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John Christian Bambenek
John Christian Bambenek was a 2012 Republican candidate for District 52 of the Illinois State Senate.
Babmenek is a small business owner and information security expert specializing in electronic fraud prevention and response. He is a member of the Board of Springfield Infragard Members Alliance and previously was a Policy Advisor with For the Good of Illinois and Vice-Chairman of the Republican Liberty Caucus of Illinois.
Bambenek received his B.A. in Physics and Astronomy with a minor in Math from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and did graduate study at the University of Illinois in Law, Economics and Philosophy. He is currently studying for an M.A. in Theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville.[1]
Campaign themes
Bambenek stated that two of the main issues of his campaign are to "Reform the business climate of Illinois to attract jobs and new investment," and "Reform the budget to bring spending within sustainable levels and reduce the overall tax burden."[1]
2012
Bambenek's campaign website listed the following issues:[2]
- Business Climate
- Excerpt: "We need a simplified corporate tax code that is free of tax giveaways and breaks for connected businesses. We need to simplify our regulatory systems and reduce duplication and remove obsolete rules. We need to dramatically reduce the number of professions that require licensure and supervision."
- Budget and Tax Reform
- Excerpt: "I will only vote for budgets that are balanced and fight to ensure that any surplus is used to pay down our past due bills and then pay down our massive and crippling debt. I will scour the budget, line-item by line-item to ensure your tax dollar is spent efficiency and remove any waste, fraud, abuse and duplicative spending I find."
- Pension Reform
- Excerpt: "Depending on how you calculate the numbers, Illinois’ unfunded pension liability is anywhere between $100 and $200 Billion dollars and the number only continues to grow. We can no longer afford to ignore the problem or kick the can down the road. Our children and grandchildren will be faced with crippling debt if we don’t take serious steps to curb this debt."
- Government Reform
- Excerpt: "We need to clean up government from those elements still left over from corrupt administrations and enact real reforms to ensure that the looting of the public treasury can never happen again. We need term limits for all elected and appointed officials to end career politicians ruling without any regard for the public. We need true transparency so the public can see how their money is spent."
- Conservative Values
- Excerpt: "Government is involved in too many things and is interfering in too many ways in our private lives. Government should be limited to only what must be done by government and then at the lowest level of government possible. I am pro-life, pro-gun rights and pro-family."
Elections
2012
- See also: Illinois State Senate elections, 2012
Bambenek ran in the 2012 election for Illinois State Senate District 52. Bambenek was unopposed in the Republican primary on March 20, 2012, and was defeated by Democratic incumbent Mike Frerichs in the general election on November 6, 2012.[3][4][5]
| Party | Candidate | Vote % | Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic |  Mike Frerichs Incumbent |
64.8% | 48,493 | |
| Republican | John Christian Bambenek | 35.2% | 26,310 | |
| Total Votes | 74,803 | |||
Endorsements
Bambenek was endorsed by Family-Pac.[6]
External links
- Official campaign website
- John Christian Bambenek on Twitter
- John Christian Bambenek on Facebook
- Project Vote Smart profile
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information provided by Bambenek to Ballotpedia on December 28, 2011
- ↑ John Bambenek, "Issues," accessed October 21, 2012
- ↑ Illinois State Board of Elections, "Candidate List," accessed December 5, 2011
- ↑ Illinois State Board of Elections, "Official 2012 Primary Results," accessed May 14, 2014
- ↑ Illinois State Board of Elections, “Official Vote - November 6, 2012 General Election,” accessed December 31, 2012
- ↑ Family-Pac, "Endorsements," accessed June 22, 2012
