Rich Brauer is a Republican 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 ...

, representing the 87th district since 2003. A native of Petersburg, IL, Brauer upset incumbent Gwen Klingler in the 2002 Republican

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, after re-districting resulted in rural areas outside of Springfield being in his district. The Democrats had not even run a candidate in the primary, for this office, expecting Klingler to win, but placed former Republican elected official Carl Oblinger, son of former state legislator Josephine Oblinger, on the ballot as their nominee for the general election. Brauer prevailed, with over 60% of the vote, and has not had a Democratic opponent since. 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 ...

, Brauer ran to be a delegate to the

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from

Illinois's 18th congressional district The 18th congressional district of Illinois covered central and western Illinois, including all of Jacksonville, Illinois, Jacksonville and Quincy, Illinois, Quincy and parts of Bloomington, Illinois, Bloomington, Peoria, Illinois, Peoria, and ...

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 ...

. On February 18, 2015, just three months after winning re-election, Brauer submitted his letter of resignation to the Clerk of the Illinois House of Representatives. His resignation came into effect on February 20, 2015. Hours after his resignation, it was announced that

Bruce Rauner Bruce Vincent Rauner (; born February 18, 1956) is an American businessman, venture capitalist, and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he had a decades-long career in inves ...

would appoint him Assistant Secretary of the

Illinois Department of Transportation The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) is a state agency in charge of state-maintained public roadways of the U.S. state of Illinois. In addition, IDOT provides funding for rail, public transit and airport projects and administers f ...

. The Republican Representative Committee of the Republican Party of the 87th District appointed Tim Butler to the vacancy left by Brauer. In 2017, Brauer moved from (IDOT) to the

Illinois Department of Natural Resources The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) is the code department of the Illinois state government that operates the state parks and state recreation areas, enforces the fishing and game laws of Illinois, regulates Illinois coal mines ...

(IDNR). Brauer was appointed to serve as an assistant director at IDNR. Brauer served in the assistant director position until March 31, 2019.

References

External links

Representative Rich Brauer (R) 87th District
at the Illinois General Assembly
98th97th96th95th94th93rdRep. Rich Brauer
at the Illinois House Republican Caucus Republican Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives Politicians from Springfield, Illinois 1954 births Living people People from Petersburg, Illinois 21st-century members of the Illinois General Assembly {{Illinois-Ilrepresentative-Republican-stub