U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s vote to impeach Donald Trump and criticism of Republican congressional colleagues who support the former president has highlighted a split in the state GOP as it gets set to decide on new leadership.
The Republican State Central Committee will meet Feb. 6 to decide among three candidates to replace outgoing Chairman Tim Schneider. But some in the party want to use the forum to discuss Kinzinger and a possible reprimand for his anti-Trump statements, which increased in vitriol following the Nov. 3 election and the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
“There’s a group that wants to talk about it and it’s not positive. There are those who want to censure him. There’s people wanting to know what the state party is going to do about it,” said former Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar, who represents the 11th Congressional District near Kinzinger’s 16th District on the state GOP central committee.
The schism in the state GOP mirrors what’s happening with Republicans nationally as the party struggles to move forward even as many of its voters continue to back Trump and believe the November election was stolen from him.
On Sunday, Kinzinger doubled down on his position, announcing the formation of a “country first” movement and website attached to his Future First Leadership political action committee. He’s seeking like-minded supporters to “take back our party” and to “unplug the outrage machine, reject the politics of personality and cast aside the conspiracy theories and the rage.”
“I think the Republican Party has lost its moral authority in a lot of areas. That doesn’t mean we don’t need to fight back to defend what we believe are our conservative principles. But when I ask people now, what is a conservative principle, how many people think that conservative principles are things like just build the wall and charge the Capitol and have an insurrection?” Kinzinger said on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”
“I will sit here and defend conservative principles, but it’s hard to have seen an insurrection three weeks ago to say that’s no big deal and then lecture Democrats on something. We’ve lost our moral authority and we need to regain it as a party,” he said.
Kinzinger, who’s from Channahon and was first elected in 2010, was a supporter of Trump’s congressional agenda more than 90% of the time. But he did not shy from criticizing the president and grew more outspoken as Trump made false claims that his reelection was stolen and that massive vote fraud drove Democrat Joe Biden to the presidency.
Kinzinger accused Trump and those who backed his claims of a stolen election of being “grifters” looking to improve their political standing and fundraising with the former president’s base.
One of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, over encouraging insurrection — he voted against the first impeachment — Kinzinger said it was “not a vote I took lightly, but a vote I took confidently. I’m at peace.”
More recently he has criticized freshman Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has espoused false conspiracy theories involving QAnon and mass school shootings and has used social media to support violence against Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“She is not a Republican. There are many who claim the title of Republican and have nothing in common with our core values. They are RINOS. She is a RINO,” Kinzinger said, using the acronym for Republican In Name Only. On Sunday, he said he supported Greene being removed from House committees but was undecided on whether she should be booted from the chamber.
Kinzinger’s recent views and actions toward Trump, his supporters and the majority of his party have elevated his national stature, earning him cable news interviews and profiles in The Washington Post and the Atlantic in advance of launching his “country first” movement.
But they also did not go unnoticed by state GOP leaders. Some have said they have received phone calls asking what the Illinois Republican Party was going to do about Kinzinger. The congressman was the subject of some discussion at a GOP State Central Committee meeting last weekend.
“I think the party majority are kind of disappointed. I mean, the one thing I’ve heard most from Republicans over the years since Reagan is the old 11th Commandment,” Claar said of the former president’s admonishment to not speak ill of fellow Republicans.
Claar accused Kinzinger of causing upheaval in the party to no clear end.
“What is the point? Why are you elevating this thing into regional, if not national, prominence? What purpose are you serving here? You’re further pointing out the division in the party,” Claar said.
Kinzinger has denied that he is attempting to position himself for a run for U.S. Senate or governor in 2022, though he has not ruled out a run for higher office. In a statewide race, his Trump criticism would likely be held against him in Downstate Illinois, which has grown more strongly conservative and ardently supported the former president in the past two elections.
His stance could, however, help him among more moderate independents and Republicans in Chicago’s suburbs.
Kinzinger recently told CNN that he believes with Trump gone, Republican leaders face a reckoning of where the GOP should go next — either aligning themselves with the former president or moving beyond him.
“I think in six months it’s not going to be necessarily the party of Donald Trump. But this is the whole point: I do think we are in a battle, that it may be a battle that really needs to happen, for our party to say what is it we stand for now when it comes to policy. But as much as anything, are we aspirational or are we a party that feeds on fear and division?” Kinzinger said.
“If you’re a leader of the Republican Party right now, you need to be focused on one thing — not winning another election, that’s not what we should be focused on right now. What we should be focused on is restoring the integrity of this party,” he said.
Claar supported Trump and even co-hosted a fundraiser for him at the Bolingbrook Golf Club. That’s where the state GOP leaders were supposed to meet Saturday until a predicted snowstorm pushed off the date to Feb. 6. But he said Illinois Republicans should take a wait-and-see attitude on the party’s future and whether it should continue to align itself with the former president.
“Let’s just leave it alone and see how it plays out,” Claar said.
He said if the party does decide to speak out on Kinzinger, he would oppose any effort to censure the congressman for his conduct, a course taken by GOP leaders in some states against congressional members who voted for impeachment.
“It serves no purpose to have headlines that say, ‘Republican state party censures congressman.’ That would just give it more legs,” Claar said. “I think it would be better to just issue an observation of the reality that a congressman can say what he wants and it’s up to his constituency to decide whether they like it or not.”
Kinzinger did not respond to a request to speak about the GOP state central committee’s potential actions. On Sunday, during his “Meet The Press” interview, Kinzinger said he viewed GOP efforts to reprimand Trump opponents as an example of the “cancel culture” that Republicans have outspokenly criticized Democrats for exhibiting.
The congressman also said it has been “really difficult” to position himself against Trump forces and his supporters.
“All of a sudden imagine everybody that supported you — or so it seems that way — your friends, your family has turned against you. They think you’re selling out. I mean I’ve gotten a letter, a certified letter, twice from the same people disowning me and claiming I’m possessed by the devil,” he said.
“Look, let’s take a look at the last four years, how far we have come in a bad way, how backwards looking we are how, how much we peddled darkness and division, and that’s not the party I ever signed up for,” he said. “I think most Republicans didn’t sign up for that, so you know what? Yes, it’s a tough position to be in. But it’s really invigorating to remember what you’re standing for, and to talk about putting the country over party.”
Much of the state GOP’s decision on how to respond to Kinzinger may come down to its pick of a new chairman to replace Schneider, a former Cook County commissioner and Hanover Township trustee from Streamwood.
He was made state GOP chairman in May 2014 as the choice of then-governor candidate Bruce Rauner after the wealthy private equity investor secured the GOP nomination en route to serving one term as governor.
Seeking the post are Mark Shaw, the Lake County Republican chairman and current state GOP co-chair; Don Tracy, the former head of the Illinois Gaming Board in the Rauner administration; and Scott Gryder, the Kendall County Board chairman from Oswego.
Shaw has sought the party chairmanship before but was unsuccessful in orchestrating a takeover at an earlier meeting. Gryder was elected to a second four-year term as County Board chairman in December. He was first elected to the board in 2012 and previously served as a member of the Oswego Public Library District Board and chairman of the Oswego Plan Commission.
Tracy, a Springfield attorney, resigned in 2018 as Gaming Board chairman prior to a state executive inspector general’s report that said he engaged in making prohibited campaign contributions. Tracy, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in the 2010 GOP primary, called the report “baseless speculation” and said he believed it was politically motivated.
Under Schneider’s tenure, the state GOP was all-in for Trump’s reelection despite Illinois’ historic nature as a Democratic state in presidential elections.
State Sen. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, said his focus for the next meeting was on picking a new state chairman, not on Kinzinger.
“It’s about picking the right person to move us forward as we prepare for 2022,” said Rose, the 15th Congressional District state central committeeman. “We need to be focused on the right person to win 2022 and frankly, how we unite the party is what I’m hoping to hear from each of the candidates.”
