John O. Jones...in better days
54th SENATE DISTRICT—John O. Jones, Republican from Mt. Vernon who has been representing Illinois’ 54th Senate District, faced a challenge for the upcoming election from Kyle McCarter that he apparently didn’t want to—or couldn’t—fight against.
After McCarter, Republican senator from Illinois’ 51st District, challenged several hundred of Jones’ ballot access petitions, Jones decided today to call it quits in seeking the seat in the re-aligned 54th, paving the way for McCarter to continue to bring his common sense, economy and small business-favoring views to the people of the 54th.
Jones was set to face McCarter in the March 20th Primary.
However, McCarter challenged first 440 of 1,208 signatures, then finally, 243 signatures, on Jones’ petitions, which dropped Jones below the minimum 1,000 sigs needed to get his name on the ballot. Rather than go through bringing in witnesses and trying to uphold the sigs through the challenge, Jones decided to drop from the Primary race.
Kyle McCarter, at a fundraiser for Adam Andrzejewski's For the Good of Illinois organization last February
Jones, of course, defended those who circulated and signed petitions for him.
However, Jones, who puts himself forward as just a “good ol’ boy” who runs a trucking company in Mt. Vernon and is for the “little guy,” has been revealed to be anything BUT. During the 2008 election, when challenged by Democrat Henry Kijonka, Jones teamed up with the ever-slimy Morris Lane Harvey (who was representing Jones in his bankruptcy, incidentally, as well as the state coming down on him for not paying payroll taxes at that trucking company), and found a girl who claimed that Kijonka sexually harassed her while she was working for him at Grayville city hall while he was mayor there. The girl took Kijonka to court, conveniently at the moment the election was going on. Dirty Illinois politics at its worst; Cook County has NOTHING on downstate.
Anyway, during that debacle, several other little details came to light about how Jones does things in his life, including the way he treats his wife, Mimi (she’s had several nervous breakdowns and has been hospitalized/institutionalized countless times over it); his employees at the trucking company (he’s mean and controlling, along with not paying those payroll taxes); and, oh yeah….he had to dump a second home in Florida and all the nice furnishings during the bankruptcy. Mm hmm. Just a good ol boy. Like the rest of us. We all go down to our Florida condos every chance we get, ya know.
So, good riddance. McCarter is a gem in the crown of the conservatives in Illinois, and will be the best candidate for the job; our best wishes are for him in the upcoming election season.
