The Daily Southtown endorsed Democrats John Pavich in the 11th Congressional District and Joseph Shannon in the 13th Congressional District today. In both cases the Southtown argues that if you’re looking to change what’s happening in Washington, you need to change the people in congress who support the Bush Administration.
From the Southtown:
“Jerry Weller has represented the 11th District since the early 1990s, and cites among his accomplishments ending the so-called marriage tax penalty and bringing home federal money for redevelopment of the Joliet Arsenal property. We’ve lauded him for both. But we’ve been very disappointed by the lack of progress on the proposed third airport near Peotone, in Weller’s district, and Weller’s stubborn refusal to support Rep. Jesse Jackson’s plan for a privately funded starter airport. Weller claims he has been a third-airport supporter for 20 years, but he says he won’t support a plan advanced by outsiders like Jackson and the south suburbs and northwest suburbs that support Jackson’s plan. The region needs this project, and it’s disturbing that egos and battles over turf are standing in the way. We’d like to see the congressman put as much effort into making the airport a reality as he has put into blocking Jackson’s plan.
Another reason we favor a change in this district is the conflict of interests Weller has as the husband of a member of the Congress of Guatemala (from which she is now on temporary maternity leave) and vice chairman of a congressional subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Weller says he recuses himself from any issue that directly affects Guatemala, and that a technical conflict of interests doesn’t exist unless a congressman has a direct economic interest in an issue. We think virtually any issue affecting the hemisphere affects Guatemala, and that Weller’s definition of a conflict of interests is far narrower than the average voter’s. We think the people of the 11th District deserve a representative they can be sure is representing their interests 100 percent of the time.
Democrat Pavich, 30, a lawyer and first-time candidate, is running an under-financed campaign. He has a strong foreign policy background, having worked for the CIA as an analyst focused on the Balkan region. He’s smart and well spoken, grew up in the south suburbs and now lives in Crete. Most importantly, Pavich would bring a fresh perspective to Congress and would be under no obligation to support Bush administration policies that are failing or are not in the interests of the voters of the 11th District. We endorse Pavich in the Nov. 7 election.
In the west and southwest suburban 13th District, incumbent Republican Judy Biggert is another solid supporter of the Bush agenda. She even told our editorial board that she thinks Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is “doing a good job.” Biggert, 69, of Hinsdale, has the unenviable assignment of being a Republican member of the House Ethics Committee at a time when congressional ethics are being challenged in almost every imaginable way. It may be that the House Republican leadership deserves the most blame for the Ethics committee’s ineffective performance, but the individual members must share some of the blame.
The challenger is Shannon, 43, an attorney from Woodridge. He is an energetic middle-of-the-road Democrat who blames Biggert and her party for irresponsible spending that has turned a huge federal surplus into an $8.3 trillion deficit, in part by handing out “corporate welfare” to the tune of $200 billion that will be paid to pharmaceutical companies by 2010. He says he would work toward health care coverage for everyone, which he notes is guaranteed in the new Iraqi constitution and asks why that’s not the case in the United States. And while the Republican Congress takes credit for tax cuts, Shannon points out that gasoline prices doubled the last five years. “That sounds to me like a tax increase,” Shannon said. Meanwhile, Congress and the White House did little to encourage alternate fuel use.
We think the 13th District would benefit from electing a congressman with the perspective of the father of five young children, and we endorse Shannon.
Voters in the 11th and 13th who are inclined to think the nation would be better off with a Democratic majority in the House can help achieve that goal by electing these two young Democrats to Congress…. [I]t’s a certainty that a continued Republican majority will exert no pressure on the White House to change.”
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