Schakowsky for Congress Dist. 9, Democrat

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, the seven-term Democrat from Evanston, faces a couple of uncommon wrinkles in her bid for re-election.

First, she faces a primary opponent — a personable fellow teacher from Evanston named Simon Ribeiro, a “Mr. Smith” sort who's making his fourth try for the U.S. House. He's run twice as a Green Party candidate, once as a Republican and now as a Democrat. Second, she's running in a newly shaped district that extends much farther into the Northwest suburbs and does not tilt quite so heavily Democratic as her old district boundaries. Let's be clear: We endorse Schakowsky as we have many times in the past, partly because of her effectiveness as one of the Democratic Party leaders in Congress and partly because of the level of competition. While she leans left of our tastes, she's seldom faced strong opposition. We find something refreshing in Ribeiro and we're especially enamored with his concept of “common ground” legislation — restricting bills to one issue so that Congress can deal with matters in which there is general agreement. But Schakowsky clearly is the more able candidate. We endorse her with hopes she gets to know her new constituency and moves to a center more in keeping with their views. Tim Wolfe is running unopposed in the GOP primary.