Republican Challenger Mel Thillens of Park Ridge. (Mel Thillens Campaign website)

Park Ridge businessman Republican Mel Thillens ran for State Rep. against Martin Moylan in 2014, and now he’s trying again for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly, this time in the Senate.

Democrats may struggle to hold onto the seat in a Republican-majority district held by rookie 28th District State Sen. Laura Murphy of Des Plaines. Murphy replaced popular State Sen. Dan Kowtowski when he stepped down last year to head a children’s nonprofit group.

The two candidates faced off Oct. 16 in Park Ridge at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the American Association of University Women.

The two candidates’ backgrounds and philosophies are starkly different: Thillens runs a multi-generational armored car business. The Thillens family patriarch built Thillens Stadium at Devon and Kedzie streets in 1938. He values his business experience as a way to fix problems in the state of Illinois. Campaign advertisements call him an “outsider.”

As Park Board President, Thillens was criticized in 2015 for joking that a new park bathroom facility should be named after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Park Ridge native.

Democrat incumbent Laura Murphy of Des Plaines (Laura Murphy campaign website)

Murphy is a Maine Township Democratic committeeman, who majored in political science at Illinois State University and works in medical administration. Murphy served for eight years as 3rd Ward Alderman in Des Plaines and also serves on the state Liquor Control Commission.

In conservative-leaning Park Ridge, Murphy and Thillens both emphasized the need for an end to dysfunction in Springfield.

During the debate, Thillens took a jab at Murphy for noise problems near O’Hare airport.

“This was bigger 10 years ago when Murphy was an alderman. That fight was lost long ago,” he said. The City of Des Plaines should have negotiated a better deal with Chicago when the airport was expanding, he said.

The candidates gave overviews of their philosophies.

Murphy said her three campaign priorities were to close corporate loopholes to raise revenue, to freeze property taxes and to reform campaign redistricting.

“We’ve got to put Springfield on the side of middle-class families,” she said.

Thillens listed his priorities as creating a state budget, reduce property taxes and spur economic growth.

“Illinois falling behind,” he said. “It used to be said that if you couldn’t find a job in Chicago, you couldn’t find a job anywhere. That’s not true anymore. When the taxes go up and the jobs leave, the people leave.”

Term limits were another issue where they disagree. Murphy supports proposed legislation for term limits on party leadership positions, she said.

“Members elect the leadership and that process has allowed certain people to amass a significant amount of power.” Murphy said term limits for all legislators took power away from voters and might strengthen the influence of lobbyists.

But Thillens has been clear he supports strict term limits on all legislators and has pledged to only serve “10 years, tops” if elected.

“Too many folks are focusing on [politics] as a career and I think that gets them in trouble,” he said. The state problems, he said stemmed from “politicians who have a real disconnect between what they’re doing and what the voters want them to do. They end up working for the people who fund their campaigns,” he said.

Murphy cited as an accomplishment passing an act that stopped the expansion of gaming in Illinois. For Des Plaines, the expansion of gambling — especially a casino in Chicago — raises a threat to the $9 million yearly in city revenue generated by the Rivers Casino. Rivers owner Neil Bluhm opposed expanded gaming in Illinois. Bluhm is a major contributor to Murphy’s campaign and that of former Des Plaines mayor, now State Rep. Marty Moylan. Murphy’s campaign committee received more than $7,000 from Rivers Casino and five large donations of $5,000 or more on the same day from Neil Bluhm and family members Leslie Bluhm, Andrew Bluhm, Merideth Bluhm-Wolf and Amy Kenny Bluhm.

The Thillens campaign committee is also the recipient of generosity from gaming interests. In one day in September, the Committee to Elect Mel Thillens received donations of more than $5,000 from five different gaming firms.

When asked about a proposed graduated income tax, Murphy said she would want to see what the result would be for income brackets. “The last thing we want to do is impose extra [tax] burdens on the middle class,” she said.

Thillens was adamantly opposed.

“We can’t be asking taxpayers for more taxes when there’s a complete lack of faith in our [state] government right now. When you’re knocking on doors and you ask anyone what would you think of a new tax, they say, ‘you gotta be kidding me!’”

“We shouldn’t be giving new taxes to the state of Illinois when they’re so horribly managed,” he added.

Murphy’s campaign committee had more than $628,500 on hand at the end of October, mostly donated by the State Senate Democratic Victory Campaign and a number of unions as well as the casino. More than $340,000 was raised since Sept. 15.

The Republican State Senate Campaign Committee donated $38,000 worth of in-kind payroll for Thillens’s campaign staff. His campaign also received more than $164,000 from the Illinois Republican Party. Thillens’s campaign has a war chest of $67,000 cash on hand.

The 28th State Senate District stretches between Cook and DuPage counties covering the towns of Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Elk Grove Village, Schaumburg and Roselle. In the 2014 general election, 65 percent of voters in the district cast ballots for Bruce Rauner.