American politician

Jeanne M. Ives (née Remmes, born October 4, 1964) is an American politician. A Republican, she is a former member of the Illinois House of Representatives for the 42nd district. She has run for governor of Illinois, and for U.S. Representative for Illinois's 6th congressional district.

Ives served three terms in the Illinois House, from 2013 to 2018. She ran in the Republican primary in the 2018 Illinois gubernatorial election, narrowly losing to in*bent Governor Bruce Rauner.

Ives was a candidate in the 2020 election for U.S. House in Illinois's 6th congressional district. On March 17, she won the Republican primary against surgeon Jay Kinzler, receiving over 70 percent of the vote. In the November 3 election, she received about 45 percent of the vote, losing to the in*bent, Democrat Sean Casten.

Contents

• 1 Early life and career
• 2 Illinois House of Representatives
  • 2.1 Abortion
  • 2.2 Education
  • 2.3 Immigration
  • 2.4 LGBT politics
  • 2.5 Drug policy
  • 2.6 Minimum wage
• 3 2018 Illinois gubernatorial election
• 4 2020 U.S. House campaign
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Early life and career

Ives is the third oldest child, of six, of William H. Remmes and Geraldine Remmes. She graduated from Vermillion High School in South Dakota in 1983. She attended the United States Military Academy and served as an officer in the United States Army. Later, Ives served on the Wheaton City Council.

Illinois House of Representatives

Ives at the Illinois State Capitol in 2014

Ives was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in 2012.

Ives said on a 2017 radio show, "My best work is actually getting traction on killing legislation that is bad ... which is what my role is as a member of both first the super minority and then the minority." FIve of Ives' 134 bills become law, according to the Illinois General *embly records.

Abortion

On October 10, 2017, Ives published an article in The Federalist *led "Illinois Governor Breaks Promise, Sends Nonexistent Tax Dollars To No-Limits Abortions" after Governor Bruce Rauner signed HB-40 into law. The bill ensures that abortion remains legal in Illinois even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, while also allowing women with Medicaid and state-employee health insurance to use their coverage for abortions.

Ives has said she made her decision to challenge Rauner in the 2018 Republican primary after he signed the bill into law in September 2017.

Education

When she ran for governor, Ives advocated consolidating school districts in Illinois to save money. She pointed out that Florida (which has a similar population size as Illinois) has 100 districts, while Illinois has 852 districts.

In 2015, it was made public that the College of DuPage, the second largest ins*ution of higher learning in Illinois, had decided to pay its president, Robert Breuder, $763,000 to leave his position three years early. Ives sponsored legislation (HB 3593) that prohibited college boards from giving departing presidents more than one year's salary and benefits, as well as limited standard contracts to four years and require public notice. House Democrats narrowed the bill to only apply to community colleges, and it was p*ed by the legislature. The following year, HB 3593 was replicated and applied to all Illinois ins*utions of higher education.

Immigration

Ives has called for Illinois' TRUST Act, signed into law in August 2017, to be repealed, saying it creates a "sanctuary state", something that Politifact Illinois said was false.

LGBT politics

Ives in 2015

In March 2013, Ives said in an interview that same-sex marriages are a "completely disordered relationship" and said LGBT people were trying to "weasel their way" into acceptability. Ives said that the concept of marriage as between one man and one woman "cannot be legislated away or redefined." When a law authorizing gay marriage p*ed the Illinois General *embly, in November 2013, Ives said, "The fact is that this bill is the worst in the U.S. for protecting religious liberty."

In March 2016, a Chicago man was arrested for a felony after making two threatening phone calls to Ives over her views on same-sex marriage. The man was found guilty in July 2016 of two counts of threatening a public official, a cl* 3 felony.

In 2014, Ives joined the majority of colleagues in the House in voting down a ban on gay conversion therapy. Illinois banned gay conversion therapy for LGBT youths in 2015.

Ives opposed a 2017 bill that would make it easier for transgender people to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender iden*y. On a radio show, she called transgender rights "junk science."

Ives opposes adoption by gay couples in Illinois.

Drug policy

In May 2016, Ives voted against the extending the sunset date of the program that legalized cannabis for medical purposes. In December 2017, she said that "the * experiment in Colorado has failed. The kids are using * and traffic accidents are up because of it. Illinois should not build an economy based on vice like they have in Colorado."

Minimum wage

In May 2017, Ives voted against legislation (Senate Bill 81) in May 2017 that would have raised the minimum wage in Illinois to $15 per hour by the year 2022. During legislative hearings in March 2017 on the issue, Ives said she preferred to first see how the city of Chicago and Cook County perform with their own minimum wage increases before enacting a statewide increase."

2018 Illinois gubernatorial election

Main article: 2018 Illinois gubernatorial election

On October 28, 2017, Ives announced that she would challenge in*bent Governor Bruce Rauner in the Republican primary to become Illinois Governor. Her running mate was former State Representative Richard Morthland of Cordova, Illinois. Ives agreed with Rauner on traditional Republican issues like pension reform, term limits, and lower property taxes; her major policy differences with Rauner were on social issues.

In the Republican primary on March 20, 2018, Rauner defeated Ives, 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent. Rauner went on to lose to Democrat J.B. Pritzker in the general election by a sixteen-point margin.

2020 U.S. House campaign

Main article: 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois §:District 6

In July 2019, Ives announced that she would run for the U.S. House in Illinois's 6th congressional district. Ives was opposed in the primary by Evelyn Sanguinetti, who dropped out of the race in October 2019, and surgeon Jay Kinzler. In March 2020, Ives won the Republican nomination, setting up a general election against Democratic in*bent Sean Casten.

In October 2020, the New York Times reported that Ives had paid $55,000 over the preceding three years to Locality Labs, a company running purported news sites, for articles that included verbatim copies of her news releases. Ives was listed by the company as one of its "story watchers", or clients. Ives said that the payments were to create her website and to monitor her Wikipedia page.

Ives lost the November 3 election. Casten received 213,777 votes (52.82 percent) and Ives received 183,891 votes (45.43 percent), with Libertarian Bill Redpath getting 7,079 votes (1.75 percent). Ives lost not only Milton Township (her political base), but she lost the City of Wheaton and her own precinct by almost a 60/40 margin.

References

External links

• Official website
• Profile at Project Vote Smart
• Profile at OpenStates.org
• Profile at Ballotpedia
• The Governor You Don’t Know: The Other Side of Bruce Rauner, by Chris Cleveland. (Jameson Books, Inc.: Ottawa, Illinois). 2018. ISBN:978-0-89803-183-6.
• Video: "Gov. Bruce Rauner and Jeanne Ives face off during Chicago Tribune Editorial Board endor*t interview"
• Video: "Thank you, Bruce Rauner"