldn’t.
He says GOP lawmakers need to get serious.
“To put [our caucus] in a position where you have to defend stupid, idiotic moves such as separating Chicago from the rest of the state (which the Eastern Bloc vocally supported in 2019 and 2020), when I’m trying with everything I have to raise money in the business community and they look at this. It’s an embarrassment,” he said.
Durkin doesn’t leave without some controversy in his own party. He was the only Republican to vote for banning the sale of assault weapons. Durkin said he couldn’t get the mass shootings in Highland Park on July 4 and Garfield Park in Chicago on Halloween out of his mind.
“I believe in it,” he said. “I live in the suburbs and my colleagues didn’t quite seem to understand that, but I respect their position, too. Their vote reflected their districts, my vote reflected my district.”
He says he respects the position of gun rights supporters, but says he’s been turned against high powered semi-automatic rifles.
“These weapons have no place in society,” he said. “They are used to kill people en masse quickly. I’ve seen too many awful, careless, reckless losses of life from these kinds of weapons. Our greatest responsibility is to keep our people safe and my vote and thoughts are consistent with what I believe is our greatest responsibility.
Durkin is not endorsing a candidate to replace him in the General Assembly, and says he’s leaving Springfield with a clear conscience.
“I have no regrets,” he said. “22 years is enough. I’m at peace with my decision and I wish this chamber well because I really want to see Illinois do better.”
And that means Durkin says he’s going to stay involved trying to guide the GOP back to sanity.
“I’m going to continue on with this voice of what the Republican Party should be doing,” he said.