Rick Heidner: a successful businessman runs for governor of Illinois

Heidner is ready to share his experience with the entire state of Illinois by running for governor. Interview with Heidner.

Photo: Rick Heidner. Courtesy of Rick Heidner.

Success stories don’t come easily as we all might think. Rick Heidner is an example of a person who didn’t have any financial support or start-up capital and became an accomplished businessman. All that he had was his mother’s love and her example. She was a hard-working person that shaped him and helped him to become successful in his life. Heidner, 65, is a real estate developer, video gambling machine mogul, and gas station chain and fuel company owner. He is a loving husband and a father of five children.

Now, Heidner is ready to fight for our mutual success and prosperity. He is running for governor of the state of Illinois. It was my honor to interview Mr. Heidner and ask him questions, and I am happy to share his answers with you.

Q. Mr. Heidner, why are you running for Illinois governor?

A. The biggest reason I am running is because I kept seeing all these people being hurt in Illinois, and I could not stand to see it. It made no sense to me; I want people to be safe. The Safe-T Act makes no sense to me; the sanctuary state makes no sense to me. These are things we can correct so people can be safer. 

Q. How can you apply your success in business as you govern Illinois?

A. The business part for me is the easiest part. I want to apply what I’ve learned over the years to bring businesses to Illinois and to keep businesses that are here – here.

Q. What do you think is the biggest issue in Illinois? What would you change first in our state if you were elected?

A. The day I get into office I will eliminate the sanctuary state. I can do that on the first day. Then I have to work on changing the Safe-T Act; that’s not something that I can automatically do, but if I can, I will. Those are the most important things for me. The other thing that I would like to do is to make a statement that I want to freeze all taxes, no tax increases. There is no reason for tax increases. And then I want to go through every single solitary department and audit them. They actually have rules that say you can’t audit them; but we are going to audit them. Whatever we have to do, I can do it by third party, I can do it by certain things, and that’s what I will do, because they have it so that you can’t see a lot of things. But I am going to see everything. And I have the right people to do this. And I have the right people who want to do it for all the right reasons. There is nothing to hide. Everything will be exposed; everything will be shown to everyone. Everyone is going to see this.

Q. In your opinion, do we have enough government transparency in Illinois, and what should be done to fix this issue?

A. We don’t have any transparency in the state of Illinois. We are going to have 100% transparency in the state of Illinois when I am governor. It is an absolute, and it is going to happen. Open book; open book for everyone to see.

Q. What is the biggest challenge for you in this race?

A. I don’t have name recognition. I had never run for politics; my heart and my soul drew me into this. It just kept telling me, Rick, you have to run. When I saw that J. B. Pritzker was running for the third time, it sickened me. We have to have term limits. Any legislator that talks to me or wants to talk to me, the first thing that we are going to talk about is term limits, at least for the governor. And it should be an easy fix for me. Because they are going to worry about what they are doing; they are not going to worry about a term limit for me. That’s so important to me.

Q. I was at the Republican Gubernatorial debate on February 26, 2026, in Lisle. Each candidate sounded sincere, genuine, and willing to make the lives of Illinois citizens better. Why should people choose to vote for you?

A. When I looked at the plain field of who was running, I realized there is not one of them who has a chance to beat J. B. Pritzker. I can actually fight and debate with him, because I have facts. And I not only do have facts, I have experience; I have experience with him and with these governmental departments, that’s number one. Number two – I am a businessman. Like President Trump who has taken our country and made it into the largest business in the world. We always should have had a businessman who was running the largest business in the world. Illinois is one of the largest businesses in the country, and we need a businessman to do it. And I know how to do that. J. B. Pritzker is not a businessman. So, I know what to do, and that’s the difference between me and the other candidates. I made a huge business from absolutely nothing. We have four major businesses, over 800 employees. I generate 4 million dollars a week in taxes for the state; not income tax but all taxes. And I have 280 buildings in 12 states, I have 800 tenants, we have the Ricky Rockets Fuel Center business as a family, we have Gold Rush Gaming, and we have a huge real estate business. So, I know what it is to be a tenant, I know what it is to be a landlord, I know what it is to pay employees, what a struggle it could be sometimes, I understand all of it, and I understand what it is to be the least of the least in this state.

Q. How do we minimize corruption in our state?

A. We have to arrest people. We have to expose them. I’ve learned by running it’s much worse than I thought. The Constitution is supposed to be for the people, and I have to tell you, especially now even with these Republican candidates I am going against, it seems like they all have alternative motives. And I don’t have one. A lot of these people who are in office and a lot of people who might be running for office think that the Constitution is for the politicians. And it’s not, it’s for the people.

Q. Illinois has the highest property taxes in the U.S. Nearly 3-in-5 Illinoisans feel that the value of public services they receive is not worth their high property taxes. How can this situation be fixed?

A. We have the highest property taxes in the entire nation. I have 280 buildings; about 240 of them are here in Illinois. On the commercial side, I get beaten with real estate taxes. And then also with my family and my family’s homes. So, I understand that too. One of the things that we have to watch is, I really want to fix the school systems, because a lot of our money goes towards the school systems. And what I’ve seen, especially in Chicago, with the Chicago teachers’ union, it’s really a political party at this point. They seem to be more worried about power and control and getting their way no matter what they have to do than they are [worried] about teaching our children. I’d like to do school vouchers, I’d like to hold all our teachers, the good ones and the bad ones, accountable. Let’s say we are spending $30,000 a child. If you are not happy with your child at school and they are not being educated properly, to me they are the customer, the parent and the student, and you should be able to take your business elsewhere. So, I want to give you a 50% voucher. It has to go to a private school or to an education, it’s not for home; we will find something else for home. Those private schools will have to be graded, but I want to give you a $15,000 voucher, so that if you are not happy with the public school you can go. And what this will do, it will make our teachers more accountable, and the system, and it will bring down costs. You say, Rick, what happens if half the students leave and they go to private. We will convince the schools; we will rent those schools to private entities. And the higher they perform with the students, the lower we will charge them for rent on those facilities. I really don’t want to sell the schools, but I think that we could shift them to private.

I don’t like to be very short-minded. I like to think very long term. I like to think 10, 20, 30 years out. Even with the Bears. You know, whatever it costs us to keep them, after a certain amount of time all we have is a hundred percent plus. Even if we only get 50 percent plus, if we have to give half the money back for taxes, they generate taxes, let’s give some of it back so they can stay. But eventually, after that stuff is paid for, we get a hundred percent of it.

Q. Chicago has one of the highest crime rates in the country. As an example, according to Chicago Sun Times, aggravated assaults and batteries on the CTA reached at least a 24-year high in 2025. The upward trend continued into 2026. What can be done to lower the crime rate in Chicago?

A. Arrest people. Make them accountable. Don’t have a revolving door on your justice system. If you commit a certain crime you have to spend so much time [in jail]; you know, this no bail doesn’t work. Three point two million hours last year we had an over time for Chicago policemen. You know why they can’t get enough policemen? Because they don’t let the policemen do their job, because the policemen are retiring constantly. You know, if an illegal immigrant or a criminal that the policeman took down, and when he took them down, he broke his shoulder, not only he is going to sue the state and the city, now he can sue the policeman personally. So, now the policeman has to defend himself, and they have a chance of losing their home.  

Q. You have been a donor to both parties. In your interview with Fox 32 Chicago, you defended your record of donating to Democrats in our state. How can that help you to win the election?

A. I have been in business for almost 50 years. And I have been a developer for 40 something years. And I’ve built all kinds of things around this state. And I have done tremendous amounts of projects, and I have also done a lot of renting and businesses too. And I have a tremendous number of Democrats who respect me. And I respect a lot of Democratic people. I am going to have an open-door policy, so that anybody can come and talk to me; I don’t care if you are a Democrat or Republican. If you make sense, we are going to talk. If you don’t make any sense, we are done. And I think it’s a big plus at this point. Good luck to getting anything done in Illinois if you are not going to work with the Democrats. I’ve had Democratic politicians call me and thank me for running. J. B. Pritzker isn’t even liked by his own people in a lot of cases. They respect me, and I think it’s an asset.

Q. Illinois’ public pensions are the worst funded in the nation. State and local pension debt in Illinois now sits at $211 billion, with both debt to GDP and funding ratios the worst in the nation, according to a report by Equable Institute. Some state lawmakers are proposing so-called pension sweeteners that could add up to $80 billion to liabilities of state taxpayers. Do you have a solution to this situation?

A. I’ve spoken publicly about this; we are obligated to pay what we’ve promised people. It’s not like we can go back and erase it. It’s like 160-170 thousand dollars per person, every single person that we owe this debt, we owe this debt, every person in Illinois. We have to stop the bleeding of it. We have to change when people are coming in to work for us, and what the pension, what the age is when you can retire, all those things. There are ways that can help this, have buy-outs, try to do adjustments, but what we really have to do is stop the bleeding, which means if you are a policeman and you want to come to work for us, the age of retirement has to go up. The amount that they contribute has to go up, the amount that we have to pay has to go down. What happens then is it ends at a certain point. In the meantime, we promised those people, they counted on it. It’s not their fault.

Instead of having this program that we can’t pay for, we have to lower it. Then they have to make a decision if they want that job or not. If we had done this 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we wouldn’t have the same problem we have today. They never changed the program, so that never stops, the problem gets bigger and bigger.

Q. From the time you were a young boy, you worked to help your mom keep the family afloat. What did it teach you, and what advice would you give to the young generation of Americans?

A. That’s what drove me to be a relentless, constant worker. Because when I watched my brother, myself, and my mother suffer, all I had ever wanted to do was to make sure that anybody that had anything to do with me hadn’t suffered like that. For the young people, they have to have access to success; in other words, they have to see it. If they never see it, they will never know what it is. That’s where I sort of got lucky. I was able to see some people who were successful, so I knew that I could do it if I worked hard enough. I would say to the young people to broaden their horizons, look, explore, and learn so that you know that you can be successful too.

Natalia Dagenhart

03/11/26

This article is also available on Patch: https://patch.com/illinois/across-il/rick-heidner-successful-businessman-runs-governor-illinois