GOP vote in 14th leaves him agog

14th District Republicans have just voted down a man, Chris Lauzen, who has served us tirelessly with a stellar voting record for the past 15 years.

Over him for a seat in the U.S. Congress, they elected another man, Jim Oberweis, who has similar stated views. But Oberweis has no history of public service or legislative experience and, consequently, no voting record from which we could determine whether he means what he says.

Oberweis won, in part, due to the endorsement of Dennis Hastert, who quit the job we elected him to do early, apparently just as soon as possible after finding out that he couldn't be Speaker of the House anymore.

In order to accommodate his early retirement, we had to spend additional money on a special election.

The vote has demonstrated that deals trump principle, that TV ads trump years of dedicated service, and that the U.S. Congress is a game that can increasingly be played only by multi-millionaires.

What were Republican voters thinking?

David Ziffer

Batavia