Brian Gabor has served on the Pontiac City Council for almost 10 years and says the state needs to be more responsible with taxpayer dollars.

He says, "As a small business owner myself I see why businesses are leaving the state of Illinois and we have to reverse what Governor Quinn and the legislature has done in the last several years."

Scott McCoy is the former Mayor of Pontiac and says he brings leadership, common sense and experience to the table.

He says, "When businesses are shrinking and leaving that takes away the jobs, that takes away the tax base and what we need is more business and most of our problems will be solved by that."

Richard Thomas is a nurse and former army officer and plans to fight for the middle class.

He says, "I am ready, ready to take the message to Springfield that working families, property tax owners and small businesses are just taxed enough already."

Tom Bennett is a father and a grandfather and has a broad background in education and agriculture.

He says, "We have several things we need to look at, of course, the budget, workman's comp, the pensions the strong, big issues that we've got to deal with those, tote reforms, just a number of things."

Josh Harms is a teacher at Watseka High School and got fed up with the way things were going in the state and decided to run for office.

He says, "We need to prioritize what we spend our money on and we need to balance the budget. I think we need to make sure that we fund our schools and we make sure that we fund our medical service providers."

The 106th House District covers parts of Vermilion, Ford and Iroquois counties.

No Democrats filed to run for the State Representative position.

State Senate candidates Shane Cultra and Jason Barickman also debated at the beginning of the event.