Editorial: Final US House endorsements. Budzinski, Underwood, King

This is the last installment of the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for U.S. House races in the Nov. 8 general election.

12th District

After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, then President Donald Trump’s loyalists ginned up a lawsuit in Texas in a spurious bid to overturn Biden’s legitimate victory. Many of Trump’s enablers in Congress signed onto a court brief in support of that half-baked effort, including U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, a Republican from downstate Murphysboro. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit, but Illinoisans should never forget the cynical refusal by Bost and other Trump backers to accept that the former president was undeniably defeated.

Bost’s Democratic opponent, Homer “Chip” Markel of Carbondale, is a retired Illinois corrections officer who needs political experience at the local level before making the jump to Congress.

Bost has been this district’s representative in Washington since 2015, but we cannot back him in this race. No endorsement.

13th District

It’s not only the Republican candidate vying for this remapped downstate district who believes that Biden’s move to forgive college debt is a bad way to spend American taxpayers’ money.

“I don’t think that’s the best way to tackle college affordability,” Democrat Nikki Budzinski said during a candidates forum organized by Illinois Public Media this month. “I’m concerned about how we’d be paying for that type of initiative.” Budzinski thinks a better approach would be to allow students to refinance their loans the same way homeowners refinance their mortgages. That makes sense.

Budzinski’s resume includes working as Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s senior adviser on labor issues, as well as chief of staff for Biden’s Office of Management and Budget. Her moderate views and strong experience should appeal to voters in this district, which stretches from East St. Louis to Champaign and includes parts of Decatur and Springfield. She’s also staunchly pro-abortion rights and an advocate of gun control measures such as a federal assault weapons ban.

Her Republican opponent, Regan Deering, is a Decatur philanthropist and granddaughter of the late Archer Daniels Midland CEO Dwayne Andreas. Deering supported the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade and doesn’t see a need for any new gun control measures in the wake of recent mass shootings in Highland Park, Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo. “I think we have good laws on the books,” she said during the forum. Budzinski is the best choice for this district, and gets our endorsement.

14th District

Democratic incumbent Lauren Underwood from Naperville likes to tout her track record for getting things done in Washington — and she should.

After joining Congress in 2019, she has gotten 10 of her bills signed into law, six during Trump’s presidency and four under Biden. One of those bills made lower-cost, generic insulin available to patients more quickly. She also has been accessible to residents in this west suburban district, holding more than 40 town hall meetings to better understand constituents’ concerns. She’s passionately pro-abortion rights, and calls the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol “outstanding.”

Her Republican opponent, Scott Gryder of Oswego, continues to dodge the question of whether he thinks Biden was legitimately elected president. He told us that “in the rush to confirm the election of Joe Biden by interested parties, evidence of election irregularities was not fully considered.” Gryder, who is chairman of the Kendall County Board, doesn’t do his party, or America for that matter, any favors by stoking doubt about the results of the 2020 presidential election. Our endorsement goes to Underwood.

15th District

It would be hard to find someone more ensconced in Trump’s camp than Republican incumbent Mary Miller from downstate Oakland. On Jan. 6, 2021, she voted against certifying the election of Joe Biden as president, falsely claiming the results were marred by election fraud. She also called the House effort to investigate the insurrection on the Capitol on Jan. 6 a “sham,” and says the best way to combat authoritarian dictators is to “reelect Donald Trump.” That’s a ridiculous idea. //

Miller’s opponent, Democrat Paul Lange, is a retired commodities broker from Quincy waging a grassroots campaign. We make no endorsement in this race.

16th District

When a politician makes a decision with potentially disastrous ramifications for American democracy, it can undermine everything else he or she has done in office. That’s the case with U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, a Republican from Peoria.

We endorsed him in 2016, 2018 and 2020, viewing him as a principled, independent conservative who called out Democrats for spending recklessly and backed free and fair trade agreements that were good for farmers in his district. But like his downstate GOP colleague, Mike Bost, LaHood signed on to a court brief in support of a specious, last-minute effort by Texas to overturn the 2020 presidential election by invalidating Biden’s victories in Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin based on unfounded claims of fraud.

He also voted against impeaching Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. To his credit, on Jan. 6 he voted to certify Biden’s election as president, and told us that overturning the results “of the Electoral College would far exceed the power given to Congress and the vice president in the Constitution, establish poor precedent and usurp the will of the American people.” We commend him for that, but cannot countenance his decision right after the election to join in Texas’ amicus curiae brief.

His opponent is Democrat Lisa Haderlein, a member of the far northwest suburban Harvard City Council who acknowledged to us that she doesn’t “have all the answers, but I am compassionate and hardworking.” The Tribune makes no endorsement in this race.

17th District

Republican Esther Joy King, 36, says she can empathize with families struggling to endure the body blow delivered by rising inflation. She grew up in Juarez, Mexico, and for the first three years of her life, her family was homeless. She blames the Biden administration’s spending policies for the shape that the economy is in right now. “People in northwestern and central Illinois are struggling and all the administration can talk about is more spending,” she told us.

The East Moline lawyer’s impressive background includes working as an aid worker for women’s rights in Afghanistan and serving as a member of the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Her Democratic opponent, Eric Sorensen, is a 46-year-old former meteorologist from Rockford who supports federal codification of a woman’s right to an abortion and reforming Congress’ budgeting process to pare down the federal deficit.

That’s good, but our endorsement in the 17th goes to the Republican, King.

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