Dale Righter (born August 23, 1966) is an American politician and former Republican member of the

Illinois Senate The Illinois Senate is the upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly, the legislative branch of the government of the State of Illinois in the United States. The body was created by the first state constitution adopted in 1818. Under the ...

, representing the 55th district from 2003 to 2021. The 55th district included

Clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

Clark Clark is an English language surname with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland, ultimately derived from the Latin ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated ...

, Coles, Crawford,

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

, Edwards, Effingham,

Jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to ...

, Lawrence, Richland, Wabash, Wayne and

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

counties in the southeastern corner of the state. He was previously a member of the

Illinois House of Representatives The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 representativ ...

from 1997 through 2003. Righter now is the owner and operator of the Law Offices of Dale A. Righter, LLC in his hometown of Mattoon.

Early life, education and career

Righter was born and raised in

Mattoon, Illinois Mattoon ( ) is a city in Coles County, Illinois, United States. The population was 16,870 as of the 2020 census. The city is home to Lake Land College and has close ties with its neighbor, Charleston, Illinois, Charleston. Both are principal cit ...

. He attended Mattoon High School and in 1988 graduated from

Eastern Illinois University Eastern Illinois University (EIU) is a public university in Charleston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1895 as the Eastern Illinois State Normal School, a teacher's college offering a two-year degree, Eastern Illinois University gradual ...

with a Bachelor of Science in accounting. In 1991, Righter earned his J.D. degree from the Saint Louis University School of Law. After law school, he took a job as a drug crimes prosecutor with the State's Attorney's Appellate Prosecutor's Office.

Illinois General Assembly

In September 1997, Righter was appointed to represent the 106th district in the Illinois House of Representatives after Mike Weaver resigned to accept an appointment to the Illinois Industrial Commission (since renamed the Illinois Workers' Compensation Commission). In 2001, he announced he was running for state senate in the newly redistricted 55th district which included Lawrence, Crawford,

Edgar Edgar is a commonly used masculine English given name, from an Anglo-Saxon name ''Edgar'' (composed of ''wikt:en:ead, ead'' "rich, prosperous" and ''Gar (spear), gar'' "spear"). Like most Anglo-Saxon names, it fell out of use by the Late Midd ...

, Coles,

Douglas Douglas may refer to: People * Douglas (given name) * Douglas (surname) Animals * Douglas (parrot), macaw that starred as the parrot ''Rosalinda'' in Pippi Longstocking * Douglas the camel, a camel in the Confederate Army in the American Civil ...

and Piatt counties as well as parts of

Champaign Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in the state outside the Chicago metr ...

, Effingham, Shelby and Wabash counties. In 2020, Righter opted not to run for reelection and was succeeded by

Darren Bailey Darren Bailey (born March 17, 1966) is an American politician who was a Republican member of the Illinois Senate for the 55th District and previously a member of the Illinois House of Representatives for the 109th District in Southern Illinois. ...

. Righter criticized House member

for not wearing a face mask on the floor of the Illinois House, despite the requirement due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. Righter later said in an interview “''I would not have done that''”, and “''I choose to wear the mask because I choose to put others concerns, quite frankly, before me''”. During the

2008 Republican Party presidential primaries From January 3 to June 3, 2008, voters of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party chose their nominee for President of the United States, president in the 2008 United States presidential election. United States Senate, Senator J ...

, Righter ran to be a delegate to the

2008 Republican National Convention The 2008 Republican National Convention took place at the Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minnesota, from September 1, through September 4, 2008. The first day of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party's convention fell on Labo ...

from

Illinois's 15th congressional district The 15th congressional district of Illinois is currently located in central Illinois. It was located in eastern and southeastern Illinois until 2022. It is currently represented by Republican Party (United States), Republican Mary Miller (poli ...

for the

presidential campaign A political campaign is an organized effort which seeks to influence the decision making progress within a specific group. In democracies, political campaigns often refer to electoral campaigns, by which representatives are chosen or referen ...

of former Governor

Mitt Romney Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American businessman and retired politician. He served as a United States Senate, United States senator from Utah from 2019 to 2025 and as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 ...

References

External links

Senator Dale A. Righter (R) 55th District
at the Illinois General Assembly **By session
101st100th99th98th97th96th95th94th93rdState Senator Dale Righter
constituency site * {{DEFAULTSORT:Righter, Dale Living people 1966 births People from Mattoon, Illinois Eastern Illinois University alumni Saint Louis University School of Law alumni Illinois lawyers Republican Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives Republican Party Illinois state senators 21st-century members of the Illinois General Assembly