Adam Andrzejewski

On February 2nd, 2010 the state of Illinois and its voters made yet another bad decision that seems to accent the recent crooked political history of the state very well. There were six candidates running in the Republican gubernatorial primary. One stood far aapart from the others: Adam Andrzejewski, a local business man from Herscher, IL, a small town about 70 miles south of Chicago. A graduate of Northern Illinois University with a business degree, he started a successful publishing company catering to his local area specifically with phone books. The business is still successful to this day, but in 2007, Adam decided to sell his share and begin fighting for the people of Illinois. 

He founded “For The Good of Illinois” with the mission to bring transparency, accountability, efficient service, and frugality to Illinois governments. His group has been successful thus far by spearheading a financial transparency movement which encourages elected officials to post all their checks online for the public to view. This has been successful with some elected officials and school boards in his home county of Kankakee and other counties in Illinois including Cook County (Chicago).

It’s these ideals that Adam founded his campaign upon. The most important part of his campaign is the transparency he wanted in the Illinois government. Adam proposed “every dime, online, in real time” where he would make Illinois financially transparent and taxpayers would know exactly where their money is being spent. All spending would be posted online for the public to view. As Adam said, “Tax dollars don’t belong to the government, as government is only a steward of those tax dollars.” Currently the Illinois government is not transparent, and this is a leading cause for the corruption through the state. With this transparency, Adam promised to be fair and efficient with his spending. With the track record of past governors in Illinois and Adam being a fresh face to politics, it may be difficult for many not to believe him. 

Adam was also very ambitious toward focused solutions in Illinois. A statement from his website sums it up best: “Illinois government needs to be focused on the solution of our problems and less concerned with the accumulation of power.  Believing in local control, Andrzejewski will first look to empower people and then to put as many government functions as close to the people as possible. This seems like common sense, but is the opposite of recent state history.” Adam proposed this start at the local level where counties and townships must demonstrate good government with efficiency, the basis of people first, and that magic word that Illinois needs abundantly: “transparency.” 

This transparency has to come in two steps, the second of which would be a statewide forensic audit. This would detail all past expenditures of the state and the officials responsible for their rampant corruption. This audit would assess trends of past unnecessary spending and link it back to possible current elected officials. Transparency could be one of the many missing ingredients in Illinois. It could be one of the ingredients which would take Illinois n the right direction toward less corruption, debt, and wasteful spending. Adam’s proposals were the most plausible out of any Republican candidate for governor. 

Adam Andrzejewski did not win the primary, although he finished higher than anyone expected. His fellow Republicans (the winner yet to be determined) do not share the same transparency ideals as he does. It’s no wonder Adam received National and International endorsements from much of the conservative media and leaders such as Lech Walesa, former Polish President and founder of Solidarity, which led to the fall of communism. Fortunately Adam is not done yet and from all indications it seems he will run again.