Who is Bill Brady?

Senator Bill Brady

Throughout his life, Senator Bill Brady has worked to make a difference in the lives of Illinois families, whether it was building affordable quality homes for them or working in his community and the General Assembly to give them a better quality of life and a brighter future.

Bill Brady understands the challenges Illinois families and businesses face in today's recessionary times, because he has faced those same challenges since 1983 when he abandoned plans to attend law school and instead joined his family's struggling home construction business. He knows how to manage resources and make a payroll. He knows the negative effect that high taxes and an anti-business climate have on the state's economy and on the everyday lives of Illinois families.

He is the leading voice in the Senate for efforts to create a business climate that will attract hundreds of thousands of new jobs to the state, along with the $3 billion in annual tax revenues they generate. He also is a leader in the effort to reform the state's grossly underfunded public pension systems while safeguarding the retirement security of state employees, university faculty and teachers. He has fought against the administration's mentality of borrowing against the future of our children and grandchildren.

A common-sense conservative, Senator Brady has led the way in efforts to restore integrity to state government and to ensure the best use of the taxpayers' limited dollars.

As a state legislator, Senator Brady has worked to increase educational accountability, promote fiscal responsibility, offer homeowners relief from burdensome property taxes, overhaul regulation of the health care industry in Illinois, promote the use of alternative energy sources, and create a low-tax business climate favorable to retaining and creating jobs. He fought for and passed legislation to protect children from sexual predators. He was a primary sponsor of legislation to end pay-to-play politics in Illinois and sponsor of a Constitutional amendment that would give Illinois citizens the power to recall public officials. He has sponsored reforms of workers' compensation and medical malpractice laws, and he championed reforms in the state's insurance and financial industries that became a national model. He passed legislation to guarantee health insurance for retired teachers and was a leading sponsor of legislation to promote highway safety through more training for young drivers.

A lifelong resident of Bloomington, he and his brothers own and run one of the largest privately held home construction and real estate development companies in Illinois, as well as property management, mortgage, real estate marketing, hospitality and entertainment companies in Central Illinois. Senator Brady has represented areas of seven Central Illinois counties in the Illinois Senate since 2002 and previously was elected to four terms in the House of Representatives. He is currently the ranking Republican on the Senate Insurance Committee and is a member of the Revenue, Pensions and Investments, Energy, and Environment committees. He also serves on the General Assembly's Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.

He has been honored by such organizations as the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Civil Justice League, and the Illinois Farm Bureau for his achievements in the General Assembly.

A graduate of Central Catholic High School and Illinois Wesleyan University, both in Bloomington, Senator Brady and Nancy, his wife of 27 years, have three children - Katie, William and Duncan.