Susana A. Mendoza, State Comptroller: Candidate Questionnaire

ILLINOIS — Three candidates are vying for the state comptroller role in Illinois.

With early voting now underway, voters will be asked to pick between incumbent and Democrat Susana A. Mendoza, Republican Shannon Teresi, and Libertarian Deirdre McCloskey.

Mendoza recently responded to a Patch.com election survey. Take a look at her answers below:

Name

Susana A. Mendoza

Campaign website

https://www.susanamendoza.com

City or town of residence

Chicago, IL

Office sought

State Comptroller

District, if applicable

Party affiliation

Democratic

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Truman State University

Occupation

Illinois State Comptroller

Family

David Szostak, husband; David Quinten Szostak, 9. My mom, the original Susana Mendoza, 87, lives with us, as does my brother Joaquin Mendoza.

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My brother recently retired from his job as a Chicago Police detective sergeant

Age

50

Previous public office, appointive or elective

State Representative 2000-2011; Chicago City Clerk 2011-2016; Illinois State Comptroller 2016-present

Why are you seeking this office?

When I was first elected in 2016, I inherited the worst fiscal crisis in our state’s history—an average 210 business day delay in paying vendors, 8 consecutive credit rating downgrades during the best bull market economy of our lifetimes, and a $16.7 billion backlog of unpaid bills. Today, I’ve delivered the fastest vendor payment cycle in decades (down from 210 business days on average to my oldest bill being less than a week old today), led our state to SIX credit rating upgrades in less than a year (our first upgrades in over 20 years), and completely eliminated our bill backlog without using a penny of Federal ARPA stimulus dollars. I’ve delivered the best results for Illinois’ finances during the worst of times, and thanks to my leadership, the best of times are ahead for our state. I’m running to continue the progress I’ve made and keep Illinois on the path to fiscal prosperity.

Please complete this statement: The single most pressing issue facing my constituents is ___, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Now that Illinois is paying its bills and on the path to fiscal prosperity, it’s time to prioritize paying down our pension obligations and replenishing our Rainy Day Fund. My current priority is passing legislation to mandate automatic deposits into the state’s Rainy Day Fund and Pension Stabilization funds to help Illinois be better prepared to weather any economic downturn and also address the state’s unfunded pension liabilities. When I was elected in 2016, our state had less than $60,000 in its Rainy Day Fund—not even enough to cover 30 seconds of government operation. Today, I am proud to say that our Rainy Day Fund sits at over $1 billion dollars. We still have a long way to go, but we’re in much better shape now than we were 6 years ago.

What are the major differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

Experience. This is not an office or ivory tower job. I have proven over the past six years I have the right experience and skills to oversee this office of 250 people that is vital to the daily functioning of state government. The skills it takes to run this office are not learned in a classroom.
As a bipartisan state legislator for 11 years, I made the friendships that still help me today in passing bipartisan legislation to open the state finances to transparency, including my Debt Transparency Act; my Truth in Budgeting Act and my Truth in Hiring Act.

I have spent six years traveling the state, meeting with the small businesses, hospitals, community service agencies, local government offices, schools and transportation agencies my office funds to see first-hand how our policies affect them and how my office can support them better.

I have proven I am willing to stand up to leaders of either party who put other interests ahead of the taxpayers’.

If you are challenging an incumbent, how would you perform differently if elected?

I’ll tell you how I performed differently than the incumbent I replaced. When I took office in 2016, hospitals and hospice centers were waiting six months or more to be paid while politically connected tech consultants were on speed-pay. I quickly reversed that, prioritizing those who care for the state’s most vulnerable.

How would you characterize the events of Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol?

An insurrection. An attempted coup d’etat. One of the darkest and most disheartening hours of U.S. History. The defeated outgoing president whipped up a crowd to try to block the lawful certification of the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, which he lost by over 7 million votes.

I take heart in the hard work the bipartisan Congressional January 6 Committee has done to uncover and document all the actions leading up to and on the day of the insurrection and I hope the lawbreakers will be brought to justice, all the way to the top.

I am very concerned about our fellow Americans who allow themselves to be misled and placated by partisan voices who seek for political purposes to dismiss the attempted coup that injured and killed police officers as “tourist activity.”

I hope that as in the days after the Watergate hearings, the people of the United States of America can come together, recognize the wrong that was done, and agree to move forward, ensuring this attack on Democracy never happens again. But this time let’s skip the pardon for the former president.

What other issues do you intend to address during your campaign?

Transparency. When I took office, the Comptroller could not see how many old bills all the various state agencies were holding and could move over to our office at any time. It was impossible to properly cash-manage under a situation like that. I went to bed one night thinking we had a $13 billion backlog of unpaid bills and I woke to find it was $14 billion because the Dept. of Corrections sent over $1 billion worth of bills - some of them 11 months old.

A Republican legislator told me a nursing home chain in his district was owed $21 million dollars. I only had $2.1 million of those bills at my office because the agency was holding the rest of the bills.

So I introduced the Debt Transparency Act (DTA)—the most significant transparency reform bill in the history of the Comptroller’s Office. It requires monthly (rather than yearly) reporting from state agencies to the Comptroller on the amount of bills being held at state agencies, how old they are, and estimated accrued late-payment interest penalties.

Utilizing the tools I have created for the office of the Comptroller to hold our state government to the highest standard of transparency and accountability will always be an issue of the utmost importance for me—not just on the campaign trail, but every single day I have the honor of serving the people of Illinois as their Comptroller.

More recently, I proved how we cannot sacrifice transparency, no matter how challenging the circumstances. Even during the darkest days of the pandemic, my Office got to work on delivering transparency on how every dollar of the Federal ARPA Covid-19 stimulus funds have been spent, via a portal on my website. Newspapers around the country - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The Tampa Bay Times; The Seattle Times - called my Covid-19 transparency portal the gold standard writing, “Ideally, states would follow the practice of Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza. She posts information on the items purchased, the vendor, the date of the purchase and the cost.”

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

To summarize my previous answers— I inherited the two worst fiscal crises in our state’s history: a 736 day budget impasse followed by a global pandemic. I’m proud to have successfully navigated our state through both, and delivered the best financial results our state has ever seen during the most challenging of circumstances. I have a lot of accomplishments to cite as evidence that I can continue to excel as Illinois’ Chief Financial Officer: I have paid down our bill backlog, delivered the fastest payment cycles in decades, helped earn our state its first SIX credit ratings upgrades in decades, deposited over $1 billion into our state’s Rainy Day Fund, and I have passed historic transparency and accountability legislation (namely, the Debt Transparency Act). Thanks to legislation and reforms I have championed, the Office of the Comptroller has more responsibilities than ever before, and I am confident that my track record is unmatched both in terms of experience and positive results for taxpayers.

What’s more, I led by example, cutting my office budget, reducing expenses, and trimming my office headcount. So I now have an annual budget 10 percent lower than my predecessor had, doing more with less.

What was your first paying job, and what did you learn from it?

My first paying job was working at an ice cream shop, Bressler’s 33 Flavors. It was awesome. I was only 15 years old with a worker’s permit. It taught me many things, including good customer service, taking every aspect of the job seriously, whether it was making waffle cones, scooping ice cream, cleaning up, or eventually being responsible for opening and closing the store by myself. It’s also where I learned to count cash to make change, which I think was a great thing for a 15 year old to learn in the real world. The owner of the store, Victor, did not let us use the electric cash register to make change for the customer. The cash register had the ability to do it, but he disabled it because he wanted us all to learn to make change with our brain power instead of the cash register doing it for us. He didn’t mind losing money in case I or the other workers made some mistakes in our math, because he said that it was more important to him that we learn to master this important life skill. I had to reconcile the register every night, and so we all took great care to get our math right, given the level of trust the owner gave us. To this day, I value that lesson dearly and remember it fondly as I work hard to protect taxpayers’ hard earned money.

What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?

My dad advised me to never, ever, compromise my integrity. He said that once you do, you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to get it back but never will. These are words I live by.

Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am the first Democratic nominee for statewide office to ever receive the endorsement of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. They broke precedent to endorse me because, in their words, “voters from both parties should rest assured that [I] am the right person to..protect our State’s finances and taxpayers’ checkbooks.” Their endorsement is a testament to my commitment to working to do what’s best for all Illinoisians, not just the ones on my side of the aisle. When it comes to bipartisan leadership, every politician talks the talk, but I am among the few that actually walk the walk.

Do you agree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade? And do you support the Illinois Reproductive Health Act?

I wholeheartedly disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to strip women of their bodily autonomy and their right to privacy. The politicization of the Supreme Court is not only wrong—it is a threat to the credibility of the institution and to the long-term stability of our democracy. I fully support the Illinois Reproductive Health Act.

Do you think the 2020 presidential election results are fair and legitimate? Why or why not?

Yes. And anyone not willing to publicly recognize that indisputable reality is not fit to hold public office.