Two vie for 3rd District Republican nomination 

By Jean Lachowicz 

Two Republicans, Michael Hawkins and Arthur J. Jones, are seeking their party’s nomination to take the 3rd U.S. Congressional seat currently held by Democrat Daniel Lipinski.

            The district encompasses a portion of the South and Southwest Side of Chicago, including Bridgeport, and extends west and southwest to suburbs as far as the DuPage County border. The 3rd District has been described in the Almanac of American Politics as “ancestrally Democratic, culturally conservative, multiethnic, and viscerally patriotic."

            Michael Hawkins is a real estate broker and GOP activist. Born and raised on the Southwest Side, he has lived in the 3rd District his entire life and now resides in Bridgeview, IL. He served in the Air Force as a communications specialist, has degrees in science and business administration, and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in health administration. Hawkins is married with five sons, the eldest of whom completed two tours in Afghanistan with the Navy.

            Although he believes that “all issues are on the table,” Hawkins’s top three issues are jobs, education, and the dual problem of hunger and homelessness. He wants to encourage new employers to locate in the 3rd District, address the high school dropout rate, and make college more affordable. He supports a national health insurance system.

            He said, “My vision and dream is to serve the people of the 3rd District as their Representative in the next Congress. I would like the opportunity to give our district a fresh start to revise and improve our government by the people, to have the general public in our district know that their out-of-the-box, far-out ideas are encouraged and that their participation is welcomed and required to make our district the model for the rest of our society to correct and improve the idea of government for the people by the people, with a new agreement that we all will be responsible to stand up and make our district a better place to live.”

            Arthur J. Jones is an independent insurance broker who lives with his wife in the Clearing community on the Southwest Side. He was born and raised in Beloit, WI, and majored in political science and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. He is a decorated Army veteran, having served as a rifleman near the Cambodian border of South Vietnam.

            Jones’s agenda supports “the orderly but speedy withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan” and sending them “to defend our borders against illegal aliens.” He opposes amnesty for illegal aliens, free trade agreements, and abortion, and he advocates replacing the income tax with a national sales tax. He favors affordable and adequate healthcare, a federal law to “allow law-abiding citizens a right to carry a concealed weapon,” and supports an English language law.

            According to Jones, the Republican Party has distanced itself from his campaign and labeled him a "Neo Nazi." He said the party and the media “seek to weaken my campaign by pointing out something I never denied: my involvement for many years with various White supremacist organizations. My reply is: so what? They were and are legal organizations,” said Jones.

            “Now is not the time for party unity, nor is it the time to send another handpicked political hack to Washington. Now is the time to send to Congress a leader who will proudly proclaim he was sent by the people to represent their interests,” he said.