For Immediate Release:
Monday, December 15, 2025

Contact:
Erika Caldwell, Communications Director
press@ildcca.org

IDCCA Sounds the Alarm on Frightening Pattern in GOP 

Springfield, IL –  Early this morning, Illinois Democratic County Chairs Association (IDCCA) President Mark Guethle responded to revelations that Paul Freidman, Republican candidate for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, was previously convicted of a sex crime involving a minor.

“This is a pattern of MAGA – this is what the Grand Old Party has become,” said Guethle. “Paul Friedman. Matt Gaetz. Madison Cawthorn. Even the President himself. Members of Mary Miller’s inner circle. This is the same party that campaigns on ‘family values’ and attacks Americans’ freedoms and privacy in the name of ‘protecting children’. Yet time and time again,  through their actions and the people they elevate, they show that all that ‘family values’ stuff is BS.”

Guethle was referring in part to Brad Graven, a former state employee who pleaded guilty in 2005 to luring a young boy to a drugstore parking lot for sex acts. Despite this crime, Graven was welcomed warmly onto Representative Mary Miller’s re-election campaign in 2022 , where he circulated petitions, served as her personal chauffeur, and helped raise funds.

“They don’t care about keeping kids safe. They don’t care about family values,” Guethle continued. “They fearmonger about rapists and pedophiles to roll back rights for LGBTQ Americans, kidnap and deport immigrants and distract from their incompetence while actively housing, protecting and defending criminals and creeps within their own party apparatus.”

Paul Freidman, now 55 and living in Chicago, was charged with misdemeanor fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct while living in Michigan. According to sex offender registry records, the crime occurred in Washtenaw County when Friedman was 27 years old and the victim was 13. When asked by the Daily Herald about his conviction resurfacing, Friedman said he had expected the issue to arise and shared his belief that Republican voters will be more forgiving than Democratic voters–citing the GOP’s lack of response to President Donald Trump’s 34 felony convictions.

“I think he’s wrong on that one,” Guethle said in response, “It’s not Republican voters who are forgiving of this behavior–it’s Republican leaders and party officials who excuse, enable and even welcome people who behave this way. Republican voters are waking up to the truth:  If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and swims like a duck, then it probably is a duck. If you house, protect and defend criminals and creeps you’re probably just a pack of criminals and creeps.”

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