For the last three elections, voters in Illinois’ 5th Congressional District gave U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Chicago, a multidigit victory, each time over commercial real estate broker Tommy Hanson.
District residents have the same choice this time around.
Quigley, 66, is running for his ninth full term after winning an April 2008 special election to replace now U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanual, when Emanual became mayor of Chicago. Immersed in many issues, he sees one as a lasting legacy for future generations.
“Looking back at us, they will say climate change is the legacy you left us,” Quigley said. “It will be what they care about more than how we dealt with two wars.”
Hanson, 70, and a self-proclaimed conservative, said he continues to run — he also challenged Emanual in 2008 — because he feels an obligation to do something for the country and believes public office is a way to do it.
“Being a citizen, I think you should do something for your country,” Hanson said. “I wasn’t in the military. I wasn’t drafted (in the Vietnam era) for my country.”
Voters in southwest Lake County, as well as parts of Chicago and suburban Cook County, will choose between Quigley and Hanson to represent them in the U.S. House of Representatives when they cast their ballots in the Nov. 5 election.
Few issues distinguish Hanson and Quigley more than the wars underway in Ukraine and the Middle East. Hanson opposes sending money to foreign countries, while Quigley considers Russia’s current aggression in Ukraine an existential threat.
During his travels to Poland and Ukraine where he has talked to leaders of both countries, Quigley said they all agree if Ukraine does not stop the Russians on its soil, there will soon be a new front and it could be in a NATO country the U.S. is bound by treaty to defend.
“They all say the same thing,” he said. “If they don’t stop the aggression in Ukraine, Poland will be next.”
With a view to avoiding foreign wars, Hanson said the money now going to fund the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine should be spent at home to help Americans who need it and to reduce taxes.
“I’m not for funding wars outside the country, and that includes Ukraine,” he said. “American dollars are being used to kill people there.”
Public safety is an issue Quigley said is a major concern to his constituents, and gun violence is a big part of it. Hanson agrees, but their approach is not the same. Hanson said Illinois has tough gun laws, and criminals are to blame for the problem.
“The guns used in crimes are illegal guns,” he said “We need to spend more money on the police. I don’t see a problem with universal background checks.”
While Quigley also wants to see universal background checks, he said he would like federal laws regulating gun trafficking from state to state to keep weapons bought legally elsewhere — but against the law in Illinois — out of the state. Assault weapons must be banned as well, he said.
“Weapons designed for war are not meant for hunting deer for protecting your home,” Quigley said. “They’re meant for hunting people.”
Immigration is another issue where both Quigley and Hanson have strong views, and they are diametrically opposed. Hanson said he wants strong controls to prevent anyone from entering the country illegally.
“We need to secure the border and build a wall so nobody can act illegally,” he said “Their first experience of coming to America is breaking the law,” he added, referring to people who cross the border illegally.
Insisting the solution is immigration reform, Quigley said he wants to see a path to citizenship for people who came to the country with their parents as young children. Since he entered Congress in 2008, the U.S. Senate has sent the House of Representatives three immigration reform bills and none got a vote in the lower chamber.
“They never got a vote, and they would have passed,” Quigley said. “It wasn’t always a partisan issue. Now it is.”
Early voting is underway between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on weekdays at the Lake County Courthouse and Administration Building in Waukegan, and expands to 17 other locations around the county Monday. Vote-by-mail ballots can be mailed or placed in designated drop boxes.
The district includes all or part of the Barrington communities, Long Grove, Lake Zurich, Deer Park and Kildeer, as well as parts of Chicago and Cook County suburbs.
