8th District candidates spar on education
Five candidates from two congressional districts debated issues ranging from illegal immigration to education Wednesday night at Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire.
Republicans in the 8th Congressional District primary Feb. 5 -- Steve Greenberg of Long Grove and Gurnee residents Kenneth Arnold and Kirk Morris -- were the first to debate. The 8th Congressional District includes northwest Cook, western Lake and eastern McHenry counties.
Democrats Jay Footlik and Dan Seals were in the nightcap. Seals and Footlik are in the primary for the 10th Congressional District, which meanders from North Chicago to the more affluent North Shore and west to parts of Cook County such as Buffalo Grove and Arlington Heights.
In the 8th Congressional District debate, the three Republican candidates touched on what government's role should be in improving American education after being questioned by a member of Stevenson's Political Action Club, which hosted the event.
Morris said federal government has a limited role in taking care of education, but he'd push for charter schools and vouchers that follow children where they are being educated. He'd also seek to reform the No Child Left Behind Act.
"I believe it made our teachers into test-givers," Morris said of the federal act.
Arnold said the amount of Pell Grant money for college students should be increased. He added he'd want to study the potential of school choice.
Greenberg said creating school choice and competition would improve the U.S. education system.
On illegal immigration, Arnold said there are those with criminal and sexual backgrounds who don't belong in the United States and threaten its citizens. He said if various enticements are removed, illegal immigrants would return to their native countries.
"I'm not a bigot, but I believe in the rule of the law," said Arnold, 51, a senior benefit plan management consultant who made an unsuccessful bid for an 8th Congressional District seat in the 2006 GOP primary.
Morris, 49, a sales executive for a biofuels manufacturing company, said illegal immigration is what he hears about most when campaigning. He said the influx of illegal immigrants from the north and south borders must be halted, as well at airports and docks.
"I believe that a nation that doesn't secure its borders is neither a nation nor secure," Morris said.
Greenberg said while he has compassion for illegal immigrants in dire straits, the United States can't pick and choose the laws it enforces. That's why he favors better enforcement of laws dealing with illegal immigration.
"We do need a secure border in this country, and ultimately we don't need amnesty," said Greenberg, 36, a former minor-league hockey player who has a lead role in his family's business of developing solutions for small retailers competing with large chains.
Before about 350 spectators in the nightcap, one of the first questions the Political Action Club posed to the 10th Congressional District candidates had to do with college financing and the No Child Left Behind Act.
Seals, 36, a Wilmette business consultant who lost a tight race to Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk of Highland Park in 2006, said he'd push for making college tuition tax-deductible. He also criticized No Child Left Behind.
"When teachers teach to the test, they no longer are teaching," Seals said.
Footlik, 42, of Buffalo Grove, a consultant on security issues who's lived and worked in the Middle East, said he'd work to halt predatory lending practices for college expenses and increase Pell Grant funding.
"We need to give our students the tools to compete," Footlik said.
Kirk doesn't have Republican competition in the 10th Congressional District. In the 8th District, Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean faces Lindenhurst activist Randi Scheurer in the Feb. 5 primary.