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2nd Congressional District primary
Pros and cons of the special election’s four front-runners to replace Jesse Jackson Jr.
By Edward McClelland
Published: February 21, 2013
In the 2nd Congressional District race to replace former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who resigned in November amid a federal investigation of his campaign finances, the ballot is a laundry list. Of the 21 candidates in the special election’s primary on Tuesday 26, only four have held political office. Here are those contenders, and why they do and don’t deserve to be elected.
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As chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, the 9th Ward alderman has been pushing the Red Line extension to 130th Street, a $1 billion project he’d be able to advocate for in Congress. He got the unions to accede to a Walmart in his ward, proving he has the leadership to unite officials from Cook, Will and Kankakee Counties on a coveted project to get Chicago’s third airport.
Now that the district extends far into Will and Kankakee counties, many suburbanites want to elect one of their own; Beale is the only major candidate who lives in Chicago.
Photo: Victor Powell417.wk.fob.ld.2ndCongressional.AnthonyBealexSS.jpg160783261
Halvorson challenged Jackson in the 2012 Democratic primary, when no one else would call out his alleged sleazy conduct. During her one term in Congress, representing the 11th District from 2009 to 2011, Halvorson put her career on the line to vote for President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. It was a significant factor in her 2010 defeat by Republican Adam Kinzinger. She also pushed to turn Joliet’s Silver Cross Hospital into a veterans’ clinic, and introduced an Investment Tax Credit allowing U.S. manufacturers to deduct $250,000 in retooling costs to make their companies competitive with overseas factories.
Twice endorsed by the National Rifle Association, Halvorson opposes outlawing assault weapons, saying “more laws are only going to harm the law-abiding citizens.”
Reynolds was convicted in 1995 of having sex with a 16-year-old campaign volunteer, forcing him to resign from Congress during his second term; later, bank fraud was added to his rap sheet. President Bill Clinton pardoned Reynolds for the latter crime, but as a convicted sex offender, he is prohibited from campaigning within 500 feet of schools or parks, a restriction that would continue if he’s reelected to Congress.
This R. Kelly, no relation to the R&B singer, is a former state rep and the race’s most consistently anti-gun candidate. She released a five-point firearms pledge mostly identical to President Obama’s gun-control package: ban assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and concealed carry; close the gun-show loophole; and refuse the NRA money. In the Illinois General Assembly, Kelly and Obama cosponsored a bill criminalizing straw purchases. She has the endorsement of Chicago’s two African-American congressmen, Danny Davis and Bobby Rush.
She was chief administrative officer to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, but Preckwinkle endorsed state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, who dropped out of the race February 17 and put her support behind Kelly.
As chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, the 9th Ward alderman has been pushing the Red Line extension to 130th Street, a $1 billion project he’d be able to advocate for in Congress. He got the unions to accede to a Walmart in his ward, proving he has the leadership to unite officials from Cook, Will and Kankakee Counties on a coveted project to get Chicago’s third airport.
Now that the district extends far into Will and Kankakee counties, many suburbanites want to elect one of their own; Beale is the only major candidate who lives in Chicago.
It's okay to be a show-off.
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