Walton Challenges Turner for 9th State Representative seat

By Michael Comstock

The 9th District Illinois State Representative race is heating up, with Democrat Arthur Turner, the 27-year incumbent, being challenged by fellow Democrat Dorothy L. Walton. The winner will face the Green Party’s Anthonne “Tony” Cox in November.

Fourteen-term incumbent State Senator and Deputy Majority Leader Arthur Turner has set goals to fix the criminal justice system, help create affordable housing, and find job opportunities and provide universal healthcare for the people of Illinois.

“We’ve perpetuated some change regarding how we deal with DNA testing and ballistics testing regarding criminal situations,” he said. “The criminal justice budget is a large part of our state budget, and I think whatever we can do to get the best bang for our buck is something that we need to be exploring. Just locking guys up and then letting them out I don’t think is necessarily the best bang for our buck, and I think there are some things that we can do to make these guys more productive when they come out.”

Turner said he also “will be continuing to work on juvenile justice reform in terms of how we deal with juvenile offenders and seeing what we can do to make sure not only that those who commit the crime do the time, but also try to prepare them for the future once they’re released.”

Turner also wants those who are in prison for drug-related crimes to receive treatment. “Over 50% of the people…incarcerated today are incarcerated because of drugs, so I think that we’ve got to look at that part of the criminal justice system that results from the illness of drug abuse—try to treat it as a disease and deal with those suffering from that illness, and then still work on dealing with those who are truly bad guys, making certain that they get their just punishment.”

In terms of more affordable housing for Illinoisans, “We will work on seeing what we could do to create rental assistance, rental subsidies, but also look at this question of affordability,” he said. “I think that we’re going to have to come up with a new definition in the 9th District, because I don’t believe that $1.5 million homes are the kind of homes that most of the people that live in the 9th District can afford. We’re going to have to do something to make certain that those people who live there, who certainly can’t afford those million-dollar homes, will be able to be home owners and be productive citizens here in the state.

 “I will continue to work on issues that will try to stimulate employment, because I see that as being a real issue, not only in my community, but in the State of Illinois,” he said. With more jobs in Illinois moving from the manufacturing and agricultural sectors to the technology sector, Turner said, communities have to change "the way they survive." He wants to find ways to train workers for these newer fields.

Turner also favors universal healthcare, "seeing what we can do to try to make more healthcare available,” he said. “Healthcare and the rising cost of pharmaceuticals is an issue that affects all of us statewide, and whatever we can do to curb or try to curtail costs, or make healthcare more affordable, I will be willing lend my support for.”

Dorothy L. Walton, the Democratic challenger, is a foster mother of three girls and has worked as a real estate broker for 25 years. For the past 15 years, she has been a member of State Senator Ricky Hendon’s organization, currently serving as the treasurer for Hendon's re-election campaign. “I’ve been involved usually behind the scenes, as long as someone was going to stand up,” she said, noting that after things changed involving the mortgage industry, she decided it was time to take a stand on her own by running for office.

“I was very heavily involved in the eminent domain issue in the 27th Ward,” she said. “I also took on the relative foster mom battle, when they [state officials] were saying that the relative foster homes," in which relatives take care of juveniles, seniors, or the disabled, "were substandard."

State legislation HB 4050, which was designed to protect borrowers from unscrupulous loan originators "was something that just stuck in my craw, when they singled out only ten of the ZIP codes, which I thought was just totally unfair and redlined a lot of the properties and home owners,” she said. The legislation later was rewritten to apply to all of Cook County.

Walton wants to be a voice of the people. “I don’t think I’d use my vote to just further myself; I’d want to be a true representative of the people’s needs,” she said. “We have a very diverse district, representing a lot of different people, ethnically and economically. It doesn’t matter to me if I’m the only one who says 'no' and that I’m going to stand up for something that is right.”

If elected, Walton would work to bring more dollars to programs for Chicago Public Schools literacy, adult literacy, and job training. She would lower property taxes, improve seniors’ property tax breaks, and assist single-parent childcare programs. She also supports universal healthcare.

Walton has facilitated classes on house ownership and served as a Reading is Fundamental coordinator, Director of the Madison and Western Chamber of Commerce, and a mentor in the Hug-A-Child program for inner-city teens.

Green Party candidate Tony Cox is a community activist running on multiple platforms, including better public transportation, more affordable housing, social programs for drug users, helping ex-offenders, and, most notably, healthcare and the deficit.

“I believe in some type of quasi-socialistic medicine,” he said. “I believe it’s unfair that we promote the number of medical students who go to medical school on our tax dollars and then after they become doctors, basically you never see them again. I believe any medical student who got a degree from a state-run university should serve at least two years in some type of public medical capacity, serving those most in need.”

Cox also would like to see changes made in distributing new medications. “I believe that drugs that are just released into the market should be sold at a reduced price for the first two years,” he said, “It takes two years to find out if a drug is killing you after it’s been approved. We don’t find out about it until two years down the road that the very drug that is supposed to help us is now killing us.”

As for fixing the deficit, Cox would like to see all lawmakers in the state take a pay freeze for the first two years of their term. “I will be the first one to take a freeze in my salary,” he said.