The Illinois Green Party nominated LeAlan Jones in December 2012 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District shortly after that seat was vacated by Jesse Jackson, Jr. Jones is campaigning in a special election on April 9.
CHICAGO, IL—The 1st, 2nd and 7th Congressional Districts, covering the areas of highest concentration of Chicago’s Black population, are where poverty and destruction of services are concentrated. Nearly all the Chicago public schools targeted for closure this year are in these districts. Most of the six Chicago mental health clinics closed in 2012 were there.
But only a generation ago the Second District was a major manufacturing center, including US Steel and Wisconsin Steel. Now the district is center to some of the poorest communities in the nation. This “rust belt” district is home to a growing core of dispossessed workers.
In the last decade, 180,000 African Americans have moved out of the city, in part because of the destruction of public housing. Many have moved to the southern part of this district into suburbs like Harvey, Markham and Ford Heights and into Kankakee County.
“The district’s median household income is about $46,600, according to the census. But the district’s city and south suburban sections are suffering economically. From January through September 2010, the home foreclosure rate was 60.1 per 1,000 homes in that part of the 2nd District . . . the highest rate among what was then the state’s 19 congressional districts.” (Chicago Tribune).
Considerable money poured in from outside the district to influence the February 26 Democratic primary. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Super PAC contributed $2 million to focus on “gun control.” Robin Kelly, currently an appointed Cook County official, won that primary and will face Jones and Republican Paul McKinley in the April 9 general election.
Kelly’s campaign has been silent: Democrats believe that they have a lock on the election. The Second District has elected only Democrats since 1950. On the contrary, Jones has been vocal about his concerns for revitalizing the district according to the Green Party’s “green new deal.” He favors universal health care, “Medicare for all.”
Most important, Jones’ campaign is sparking an interest in independent politics. His candidacy aims a blow at the Democrats’ one-party rule, by striking at of one of the cornerstones of their control of Chicago and Illinois. “There is an intractability within the Democratic Party, to do the things that they put on the surface to do.” Jones told Fox interviewer Mike Flannery. “We’ve spent billions of dollars over the last decade with the plan for transformation of public housing and Renaissance 2010, and we’re [now] in a more chaotic situation . . .”
Jones says in his campaign literature: “The policies of Chicago and Cook County Democratic elected officials have and will continue to fail your family’s opportunities and your children’s future. . .”
Chicago has languished under a one-party dictatorship for more than eight decades. Voting Green for LeAlan Jones in this election threatens that stranglehold.
