Tom Kacich: Second Republican joins race to challenge Budzinski

Sep. 25—Even though Democrat Nikki Budzinski won the 13th Congressional District race in November by more than 13 percentage points, it appears likely Republican voters will have two candidates to choose from in the March primary.

Thomas Clatterbuck, 31, a third-year student at the University of Illinois College of Law, said he intends to run in the seven-county congressional district that runs from Champaign-Urbana to south of East St. Louis.

Joshua Loyd, who recently moved into the district and now lives in Virden in Macoupin County, had filed as a GOP candidate last spring. He said last week he still intends to run against Budzinski, whom he called "a pawn of both Biden and Pritzker."

Both Loyd and Clatterbuck have been making the rounds, speaking to Republican groups in the sprawling district that also includes Alton, Belleville, Decatur, Edwardsville and Springfield.

Clatterbuck said he's been watching politics in the 13th District for years, starting when he was a digital journalist interviewing former U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville. Since then, Clatterbuck has worked for Republican candidates in Sangamon and Champaign counties, served as a district intern for U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Oakland, and worked in the office of the Sangamon County circuit clerk. This would be his first run for any public office.

"The 13th was a race that I had been looking at before and that I was interested in. I had covered it a lot and I had lived and worked in the district," said Clatterbuck, who now lives in Champaign. "It was a district I felt comfortable running in independently of what other people were doing."

He said he got in the race only after learning that Davis and Regan Deering of Decatur, whom Budzinski defeated last year, weren't running for Congress in 2024.

A native of Jacksonville who attended the UI and graduated with a bachelor's from the Springfield campus said some congressional candidates promise outcomes that are wholly unrealistic.

"Anybody who promises sweeping changes (in Congress) on hot-button issues is kidding themselves and kidding you. That's not work one person can do," he said. "There are a lot of things one person can do. There are a lot of small, important things that you can do. That's where my focus is, that we can start these conversations."

He acknowledged that he will be running from a political disadvantage, and not just because Budzinski has name recognition and more than $720,000 in her campaign account.

"I'm choosing to seek the opportunity to represent people that I know are more moderate than I am. I know the district is a D plus 7 (others have given Democrats a much narrower advantage)," Clatterbuck said. "If the Republican Party is going to be successful in (this) district, we have to understand that we can take stands on issues, but that if we draw a hard line, the voters are going to reject it.

"What this race has to be about is figuring out how do we make the Republican case effectively. How do we show the voters of this district that there's not as much space between what they think the Republican Party is and where they are?" he added. "If they think there's a gap between where they are and where we are, we have to show them that's not true. That doesn't mean compromising our values. That means going out and meeting voters, making the case and showing them we're all on the same team here."

Clatterbuck noted he isn't as politically conservative as the congresswoman he interned for — "I don't know that anybody is as conservative as Mary," he said — and that he would, unlike Miller, seek earmarks, or "community project funding," for communities in his district.

"When it's justified," he said. "I'm not going to say that anybody who asks for money is going to get it. Not to be pedantic about it, but there is a difference between sewer mains that need to be fixed and a bridge to nowhere. Both of those are earmarks. To say that those are the same thing is not productive. I'm planning to be able to tell the difference between those kinds of asks."

And when asked why he's running and what issues he is stressing, Clatterbuck's response was far from the red meat many conservative Republicans offer.

"The number-one issue for me is this general excitement that is going on around technology," he said. "Between self-driving cars and artificial intelligence and certain kinds of cryptocurrency and biometric scanning, there is a lot of exciting technology that has just barely hit the mainstream or is about to hit the mainstream.

"It's like the '90s with this really exciting thing that is out in the world. But you look at how the internet developed, and from an economic perspective, from a tax perspective, from a national-security perspective, we made a lot of really bad calls about that."

The United States, Clatterbuck said, can't afford to make that mistake with new technologies like artificial intelligence and biometric databases.

"I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I have a lot of questions, and I know that we need to have answers," he said. "We can't just piecemeal this regulatory landscape together as we go. If we do, we're going to be really disappointed in what we cobble together by tech CEOs, some of them in this country, many of them not. That conversation needs to happen. That conversation shouldn't be in the background."

Number two on his list: Social Security.

"I think calls to eliminate or prioritize Social Security are irresponsible," he said. "We have Social Security for people who don't have any other way to save, right? But the one thing that everyone agrees on is that Social Security is not enough to retire on. You have a conflict there."

Clatterbuck proposes allowing employees to voluntarily pay more into Social Security to build a bigger yield at retirement.

"I think if you sent someone to Washington who was determined to make Social Security work better for the people who need it most, I think you can put into motion something that would be extremely beneficial for people who need it most," he said.

On abortion, Clatterbuck hailed the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, but said Congress should not attempt a federal abortion ban.

"Clearly, Dobbs is a win for pro-life. That's good for pro-life people like me," he said. "Speaking as someone who is training to be an attorney and who is planning to run for a lawmaking office, I am not convinced that it would be constitutional for there to be a federal abortion ban, a criminalization of abortion at the federal level."

And any restriction on gun ownership, Clatterbuck said, would be fruitless.

"From the supply side, there are 400 million guns in this country and some 25 million AR-platform weapons in this country that we know," he said. "Even if you could magically stop there being any new guns, there are going to be tons of guns in this country for a long time. And I believe 3D printing is going to totally moot the supply-side question of guns."

He said the nation needs to "focus on why is there gun crime," including other factors like drugs, gang warfare, economic opportunity and mental health.

"I'm sympathetic to people who say that guns are the problem. I get their response," Clatterbuck said. "But the depths of despair, this lashing out, that's going to exist whether there are guns or not."

Clatterbuck said he hasn't met Budzinski, the incumbent member of Congress.

"From my perspective, the worst thing that Budzinski has done, and my main criticism of her, is not the things that she's done but the things that she hasn't done," he said. "Being in Congress gives you one of the most powerful platforms in the world to raise issues, to talk about things, to champion causes that you care about, to put forward ideas that are going to make things better. And I don't see that from her."