WASHINGTON – Republican Congress members Adam Kinzinger and Rodney Davis voted with U.S. House Democrats this week and against President Trump's efforts to fund the southern border wall.
Illinois is now represented with two Democrat U.S. senators and 13 Democrat U.S. House members. While the U.S. Senate is still controlled by Republicans this session, the U.S. House is controlled by Democrats – including three new members from Illinois.
Illinois lost two Republican U.S. House members and nearly lost two more in November. Evidence that the Democrats have targets on the 16th and 13th CDs for 2020 is pounding inboxes already – Congress members Rodney Davis and Adam Kinzinger will have well-financed Democrat challenges in 2020.
And within days of new Democrat control, both Kinzinger and Davis showed evidence of succumbing to Democrats by "getting along" and not seeming so "uncooperative" – hoping the Democrats will aim elsewhere in 2020.
Kinzinger – who has been a part of the "No Labels" bi-partisan caucus for a while, has frustrated 16th CD Tea Party conservatives. He's avoided the very IL GOP base that helped him oust former 16th CD Congressman Don Manzullo – a solid, but aging, conservative. There are lots of regrets being mulled around as 16th CD conservatives learned how Kinzinger voted this week. Conservatives in the 13th CD are likely to be just as disappointed with Rodney Davis' folding.
Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times writes:
On Wednesday, Kinzinger was one of eight Republicans voting with Democrats on a bill to reopen key Treasury agencies, including the IRS.
On Thursday, Kinzinger and Davis were two of 10 Republicans voting to reopen Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and related agencies.
Also on Thursday, Kinzinger and Davis were two of 12 Republicans voting to reopen the Department of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and related agencies.
Davis, who appeared briefly with President Trump when he came into Mike Bost's 12th CD to prop up Bost during the tough 2018 campaign, now is voting against Trump's "build the wall" agenda, undermining GOP unity among the U.S. House ranks on shutdown votes.
The only Illinois U.S. House members that vote with the conservative-leaning Republican U.S. House leadership now appears to be Republicans Darin LaHood (18th), Mike Bost (12th) and John Shimkus (15th).
This might end Adam Kinzinger’s hope of running for U.S. Senate in 2020.
The strategy of not supporting President Trump is a losing strategy for republican. The whole “moderate” thing will not grow the Illinois GOP.
I support “legal immigration” and do not support illegal immigration. In addition, I do NOT support amnesty and open borders.
I say: Build the wall.
To insinuate that Adam and Rodney are not supportive of border security and President Trump’s efforts is complete nonsense. The votes detailed were to open essential services to their constituents, especially as it pertains to the USDA. Farmers are in the process of preparing for spring planting season and there are multiple services within USDA that are time sensitive and critical to the Ag Industry and which have nothing to do with the ‘wall’ aka Border Security.
I think Illinois Review (of which I am generally supportive of) needs to quit undermining Republicans ( especially Rodney and Adam) that have legitimate policy differences with this administration.
Party discipline is something that Illinois Democrats are very good at and ruthless in enforcing, a topic that IR has written about and criticized for many years. Republicans, by our very nature are repelled by such conformity. Keep it that way!
If they had a strong voting record and well pronounced policy on illegal immigration, I could possibly respect their vote on the shutdown.
As it is they appear to be pandering as to how they think they must vote to get reelected and nothing more.
He’s not that stupid.
There is no Republican that can win statewide in Illinois.
Stop being ridiculous.
Please read the byline at the top. It says “crossroads of the conservative community”. It says nothing about Republicans.
It’s not IR’s responsibility to carry the water of RINO Kinzinger.
McKinzinger has never been supportive of border security.
I live in “farm county,” and so far I here of no such fears from the farmers I drink coffee with every morning.
So Kinzinger and Davis support the national imperative of “border security.” Pelosi and Schumer say the same.
But when the rubber hits the road, weasels Kinzinger and Davis put pork for their locals over the national interest.
What RINO, Kinzinger and Davis apologist, Schielein, doesn’t seem to understand, is that conservatives in the GOP have been so abused and taken for granted by the RINO business elites – that we are no longer part of the Republican party.
After the Rauner atrocity, this appeal to Republican unity is laughable.
What Kinzinger and Davis should be doing, is telling their farmers and USDA regulators to get behind the President and support the border wall, in order to re-open the government.
They can further explain to their pork-oriented constituents, that without their support for Trump, they (Kinzinger and Davis) won’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of advancing in the GOP Congressional caucus or getting re-elected in ’02.
Mark in this case the word moderate really means radical.
Love Saves Lives
Carl Lambrecht
Republicans are free to speak not like the Communist Party (Democrats). We need to protect our southern boarder from Narcotics traffic.
Love Saves Lives
Carl Lambrecht
As I recall weren’t Adam Kinzinger and Aaron Schock unusually close “friends”? Maybe Kinzinger will prance off and run as the Democrat he is.
What legitimate differences do Rodney and Adam have with the Trump administration. Building a will is a promise Trump made, and he intends to keep this promise. As far as services being limited, are Rodney and Adam more concerned about a temporary inconvenience that some of their constituents might be facing, rather than what their real concern should be, keeping this nation and its people safe. So Rodney and Adam want the government to fully open? And then what would happen? A wall would never be built. From what I have observed about Rodney and Adam, they are the type of Republicans who do this state no good. Any Republican who doesn’t stand with Trump on the very important issue of securing our border with a wall, doesn’t belong in Congress as a Republican.
Undermining Republicans must be done by Illinois Review and others, for calling yourself a Republican with an “R” in front of your name doesn’t make you one. I dealt with Mark Kirk and Robert Dold as my congressmen in the 10th District, so I know of what I speak.
Gotta keep that FREE MONEY for farmers coming down the pipe! Sooooeeeeee pigs!
Illinois Review should stop undermining???? Attention should be paid to supposed
Republicans, like Kinzinger and Davis,
who break the kind of solidarity that GETS THINGS DONE! Enough of this faux independence!
BUILD THE WALL !
Oh,Nancy – you are so right! I remember going up to Mark Kirk at a Republican picnic in Des Plaines in the mid 90s and speaking to him about the need for immigration control (about which I had just been speaking on Channel 11, Chicago Tonight) and having Kirk run away from me, as if I had the bubonic plague.
Dold was certainly every bit as useless. And John Edward Porter, from our district – was only marginally better.