A top Senate voice for GOP steps aside

SPRINGFIELD — Another top Republican is stepping aside.

Sen. Matthew J. Murphy of Palatine has announced his resignation, two weeks after former Rep. Ronald L. Sandack, a leader in the House Republican caucus, left abruptly.

Like his counterpart in the lower chamber, Murphy was an unabashed spokesperson for Republicans and, more recently, an ally of GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner who focused extensively on the budget.

He made a name for himself both as a lieutenant governor candidate in 2010 and Republican point-person on the Senate’s influential Executive, Judiciary and Appropriations Committees.

Murphy could not be reached for comment today. But in an open letter posted by the Senate Republicans and on Murphy’s own website, he said he is opting to take a full-time private sector job that will allow him to “better meet my family obligations.”

Political blog Capitol Fax reported he will go to a public relations firm, Mac Strategies Group, though the firm’s president could not be reached today for verification.

In the letter, Murphy wrote he is “eternally grateful” to his constituents for making a tough job an enjoyable one, and he also thanked his colleagues in the legislature.

“At times the weight of the responsibility that comes with (the job) can be difficult to carry. But the truth is I have loved every second of serving with you and would do it all over again in a heartbeat,” he wrote.

His resignation will be official on Sept. 15.

A graduate of The John Marshall Law School, Murphy is an associate at Brian J. McManus & Associates Ltd. who represents plaintiffs in personal-injury and workers’ compensation cases.

He was elected to the Senate in 2006 and by 2009 was campaigning for lieutenant governor, the state’s No. 2 executive position, on a platform of ultimately eliminating the office as a cost-saving measure.

“I had some people tell me that’s why I lost,” he quipped when the issue came up again earlier this year. However, Murphy argued against the specific bill to eliminate the office this year, saying that since the governor and lieutenant governor are now elected on the same ticket, the constitution should still ensure another officer of the same political party is next-in-line to succeed the governor.

“When the people elect somebody of one party, they expect that those general principles and governing philosophy is what’s going to govern the state for the four years,” he said in April.

Murphy also flirted with running for governor in 2014 but never officially campaigned for the office. He spent some time in the year before that election recuperating from a torn patellar tendon that he suffered during the annual House-versus-Senate softball game in Springfield.

“I was trying to beat out a ground ball, which in hindsight seems like a really stupid idea,” Murphy told the Daily Law Bulletin in May 2013, the week after the injury. “Down 9-3 with two outs in the bottom of the fifth. I’m struggling to remember why I thought it was so important to beat this ground ball.”

Murphy may be best-known for railing against Democratic budget plans and their overall stewardship of the state during their stint with majority control in both legislative chambers. That criticism arguably reached new heights as both parties fought over how to resolve a budget impasse that left schools, human service programs and other parts of state government in limbo for more than a year.

Rauner and Republicans long insisted on business-friendly changes to workers’ compensation, tort reform and term limits in exchange for negotiations on a spending plan. But as some lawmakers scrambled to get a deal together earlier this spring, mistrust ran rampant between the GOP and House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, a Chicago Democrat who continuously insisted Rauner was acting “extreme.”

“I hope rank-and-file legislators will stand with us and not fall victim to the [s]peaker’s ongoing personal vendetta against the [g]overnor that holds all of Illinois hostage,” Murphy said then.

But Murphy could work in a bipartisan fashion. He was one of many Republicans who supported a pension reform plan in 2013 that would have cut state worker and retiree funds and that was put forth by Madigan, though the plan was ultimately ruled unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court.

He offered praise for Democratic colleagues, like Sen. Toi Hutchinson, a Democrat from Olympia Fields and colleague on the Revenue Committee, as being “very sharp in her analysis” on Statehouse issues.

And despite opposing former Democratic Gov. Patrick J. Quinn on numerous issues, he backed some cost-cutting measures endorsed by that administration and other Democrats, including closing some state prisons and making deep Medicaid cuts in 2012.

One of his Senate colleagues, Sen. Jason A. Barickman, a Bloomington Republican, called him “a champion of good government and one of the leading voices for Republicans in this state.”

“He has spent his years in the General Assembly fighting to make state government more accountable, efficient and transparent for all of our residents,” Barickman said in a statement today. “I will miss his leadership in the General Assembly and in our caucus.”

Sandack, the House Republican who left last month, cited cyber-security issues and family concerns as reasons for his departure.