Richard J. Winkel (born September 25, 1956) is an American politician and lawyer.

Early life and education

Born in

Kankakee, Illinois Kankakee ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. Located on the Kankakee River, as of 2020, the city's population was 24,052. Kankakee is a principal city of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley, IL MSA, Kan ...

, Winkel received his bachelor's degree in economics at

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

and his J.D. degree at

DePaul University College of Law DePaul University College of Law is the law school of DePaul University, a private Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 125 full- and part-time faculty members and enrolls more than 500 students in its Juri ...

. He practiced law first in

Bourbonnais, Illinois Bourbonnais ( ) is a village in Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. The population was 18,164 at the 2020 census. History The village is named for François Jace Bourbonnais ''père'', a fur trapper, hunter and agent of the American Fur C ...

and later in

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

.'Illinois Blue Book 2005-2006,' Biographical Sketch of Rick Winkel, pg. 118

Career in politics

In 1992, he was elected to the Champaign County Board. In 1994, he was elected to 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 ...

, defeating one term incumbent Laurel Lunt Prussing. From 1995 to 2003, Winkel served in the

as a Republican. In 2002, he defeated Democrat and former Champaign mayor Dan McCollum to succeed longtime Senator Stanley B. Weaver in 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 ...

. He served in the Illinois Senate for one term from 2003 to 2007. Winkel is the director of the Office of Public Leadership at the University of Illinois' Institute of Government and Public Affairs. In 2012, Winkel ran for the Republican nomination for Champaign County Circuit Clerk, but withdrew before the primary to take a job with the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

. On April 26, 2010, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno appointed Winkel to the Illinois Plain Language Task Force. The task force was assembled to conduct a study and propose legislative measures designed to realize: (1) the potential benefits of incorporating plain language in State government documents, statutes, and contracts; and (2) how plain language principles might be incorporated into the statutes governing contracts among private parties so as to provide additional protections to Illinois consumers, to reduce litigation between private parties over the meaning of contractual terms, and to foster

judicial economy Judicial economy or procedural economy is the principle that the limited resources of the legal system or a given court should be conserved by the refusal to decide one or more claims raised in a case. For example, the plaintiff may claim that the ...

Notes

1956 births Living people People from Kankakee, Illinois University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty DePaul University College of Law alumni Illinois lawyers Republican Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives Republican Party Illinois state senators People from Champaign, Illinois People from Bourbonnais, Illinois County board members in Illinois 20th-century members of the Illinois General Assembly 21st-century members of the Illinois General Assembly {{Illinois-Ilrepresentative-Republican-stub