Schedule:
10.31.2012 =: US Senate Overview
11.01.2012 1: US House Overview 1 (Northeast, New England, Midwest)
11.01.2012 2: US House Overview 2 (West, Southwest, Texas, South, Florida)
11.02.2012 1: IN-Sen (Donnelly v. Mourdock)
11.02.2012 2: WI-01 (Zerban v. Ryan)
11.02.2012 3: WI-Sen (Baldwin v. Thompson)
11.03.2012 1: MO-Gov (Nixon v. Spence), MO-Lt. Gov, Mo-SoS, MO-AG, MO-Treasurer
11.03.2012 2: MO-Sen (McCaskill v. Akin)
11.04.2012 1: IL-10 (Schneider v. Dold)
11.04.2012 2: IL-08 (Duckworth v. Walsh)
11.04.2012 3: IL-11 (Foster v. Biggert)
11.05.2012 1: IL-17 (Bustos v. Schilling)
11.05.2012 2: IL-13 (Gill v. Davis v. Hartman)
11.05.2012 3: IL-12 (My home district, Enyart v. Gill)
11.06.2012 1 : POTUS/VPOTUS (Obama/Biden v. Romney/Ryan v. Stein/Honkala v. Johnson v. Gray), GOTV/Election Day diary
1 = Morning
2 = Afternoon/Early Evening
3 = Evening/Overnight
In the Illinois' 8th Congressional District, this matchup between former Assistant Secretary of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Department of Veterans Affairs and former director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) Tammy Duckworth (D) and ethically challenged dingbat incumbent Joe Walsh (R), who barely defeated moderate Dem Melissa Bean in the GOP wave year election back in 2010, is a matchup between two very radically different viewpoints: Duckworth is representing sanity, while Walsh is representing the ultra-crazy right viewpoint.
The Issues:
Joe Walsh:
Abortion:
I am strongly Pro-Life and believe in the sanctity of all human life.
Compare that to his 1996 House run,
in which he was pro-LGBTQ and pro-choice:
Walsh, a Republican who is serving his first term, originally ran for Congress in ’96 (unsuccessfully) against liberal Democrat Sidney Yates, who represented a district covering parts of Chicago and its northern suburbs for many years. At that time, reports Chicago LGBT paper Windy City Times, Walsh said he would support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and be willing to cosponsor it. He also said he opposed restrictions on gays in the military and supported AIDS education and treatment.
Walsh’s record since being elected in 2010, when he defeated Democrat Melissa Bean in a somewhat more conservative district in Chicago’s northwestern suburbs, tells a different story. He has failed to cosponsor any pro-LGBT measures, such as ENDA and the bill to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, earning him a zero rating from the Human Rights Campaign.
Walsh has apparently changed his mind on other issues as well. In 1996 he told Outlines, a paper that has since bought and merged with Windy City Times, adopting the latter name, that he believed abortion should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy. Now his campaign website says he is “pro-life without exception,” and he recently claimed modern technology has made it so abortion is never necessary to save a woman’s life, a medically inaccurate assertion that he attempted to clarify on his website, where he now says such cases are “extremely rare.”
Guns:
I am a strong supporter of our constitutionally provided right to bear arms.
Illinois does not need more anti-gun laws; instead, residents should be given the right to defend themselves, their families, their homes, and I will not stop until this right is guaranteed.
PPACA:
The massive, hastily thrown together PR piece liberals call “Obamacare” is projected to cost America an additional $500 billion. The President claimed it would reduce the costs of health care for all, but even his own Medicare and Medicaid offices have released numbers that show it has not – and it won’t. What it does instead is move 30 million people from the private market onto the government dole while taking away the most important thing we need when it comes to health care: choice.
Only you should be in charge of making health care decisions in your life – And I will continue to ensure the makers of Obamacare don’t restrict that any futher.
Marriage Equality/LGBTQ Rights:
Once supported most LGBTQ rights during the 1990s, now extremely anti-LGBTQ.
Economy:
As Ronald Reagan said in his first inaugural address, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” If we want our economy to grow and produce jobs again, we must rely on a vibrant private sector to pull us out of the recession
Education:
I firmly believe in school choice and believe that every child should have the choice of attending any school for which he/she qualifies academically.
Immigration:
It is the responsibility of our government to foster, manage and maintain a secure – and fair – immigration process.
Tammy Duckworth:
Abortion:
I fully support a woman’s right to control her own body. I do not support any further restrictions beyond the framework established by Roe V. Wade and Planned Parenthood V. Casey on a woman’s right to choose or her access to safe, affordable reproductive health services. I trust that women will make the right decisions for themselves and their families in consultation with their own medical and religious advisors. I believe that all Americans are afforded a right to privacy and the right to make personal decisions about their health care without coercion.
Guns:
I support the Brady Bill and a ban on assault weapons.
I will consider concealed carry gun law for off-duty and retired police officers.
PPACA:
Our health care system is not perfect, but as someone who went through a serious health crisis, I understand how important it is to have affordable and quality health care. I am determined to make sure every American has access to health care without going bankrupt. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has made major improvements to our health care system. Insurance companies can no longer deny our families coverage due to pre-existing conditions, put a cap on the amount of care they cover, charge women higher premiums or drop coverage for seniors.
I am concerned that ACA places an unfair burden on employers, especially our small businesses. This is especially true of businesses with low profit margins and high numbers of employees, such as restaurants and retail stores, who must have a large number of employees due to the shift-work nature of the industry.
Medicare/Social Security:
I will not support any plan that ends Medicare as we know it by eliminating guaranteed benefits. Turning Medicare into a voucher system, a policy championed by the extreme right, will force people to fight with insurance companies over what treatments may or may not be covered. This will only result in higher costs for prescription medication and will cost the average senior thousands of dollars more per year, forcing them to make terrible trade-offs over life-saving treatments.
I know personally the value of social security. As a way to reduce living costs, my mother shares a home with three friends. The stability of social security and my father’s government pension allows her to live a modest, but comfortable life. I will oppose efforts to undermine Social Security and will work to ensure that people who rely on these funding sources – people like my mom – are protected.
Marriage Equality/LGBTQ Rights:
The LGBT community is entitled to the same rights afforded to everyone else. My view on LGBT equality is rooted in love.
As a Member of Congress, I will work tirelessly to support the LGBT community and push for total equality.
Economy:
First, we need to invest in rebuilding and improving our basic infrastructure. Transportation is critical to a strong economy, and to the 8th District. We need a new transportation bill, now, to repair and expand our roads, bridges, rail network and the critical hub at O’Hare Airport. Too many people in the 8th District struggle to get to work, whether their job is in downtown Chicago, a warehouse in Elk Grove Village or a shopping center in Carpentersville. Traffic is a huge problem, and our alternative transit options are not up to the challenge of getting people from where they live to where the jobs are. We need to invest in more and better transportation options.
Small businesses are critical to the success of our economy. Without the ingenuity and determination that small businesses exhibit everyday in the 8th District, our economy could not thrive. But despite their hard work, small business owners are struggling. They need solutions that will make it easier for them to balance their budget, hire new workers and make payroll. We talk too much about penalizing businesses when they have to lay off workers when we should be talking about incentives to reward businesses that create jobs in the USA.
Education:
We must continue to invest in early childhood education to build the foundation for our children and their education. Early childhood education offers the best opportunity to close achievement gaps and is a major differentiator between advantaged and disadvantaged students. I support programs like Head Start and The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) – as long as they are funded and supported appropriately.
Additionally, our schools’ infrastructures are crumbling. Older communities have buildings that can’t meet today’s needs and, in some cases, have deferred maintenance for decades. Meanwhile, our newer communities are struggling to meet the demand for classroom space. We can create jobs and improve our educational institutions by investing in the budget-neutral FAST (Fix America’s Schools Today) program to repair and modernize our public schools.
I strongly support the expansion of Pell Grants. My family and I could not afford the full cost of college tuition and Pell Grants were the reason I was able to go to college. As the cost of higher education continues to rise, financial aid will become increasingly important to ensuring we do not create a disparity of opportunity between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
Our school system needs to reflect the diversity of our nation. Vouchers, opportunity scholarships, and tax credits focusing on private schools ultimately undermine long-term public school improvement by diverting resources for short-term benefit. They also leave behind many students who do not have access to the vouchers.
Immigration:
Comprehensive immigration reform must be fair, practical and humane. We need a pathway to citizenship. People who came here illegally should step forward, pay fines for violating our laws, pass a criminal background check, learn English and pay their full share of taxes owed. If an immigrant meets all of those requirements while continuing to be gainfully employed, he or she would be allowed to pursue legal status. The fines paid by those seeking legal status could pay for the investment required to process the requests and ensure cases are handled quickly and fairly. I support the DREAM Act.
Military/Veterans:
After I recovered from my injuries in Iraq, I was asked to serve our nation’s Veterans as the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. While there, I implemented many first in the nation programs to address Post Traumatic Stress, improve traumatic brain injury screening, and offered state health insurance program to Veterans. I also created a tax credit for Illinois businesses who hire OEF/OIF/Desert Storm Veterans. Hundreds of Veterans have been hired throughout the state with this tax credit.
In 2009 I was selected to serve as an Assistant Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where I created and managed programs that got our Veterans back to work and off the streets. During my tenure at the VA, we significantly reduced the number of homeless Veterans. I also increased accessibility and accountability by creating the Office of Online Communications.
I was honored to serve America’s Veterans over the past five years and will always be a voice for these heroic men and women.
Race Rating: Safe D