Jim Edgar, two-term former Republican governor of Illinois, dies aged 79

[ShazzieB]

Former Illinois governor Jim Edgar, a popular two-term Republican credited with guiding the state into a period of greater financial stability in the 1990s, died on Sunday, according to his family. He was 79. Edgar died from complications related to his treatment for pancreatic cancer, his family said in a statement. He had disclosed his cancer diagnosis earlier this year.

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A former state legislator who was Illinois secretary of state for a decade, Edgar was elected governor in 1990. The moderate Republican easily won re-election, including winning heavily Democratic Cook county, where Chicago is located.

He remained a party statesman and adviser, and grew uneasy with the Republican party’s shift to the right. Edgar was among high-profile Republicans who did not support Donald Trump’s presidency, joining a campaign to support Kamala Harris’s bid for president last year called Republicans for Harris.

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“By any standard, he was a Republican whose integrity guided his time in office and who managed one of the most successful periods in Illinois state government,” Bob Kustra, who served as Edgar’s lieutenant governor, said in a statement.

JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, said on Sunday that flags in the state would fly at half-staff in Edgar’s honor.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/14/jim-edgar-illinois-governor-death

A Republican whose integrity guided his time in office ... hard to imagine these days, isn't it? But I think it was true of Edgar. I didn't always like his fiscal policies, but he was definitely a different breed than the Republicans in Washington today who are either actively trying to destroy the country or standing idly by while others do it.