Don Tracy, a longtime attorney from Springfield who attended Brown County High School in Mount Sterling, has entered the crowded race for lieutenant governor in Illinois.
That brings the number of likely candidates back to 17.
Below is a copy of the release sent out by Tracy on Wednesday. It includes comments from his sister-in-law, Rep. Jil Tracy, R-Mount Sterling.
“After 30 years of practicing law on Abraham Lincoln’s prairie, Springfield attorney Don Tracy formally announced his candidacy for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois at a State House press conference on September 23, 2009.
“The State of Illinois is at a crisis point,” Tracy said. “For too long, Illinois has been mismanaged by career politicians who can’t say no to unfunded mandates, unfunded pensions, and unfunded benefit expansions. Perhaps it is time for a different approach, for regular citizens with substantial and successful private sector experience to step forward and challenge the status quo.”
Don Tracy was introduced by State Rep Jil Tracy (R-Quincy), Campaign Chairman, who said, “Don and I have known each other since 1980, when I became engaged to his brother, Jim. We practiced law together in the 1980′s in Mt.Sterling, my hometown and where Don grew up. We share a common belief in the importance of individual responsibility, solid work ethic, the free enterprise system, family values and honest and limited government. Don is what I would call an intellectual conservative, the type of person we need to help push Illinois away from moral and financial bankruptcy.”
Don Tracy said, “The only way out of the State’s current financial crisis without gigantic tax increases or catastrophic essential service cuts is better management, more frugal and honest government, and a growing state economy.” He said, “If elected, I will use my three decades of courtroom and board room experience to work to make Illinois job friendly through business environment changes such as reduction of worker compensation abuse, and to ferret out wasteful government spending, duplication, and inefficiencies.”
Don Tracy graduated from Brown County High School in Mt.Sterling, attended Western Illinoi sUniversity in Macomb, graduated from Arizona State University and graduated from the University of Memphis Law School.
Don Tracy is a partner at Brown, Hay & Stephens, LLP, the oldest law firm in Illinois, and where Abraham Lincoln first practiced law. For over 33 years, Don has helped individual clients and family businesses respond to serious financial claims, threats, and difficulties. And, as the eldest of 12 children, he helped his siblings build a family business his Dad started in 1960, Dot Foods, Inc., which currently has over 3,500 employees, most of whom reside in Illinois.
Among other civic and charitable experiences, Don was President of the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Oak Ridge Cemetery Board, the Dana Thomas House Foundation, and the Sangamon County Bar Association. He now serves on the Boards of the Springfield YMCA, the Tracy Family Foundation, the Abraham Lincoln Association, the Illinois National Guard and Militia Historical Society, the LincolnAcademy, the Frontiers Club. He is a member of the 1908 Springfield Race Riot Commission, the American Business Club, and the Advisory Council of the Sangamon County Community Foundation. He has served on the Boards of the American Lung Association of Tennessee, the Old State Capitol Art Fair, and Clark-Griffin Little League.
Don Tracy lives in Springfield where he has resided since 1980. He and his wife, Wanda, have raised four children. Don and Wanda are members of Blessed Sacrament Church, where Don serves as lector, counter and fund-raiser.”
