by Seth Michaels, Mar 10, 2008

Illinois union members were crucial in this weekend’s upset victory for Bill Foster in the 14th House District special election.

Foster, a Democrat who received the Illinois AFL-CIO endorsement in his first run for office, won a 53–47 victory over Republican Jim Oberweis on Saturday, winning the seat vacated by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

It’s a big change for this district, which gave Bush 55 percent of its votes in 2004 and re-elected Hastert with more than 60 percent of the vote for two decades.

In fact, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), said two weeks ago the race had great “symbolic importance,” and the NRCC sank $1.2 million—a third of its total bank account—into the race.

Michael Carrigan, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO, says the energetic participation of union members made the difference in sending Foster to Congress.

This is a huge victory for working families in Illinois and across the country. Because of Jim Oberweis’s stand on trade, privatizing Social Security and eliminating employer provided health care, working families of the 14th Congressional District mobilized to ensure the election of Bill Foster to Congress in this special election. In a short time span of three weeks, union volunteers made more than 40,000 live phone calls to union households and hundreds of members volunteered to knock on the doors of union members urging them to vote on March 8 to elect Bill Foster to Congress.

Oberweis got fund-raising help and a campaign visit from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican presidential nominee, who shares Oberweis’ views on Social Security, trade and other important issues. The voters of the state’s 14th District rejected that agenda.

With 36,000 union members in the district, AFL-CIO participation tipped the balance and ensured Foster’s 6,000-vote victory. Illinois AFL-CIO Political Director Bill Looby said that “no stone was left unturned” in getting union members informed, energized, and mobilized to vote.

Nearly every local union affiliate with members in the 14th Congressional District communicated with their membership on the importance of electing Bill Foster to Congress. Foster has a common-sense approach to solving the problems facing working families in the 14th Congressional District.

Indeed, Hastert’s retirement and replacement by a pro-working family member of Congress is a clear sign of what could happen in this election, particularly in the Midwest. Republican retirements in key districts in Illinois, Ohio and Minnesota have created opportunities for competitive races and new working family-friendly representatives. In the Illinois 11th Congressional District, where Republican Rep. Jerry Weller is retiring, the Republican candidate dropped out, and the state party hasn’t found a replacement candidate (and the results in the neighboring 14th District probably won’t help). Bush’s enablers in the House and Senate are getting out of the way, or risking losing their jobs this fall.

Foster will serve out the rest of Hastert’s term and will face off against Oberweis again in November.

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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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