Incumbent Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart will be seeking a second term in office on Nov. 5, with a challenge coming from Republican candidate Mary Cole.
Rinehart, a Democrat, was a private practice attorney who was elected the county’s chief law enforcement official in 2020, defeating GOP incumbent Mike Nerheim.
Cole is a private practice attorney who previously worked as a Lake County assistant state’s attorney. Her website said she resigned “in disgust” in 2021, after Rinehart was elected.
The candidates took part in an online forum earlier this month sponsored by several Lake County chapters of the League of Women Voters, responding to questions posed by viewers.
Their responses occasionally sparked some sharp remarks, with Cole alleging that crime is up due to Rinehart’s policies. Rinehart said Cole was running “the most dishonest and cynical campaign imaginable.”
“Make no mistake about it, Lake County is safer than it was four years ago,” Rinehart said.
Cole countered that turnover is high among prosecutors in the state’s attorney’s office because of Rinehart’s policies, and that politics have been injected into the office. She said the main difference between herself and Rinehart is that she, “has the heart of a prosecutor.”
“I think it’s valuable and honorable to be the voice for somebody in a bad situation when they have no other voice,” she said.
Cole said a major issue facing the state’s attorney’s office is prosecutors not bringing the most serious charges in cases. Rinehart disputed that, and said Cole had “zero data” to support the accusation.
He also said staff turnover was a consequence of a poor pay structure for prosecutors – something he said he addressed with what he said was the first substantial pay raise in 20 years.
They also differed, though less pointedly, on the Safe-T Act, the criminal justice reform bill that, among other things, eliminated cash bail in Illinois.
Rinehart remains a supporter of the law and said the Act has resulted in more people, particularly child pornography defendants, being detained until trial. He said Republicans, Cole included, “lied and lied and lied” about the Safe-T Act.
Cole said her concern was that the act removed some discretion from judges, who cannot detain a defendant unless prosecutors ask them to.
They also offered different ideas for reducing gun violence. Rinehart pointed to his gun violence prevention initiative, a broad-based program intended to systematically get at firearms violence. He also said he remains a strong supporter of an assault weapons ban.
Cole said gun violence could be stemmed if prosecutors worked more closely with local law enforcement agencies, Prosecutors also need to levy the most severe possible charges in gun cases, she said.
