Tom Cullerton

Tom Cullerton is an American politician.

During his tenure, the 23rd district spanned northern DuPage County and included all or parts of Addison, Bloomingdale, Bartlett, Carol Stream, Glendale Heights, Hanover Park, Itasca, Roselle, Villa Park, West Chicago, Wayne, Wood Dale and Medinah.

In 1990 Cullerton enlisted in the US Army and served as an 11H TOW Gunner until being honorably discharged in 1993.

After moving to DuPage County, Cullerton decided to become active in the community.

He formed and served as a captain a local neighborhood watch.

In 2005 Tom Cullerton was elected a trustee for Villa Park.

Prior to his service in the Illinois Senate he was the Village President of Villa Park from 2009 to 2013 and served one term as a village trustee from 2005 to 2009.

After graduating high school from Loyola Academy Cullerton went to the University of Kansas.

He served one term before defeating incumbent Joyce Stupegia in a three-way race to become Village President in 2009.

While in office he was an active member of the DuPage Mayors & Managers Conference and the Metropolitan Mayors.

While Village President, the other mayors from municipalities in DuPage County Board District 2 elected him to serve as their representative on the DuPage Water Commission.

Later that year, Cullerton was recognized by the Sierra Club for reducing the village's carbon footprint via Cool Cities.

He also became a member of the Knights of Columbus, the American Legion, and coaches little league with his team winning the 2011 Farm League World Series.

He is married to his wife, Stacey, and they have three sons.

A distant cousin, John Cullerton, served as President of the Senate.

In November 2011 Tom Cullerton announced his candidacy for state senate in the newly redrawn 23rd district.

In the March 2012 primary he won the Democratic nomination defeating two perennial candidates.

In the general election he faced incumbent State Senator Carole Pankau, the winner of the Republican nomination against State Representative Randy Ramey.

Cullerton was endorsed by the Illinois AFL–CIO, Personal PAC, Planned Parenthood, Equality Illinois and the Illinois Sierra Club.

Tom Cullerton won the general election defeating 20 year Springfield incumbent Senator Pankau by a margin of a little over 2,000 votes to become the first Democratic member of the Illinois Senate from DuPage County.

In 2012, DuPage County performed a review that found a variety of small units of government that provide mosquito abatement, sanitary and street lighting services cost taxpayers $300 million annually.

These districts included small entities such as the one square mile Century Hill Street Lighting District whose board members had wanted to dissolve the district, but were unable to.

In response, Cullerton introduced SB 494 as a pilot program to allow for consolidation of these types of government bodies.

The bill would allow the DuPage County Board to pass ordinances to dissolve thirteen small units of government after an audit issued by the County Board Chair was completed.

The dissolution of a district could to be overturned via referendum by voters in that district.

The bill’s cosponsors included suburban legislators and it was supported by Republican County Board Chair Dan Cronin.

On April 25, the bill was passed unanimously in the Illinois Senate and on May 6, its house counterpart sponsored by Deb Conroy passed the Illinois House of Representatives with 108 yes votes.

The bill was signed into law by Pat Quinn in August.

Since then, DuPage County has been able to pass an ordinance to dissolve the Fairview Fire Protection District.

Cullerton was a member of the Illinois Senate representing the 23rd district from 2013 until resigning in 2022.

Shortly after, he pleaded guilty to 1 count of embezzlement.

In the 2013 municipal elections, Cullerton was succeeded as Village President by Deb Bullwinkle.

Senator Cullerton was first sworn in to represent the 23rd district on January 9, 2013.

At the beginning of the General Assembly, Senator Cullerton joined a bipartisan group of lawmakers who turned down a pension as part of the effort to fix the state's pension system.

In January 2013, Senator Cullerton proposed his first bill which would allow county boards to more easily reduce crime in residential areas by adopting crime free rental housing ordinances.

In 2015, Representative Jack Franks a co-sponsor of SB 494 proposed legislation to give McHenry and Lake counties the same ability to consolidate small, special purpose districts.

Concerned that Illinois had some of the weakest civic education programs in the country, Cullerton and State Representative Deb Conroy proposed the creation of the Task Force on Civic Education.

The commission recommended Illinois establish a requirement for a civics course as a part of a broader revision of the state's social studies standards, that the state establish a project-based and/or service learning requirement, student involvement in elections and professional development for teachers who teach civics.

After the task force released its findings, Cullerton introduced a bill which would put the task force's recommendations into place.

The bill passed the Senate with 46 votes and passed the House with 81 votes.