DuPage County Sheriff Jim Mendrick, the first Republican to jump into the race for Governor in 2026, joined Springfield's Morning News Thursday to discuss his campaign, public safety, and property taxes.
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We only have one Republican who has jumped into the race for real, and he is DuPage County Sheriff Jim Mendrick, and he joins us this morning here on WMAY. Sheriff, good morning. How are you? Good morning, Patrick. How are you today? Doing well. Thanks for taking a few minutes. So what would prompt a sheriff from a suburban county to say, I want to be governor?

Well, you know, I'll be honest with you. I've been a police officer since 1996 on the midnight shift. And, you know, policing has always been very tight out here in DuPage. We've always been very safe. We always, you know, say we have this bubble around DuPage that we just seem to be safer than everybody else. But, you know, we've always been very tight out here in DuPage.

It's really not like that anymore. You know, laws like sanctuary city and the safety act have really changed the nature of the, the quality of safety in DuPage County. And, you know, I'll be honest, I started to feel like almost a meter made to where I'm writing tickets and letting people go writing tickets and for horrible things. I can't believe what we let people go for now. And, you know, the bond court judges say they have no choice. They have to do it because of the safety act. And I've heard this so many times and,

it's like, you know, right now they've almost made my job as sheriff inert. I mean, law enforcement is supposed to keep the peace. Keeping the peace is not arresting somebody and then three hours letting them go, go do it again. Especially in my line of work, you know, 80% of the people that we get in our jail are on substance, fentanyl, heroin, all kinds of different stuff. And half of them are self-medicating for mental health issues. So

those people aren't going to be doing any favors by letting them go three hours after their jonesing for more heroin. But, but your Republican state's attorney in your County, Bob Berlin, a guy I know, I know well and have a lot of respect for negotiated the fix to the safety act. He admits it isn't perfect, but, but certainly admits it's better than the first terrible bill that the legislature passed back in 2021. And,

And I think they'll tell you is that they're not getting it all right. And they never get it all right, even when they did cash bail. But that it's not like the streets in DuPage County are magically like violent crime-filled hellholes now because of this, right? I mean, is he wrong?

Well, you know what? A fix is subjective to the eye of the beholder. I mean, the fix, the big fix that Bob helped with was when this safety at first came out, there's a thing called taking away police officers' qualified immunity. So let's put it this way. The first version, if I would have gone as a police officer to check a well-being, I see somebody slumped down in their living room, I kick the door open, I go in, I do chest compressions. I'm now liable for cracking your ribs and

the fixing your door, even though I saved your life. That's what qualified and that taking qualified immunity out saved our entire everything because that had started just having that in there initially started the epitaphs of police leaving. I'm 42 people shy for the last three years since these crazy laws have started. Just take a look. If you want to see the effect of this, look at your police headcount.

That's why I'm doing this because we don't need another politician. You know, I mean, all those other guys you mentioned are great and all that, but I don't know if anybody wants more politicians to try to fix more politician mistakes. You know, if they would have listened to the police,

and included us in those talks, which we tried to wedge ourselves into those talks. We were not allowed to speak and talk about anything to do with the safety act. The sanctuary state was done without us. You know, maybe if you're going to change laws, maybe it just might be a good idea to include law enforcement because we can tell you how to do it to where it won't create all this chaos. But yeah, the fixes initially were just to take qualified immunity out, which thank God that did happen. That was the worst thing.

uh, albatross they could have ever put in a document. We're still reeling from that. And the police still believe that's coming back in some way. And that's part of why I can't hire people and I can't retain the people that I have. And that's globally police are, the police realm is being attacked constantly. You're, you're, when you look at it, you know, I don't know if you know, uh,

how weak that makes the police, you know, everything from training. Let's put it this way. If you get punched in the head and then God forbid, have to shoot while you're in a state of, you know, star struckness from being struck after the fact, if you had to shoot, you can't even review that videotape. You have to try to write something.

from your memory after just getting punched in the head what happened and you can't look at the video. I mean, these are all laws that are anti-police. They make people not want to take the job. And I hate to say it, it's going to have to be a policeman that digs us out of this. DuPage County Sheriff Jim Mendrick, the first Republican in the race for governor in 2026, joins us here on WMAY. So what's your plan for public safety, right? I mean, certainly there are

Concerns in the city, in the suburbs, even downstate, Champaign, Decatur, Springfield, etc., of problems with crime in our communities. How do you approach fixing that?

Well, see, and that's where you need more of a police flavor in the governor's office. Right now, it's always just been politicians. I think the world is kind of tired of politicians right now. You need someone that's going to, like I would, eliminate the Sanctuary City and the Safety Act. Those two things are exacerbating each other and they're causing all the problems. So, you know, you take a sanctuary state law. That's a defiance to the federal law.

It's creating billions of unbudgeted money. I don't know how you go so far over your budget and don't budget any of this and just say, hey, I just made a miscalculation. It's an extra $1.6 billion for benefits for illegal immigrants.

No, what we should be doing is getting rid of the sanctuary state and allowing ICE access within the correctional facility. I don't understand how a governor could say, I want to get rid of the rapist and murderer, but I won't let you ICE into your jails. Now, in the jails is where you're going to get them. So I have no one in my jail. I have the only jail in the second biggest county in the state, right next to Chicago, which

We're just under a million person population. 60% of the people I get are gang affiliated from Chicago. So we see who's coming in and it would be so easy for us to just call ICE, have them take them and we call it a warm handoff. You're not going to have to fight with anybody. You'd be able to deal with their consulate stuff in a safe environment. But instead, they're forcing these raids.

I don't think Holman or Trump or anybody wants to have to do raids, but if you deny the lawful access by a governmental entity to the jail system where they're supposed to be accomplishing this task, you leave them no other choice.

There are a couple of other issues I want to hit, Sheriff, before we get you out of here, but I wanted to give people a chance to get to know you a little bit better. Obviously, you're coming up on the end of your second term as sheriff in the second largest county in the state, as you mentioned. You were unopposed four years ago. DuPage County has been a real barometer of political challenges for Republicans in this state. It was for so many years. The

The Republican stronghold, the Henry Hyde part of the state, the Lee Daniels part of the state that kept Republicans afloat, and it has flipped to Democratic control in recent years.

Um, some, some say that's because of a pushback on how far right Republicans have gone. Some say it's just the out migration of, of liberals from the city into, into DuPage County. I would say one, what does, what does DuPage County mean statewide? And two, um,

Do you need a moderate? Does the state need a moderate to win a place like DuPage County or a moderate Republican? Because we saw, you know, Darren Bailey got his butt kicked there four years ago.

Yeah, you know, I think I'm going to go back to it again. I think that's why it's time for law enforcement to step in. Law enforcement isn't liberal or, you know, conservative really per se. They're law and order. Law and order is what's needed in the city right now. I'm an emergency manager. For 29 years, I've managed large cascading incidents. I've also managed an $80 million budget. We also are the entire nation's leader

and rehabilitation services within a jail. Like I said, 80% of my people come in with substance. We have full detoxification, full personality stabilization through mental health and one-on-one psychiatry services. We have 200 counselors, educators, and teachers that teach 80 classes per week, criminal thinking, anger management, how to balance your checkbook, financial planning. Then we do vocational training. We started with

sanitation. We were the only jail that did not have the COVID outbreak when that was all going on. We were holding people for other correctional facilities. Then we did welding, tiling, drywalling, indoor-outdoor horticulture, small engine repair. We brought our recidivism rates down from 75% to 20%. While we're tough on crime,

We're also very good at the rehabilitative services to make the people who are committing the crime, instead of walking crime waves, now they're tax paying citizens. So we have methodologies out here in DuPage that I think can be applied across the state statewide that would actually benefit everybody. - Do you bucket yourself as a moderate or a conservative or a MAGA? Where do you fit in?

I'm a conservative. There's no doubt about it. I do support the president and what he's doing. I think we need an equal approach to Chicago, starting with audits and financial audits and all that kind of stuff to see where they're spending the money, kind of like what they're doing nationwide. But

But yeah, I'm a conservative. I'm not a liberal, but I don't think I'm an extremist on either side. I just I don't believe in absolutism just because of the job that I do. Everything a lot of times falls in the middle. And as a policeman, we learn to play the what I would call the referee role. You know, sometimes you don't necessarily agree with something, but if it's the right thing to do, you do it.

Before we let you go, Sheriff, kind of quick fire on a couple of issues that are important to voters and taxpayers. How do we bring down property taxes?

Again, you know, here's I think the biggest thing we do. A lot of times making money in a budget can be done by finding wasteful spending. And I'm telling you, I think that immediately we need to revoke the sanctuary state. That's where we're bleeding money. You figure he said that, yeah, there was an overage. So another one point six billion. There was already one point five billion spent just on the credit cards and the housing for the illegal immigrants.

And then you add another $1.6 billion, that's three. Now, what you have to understand is if you look at the map, we're the only ones that are a sanctuary state in this region. Everybody around us is not. So the squeeze is happening. So our illegal immigration is jacking up even more right now. So this problem is getting worse.

And if it's $3 billion this year, it's going to be $6 billion next year. And how long are we going to tell our local people who are needy, who are having tough times, who can't afford eggs, who can't afford milk, hey, you know what? We're earmarking this money for people who will be here next month. They're not even here yet. But that money that would have gone to you or could have gone to our local impoverished is going to go to new arrivals.

That's just unfair in every way.

Yeah, there's compassion, but see, now you're getting into the philosophical argument of sanctuary state. So, you know, I have a lot of philosophical job. Yeah, I know, but I have a lot of philosophical things I'd like to do too, but let's first see if you can afford it with your budget. You know, everybody could have a great idea, but if you can't afford it, your great idea isn't going to float. So instead what's happening is those people you just described, they're being human trafficked. They're being trafficked for work. They're being trafficked for sex. Um, there,

Their children are becoming victims. They're very hard to assimilate into the education system. You know, the myriad of medical issues from the travel over here. So, I mean, it's not like this is some nice, humane thing that everybody's doing, shipping these people across the world and bringing them into our country and then saying, hey, you know, we feel sorry for them. So just pay for whatever it takes. You know, come up with housing plans.

Forget your local impoverished. Deal with this problem. And that was an important problem from Joe Biden's four years of open borders. You know, when this first happened, when the sanctuary city was, you know, I thought it was kind of a political stunt that occurred to begin with. But it wasn't a big deal. There was no open border. So you weren't getting busloads of people from Texas. You weren't getting all these people. I mean, you got to understand, too, again, to stay out of the philosophical, you know, into the reality of it is how long can we sustain this?

this. How long can we pay for other people's problems? I mean, I very feel sorry for anybody who came here and they're displaced and they have nowhere to go, but that still doesn't make us able to afford it any better because we philosophically agree. You wrote on your Facebook page the other day, you had found a running mate. You're going to tell us who it is.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. You know what? I want to give him a chance to organize his life because I told him once this hits tomorrow, just your phone is not going to stop. So it's a him. We know it's a him. That cuts it to about six million people we can pick from. You got me. Sheriff, where can we find more about your campaign? Right now, it is Mendrick4Gov.

And I'm sure we'll be seeing you downstate over the next few weeks and months, right? Yep, you sure will. I will be all over. I'll be in Utica today, Bureau County tomorrow, and we're going to go from there.