Scheurer Considering Run Against Bean As Independent

Lindenhurst Resident: Candidate in 2004 Democratic Primary

By Ralph Zahorik
The News Sun

U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Barrington Township, might have three opponents in the November 2006 election.

Bill Scheurer of Lindenhurst, an anti-Iraq War activist who ran against Bean in the 2004 Democratic primary, is considering another run as an independent or third-party candidate.

Scheurer has said his campaign will focus on the war, universal health care, balancing the budget and ending dependency on foreign oil. He also hopes to capitalize on organized labor's disappointment over Bean's support for the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

Scheurer recently won support from one union, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which has contributed $5,000 to his campaign. He said five other "large unions" are considering supporting him but he declined to name them.

Scheurer called Bean's vote for CAFTA and other measures "a betrayal of working people."

Other "anti-worker" legislation Bean supported were the bankruptcy reform bill, the estate tax repeal, the "Enron/Halliburton" energy bill and the Patriot Act, he said.

Bean "is focused on her job and she has already demonstrated the responsiveness and effectiveness she promised to bring to the position," said Brian Herman, a spokesman for Bean.

"She has consistently voted in the best interest of her district and will continue to be a fiscally conservative and socially moderate advocate for her her constituents," he said.

Bean was the only Democratic member of Congress in Illinois voting for CAFTA. A total of 15 Democrats nationwide supported the trade agreement.

The Chicago Federation of Labor and the United Steel Workers of America organized pickets at Bean's Schaumburg office after the CAFTA vote. The Northeastern Illinois Federation of Labor, the Gurnee-based central labor body for AFL-CIO union locals in Lake and McHenry counties, dropped her as their "person-of-the-year" honoree after the CAFTA vote.

"We feel the need to support someone now who will look after the needs of working Americans in Congress," said Jim Brown, Midwest vice president of the Machinists, in a statement. "Bill Scheurer looks to be that guy for 2006."

The Machinists donated about $15,000 to help Bean defeat longtime Republican Congressman Phillip Crane last year. Brown has called Bean's vote on CAFTA, and other votes "a slap in the face."

"This union represents a lot of hard-working men and women ... These are the people I stand with," Scheurer said. "I will never take their money — and their blood, sweat and tears — in my campaign, and then turn around when I get to Congress and vote against them when they need me most.

"That is what the incumbent did," he said. "She rode into Congress on their backs and now has no further use for them. And it's not just labor. She has let down a lot of people with her bad votes."

Unions gave Bean more than $200,000 in her 2004 campaign to oust Crane. To date, she has reported raising $1.1 million for her 2006 campaign.

Six Republicans are seeking the GOP nomination to run against Bean. They are: Kenneth Arnold, a Gurnee businessman and political activist; state Rep. Robert Churchill, R-Lake Villa; Kathy Salvi of Wauconda, a lawyer and wife of former state legislator Al Salvi; Teresa Bartels of Countryside Lake near Mundelein, chair of the University Center of Lake County; Aaron Lincoln of Wauconda, a former attorney with the Department of Defense; and former investment banker David McSweeney of Barrington.

The primary election is March 21.

Scheurer got 22 percent of the Democratic vote when he ran in the Democratic primary against Bean last year. He spent little and had only a few volunteers. Scheurer ran as a Democrat against state Rep. JoAnn Osmond, R-Antioch, last November, receiving 42 percent of the vote.

Scheurer, speaking at a Letter Carriers Union meeting in Gurnee on Thursday, said his campaign will focus on his opposition to the war in Iraq, supporting universal health care, balancing the federal budget and "ending our dependency of foreign oil."

In November 2006, "Two candidates will be out there after the Republican vote and one candidate will be after the Democratic vote," he said.

Two of Scheurer's four children have served in the military, in the Army and Marines, and have served in Okinawa, Kuwait and Iraq. His 26-year-old son is stationed in Iraq with his National Guard unit.

Scheurer and his wife, Randi, are members of Military Families Speak Out, a peace group.

Scheurer, 55, has degrees in religious studies and law and has worked as a lay minister, an attorney and a business owner. He described himself as a "Catholic/Mormon." He said he was CEO and principal shareholder of an Internet technology company, welcomeamerica.com for about 17 years.

He currently is a writer, editor of the non-profit Internet publication called Peace Majority Report and is involved with Hourglass Books, a non-profit publish-on-demand enterprise.

The Scheurers have lived in Lindenhurst for 27 years.

Independent Candidate Emerges For Bean’s Seat

By Joseph Ryan
Daily Herald Staff Writer

Freshman Democratic U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean may have to fight for her seat from both sides in November 2006 as she faces not only a Republican, but also a former Democrat with union support.

Bill Scheurer, who lost to Bean in the 2004 Democratic primary, says he is running either as an independent or under a third-party label for the 8th Congressional District that covers most of Lake, northwestern Cook and western McHenry counties.

He will have to decide by December when petitions are due.

The Lindenhurst attorney’s campaign pitch on balanced budgets and universal health care could make waves in the 2006 November campaign for Bean, who relied on traditionally Democratic supporters in 2004 but reached out to moderate Republicans to unseat Phil Crane, a 35-year conservative icon in the U.S. House.

Scheurer says his candidacy has legs this time because he can attract Bean’s former union supporters, who have split ways with her for supporting an international trade pact they say will cost American jobs.

An early sign of this support, he says, is a $5,000 check to his campaign from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Scheurer claims five other large unions have promised an equal amount, but he declined to name them.

“We went out and supported her campaign last year,” said Jim Brown, who heads the machinist’s unions Midwest territory. “She slapped us in the face.”

The machinists union, which represents 25,000 Illinois workers, has given Bean $15,000 over the last two years, federal records show. Overall, unions gave her 2004 campaign more than $235,000, out of a total of about $1.5 million in her campaign war chest.

Bean’s spokesman Brian Herman declined to comment on Scheurer’s candidacy or union support, other than to say she stands by her vote. Several large corporations in the district supported the trade pact.

This summer, large unions attacked Bean for voting for the Central American Free Trade Agreement, a measure trade-hawk Crane also supported. The Chicago Federation of Labor, an umbrella group for several big unions, and the United Steel Works of America organized pickets of her Schaumburg office. Some vowed to run a challenger.

But for now Scheurer’s $5,000 check is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of cash set to be spent in next year’s general election.

In 2004, Bean and Crane spent a combined $3.1 million. Outside groups spent millions more. This year, Bean already has more than $1.1 million in the bank.

The six Republicans facing off in the primary are also amassing massive campaign war chests. Barrington Hills investment banker David McSweeney and Wauconda attorney Kathy Salvi have committed to spend $1 million.

In his 2004 primary bid against Bean, Scheurer roped in 22 percent of the vote with few volunteers and no money. He had an equally small operation for his subsequent run against Republican state Rep. Jo Ann Osmond in the 61st District in November 2004. He lost that election with 42 percent of the vote.

“We didn’t really run campaigns,” Scheurer said of his earlier bids. “It was more political speech. This is political action.”

Scheurer said his campaign mantra will focus on supporting universal health care, opposing the Iraq war, balancing the federal budget and spending significant public funds to research alternative energy.

Bean Treads Carefully On Iraq

By Maura Kelly Lannan
Associated Press

Freshman U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean recently returned from a five-day trip to Iraq, where she spent time talking with soldiers to gather insight from inside the war zone.

But when it comes to Bean's own position on the war, the targeted Democrat remains tight-lipped.

Bean, treading in Republican turf, rebuffs questions about whether she would have voted to invade Iraq-- mirroring tactics that helped her win her seat. When asked if she supports the war now, she will say only that she supports the troops.

"The reality is we are there. And right now, Baghdad is not safe for people to walk down the street. We need to make sure that the area is secure, and our military is doing a great job to do just that," Bean said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

With the American death toll in Iraq quickly approaching 2,000, many voters in the Republican-leaning 8th Congressional District say the war in Iraq will play a role in how they cast their ballots. But their opinions on how big that role will be are mixed, particularly as they weigh the issue against others closer to home

"I think we need to get back to square one, and square one is the United States of America, it's our economy, it's what's going on in this country," said Pat Kinnane, 49, a laid-off airline baggage supervisor from Hoffman Estates who usually votes Democratic. "I'm going to look at candidates who talk about taking U.S. tax dollars and doing what's in the best interest of our country."

Bean said she has received more questions on Iraq recently, but she believes those questions play into more far-reaching concerns about the economy, emergency preparedness, unemployment and workers' pensions.

"There's no question it's higher on people's radar. A lot of that has to do with economic concerns, not just national security, but about the billions of dollars that are being spent there after Katrina," Bean said.

Bean unseated 35-year veteran Republican Congressman Phil Crane last fall partly by portraying him as out of touch with his constituents in the district northwest of Chicago. The Barrington businesswoman played down being a Democrat and instead promised to work hard and keep in touch with the district.

Republicans have tried to paint Bean as a liberal in moderate clothing and have targeted her seat as one of a handful of the most vulnerable for Democrats in 2006.

Bean said she went to Iraq with three other members of Congress to "get some anecdotal, street level perspective from the troops that you cannot get from briefings."

But she also downplays the importance of the war as a single issue for voters next year.

"I think people are looking for who will represent them across the board on issues they're telling me matter most," she said.

Kathy Salvi, one of several Republicans who hope to challenge Bean in the fall, said she thinks voters are focused on the war, which she supports, as well as other issues.

"Nobody likes war, Republican, Democrat or nothing. But if we're going to enter into a war, we better win it and we have to have a strong policy. A stable Iraq is essential to a stable Middle East and a stable world," she said.

Philip Howe, 65, a retired computer repair worker from Elk Grove Village, worries that Democrats will try to make the war into a negative in the election. He plans to support Republicans in the next election and says the war has been worth the loss of life.

"Nobody is probably happy about the way the Iraq war is going, but then it took us 100 or 200 years to develop the kind of democracy that we have. It's not something you expect to happen overnight," he said.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Diana Maxwell, 56, a homemaker from Schaumburg, said the war is one issue that has pushed her closer to Democrats than Republicans.

"I didn't like Bush to start with and I like him less as time goes on and it's really turning me into a straight-voting Democrat," Maxwell said. "I used to call myself an independent but it's getting harder and harder."


Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Scheurer to Run in 8th District

‘Progressive Conservative’ Independent Candidate Takes on Bean, Republicans

By BRENDA BALIN
Special to Lakeland Media

While Republican Party members fight it out among themselves to determine who will challenge Melissa Bean (D-Barrington) for the 8th Congressional District seat she wrested away from Republican Phil Crane in the last election, independent candidate William Scheurer is mounting his own challenge.

Scheurer, who refers to himself as a “progressive conservative,” has a platform that defies traditional categorization, blending traditional conservative fiscal restraint with “liberal” social consciousness.

“My platform covers four issues,” Scheurer said. “They are a balanced budget, ‘smart’ security, energy independence and universal health insurance.” Scheurer said he planned to create a third party, tentatively to be called Common Ground. He defined the principles of the emergent party as progressive in its values and goals but conservative in its means and methods.

“We believe the government has a role to play in meeting human needs,” Scheurer said. ”We also believe that people who have more have a responsibility to help people who have less. We believe in progressive taxation.”

On the “conservative” side of the ledger, Scheurer and his party favor a balanced budget. “I think government should do what it can do well,” Scheurer said. “We’re calling for bringing real management principles to government, and carefully selecting what we choose to get government involved in.” His party also would favor limited government, and the principle that “markets do better than government at meeting most human needs.”

Scheurer, who has had two children in the military, including one now serving in Baghdad, is a member of the Military Families Speak Out, an anti-war group. His proposed policy of “smart security” calls for “a shift away from a focus on war and aggression and towards peaceful diplomacy with military preparedness to deal with the risks we now face.”

Scheurer notes that the policies followed in the past few years have “eroded good will in the world, engendered enmity, alienated our traditional allies and agitated people who were opposed to our policies to begin with.” He asked, “At the human level, do you feel safer now (than in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks)?”

In the quest for a balanced budget, Scheurer sees the war involvement as a further drain. “I’m in favor of restoring tax equity,” he said. “We need to look at both spending and revenue.” He believes that by refocusing on foreign affairs the country can “be safer and have a bounty left over.”

Scheurer sees the war as being “all about oil dependency, not about freedom.” He pointed out that there are genocidal actions occurring in the Sudan, Uganda and Rwanda, to name a few places. “There are tyrannies, dictatorships, but we don’t send troops in there,” he said. “The war is about oil,” Scheurer said. “Everything else is smoke and mirrors.”

To satisfy the need for energy, Scheurer would redirect the same kind of effort that marked space exploration into seeking sources of clean, renewable energy.

The final plank in Scheurer’s platform is health care. He would favor a system of mandatory health insurance, patterned after auto insurance laws. “We lag behind other (developed) countries in health care,” he said.

At billscheurer.blogspot.com, Scheurer’s personal profile notes, “One of the things that meant the most to him as a businessman was that he always provided full medical coverage for his co-workers, a rare achievement for a small business today.”

Scheurer opposes privatization of Social Security. “We should not submit our collective security to the ups and downs of Wall Street,” he said. “ENRON should have cured us of that.” He would have Social Security administered progressively, “to make sure that people who struggled all their lives can still live in dignity.” He suggested that those who were well off should not require the same benefits as those who had substantially less.

Scheurer, who considers himself a life-oriented person, opposes abortion, capital punishment and war. Regarding abortion, he would allow for “extenuating circumstances” such as rape, incest and the life and health of the woman. “We’d have to explore this and set parameters,” he said. “But 95 percent of the voices in the discussion should be women, and the rest should be jurists and sociologists.”

Supported by the “GLBT” faction (gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transsexual), Scheurer said civil unions for gays represent “equal protection for every citizen.” He said defining spiritual marriage is “an issue for churches.”

Scheurer was born on Dec. 5, 1950. He has a B.A, in religious studies and a J.D. in law. Scheurer has been married for 35 years to Randi, an artist and homemaker, with a degree in fine arts. The couple has lived in Lake County for 27 years, raising four children (ages 24-31) in their Lindenhurst home.

Two of their children have served in the military (Army and Marines), including tours in Okinawa, Kuwait and Iraq. Their son is now with the National Guard, stationed in Baghdad. They are members of Military Families Speak Out.

Bill has been active in several non-profit groups, such as P.A.D.S. (a local homeless shelter), Human Rights First and others. Scheurer has degrees in religious studies and law, and has worked as a lay minister, an attorney, and a small business owner. He now works as a writer, publisher, and peace activist.

A campaign web site will soon be posted. Until then, his platform can be found at billscheurer.blogspot.com. Policies he favors are also explained at www.peacemajority.org. He can be e-mailed at scheurer2006@comcast.net.

brendabalin@aol.com

Where Fear Can't Take Us

By Ira Chernus

Who can deny it? It's an almost physical pleasure to watch George W. Bush's fall from grace. And it's so easy. All you have to do is say, "Bush has botched the war on terrorism. Bush is not keeping us safe from terrorists -- or from the terrors of nature." You've already got over half the country with you, and more are jumping on board the anti-Bush train every day. But before we settle in to ride that train to political glory, we ought to consider whether it can really take us to a better future.

A recent TV ad from MoveOn.org sums up the commonest theme of the campaign to cripple, if not topple, the Bush presidency: "We're no safer today than we were four years ago." The rest of the case goes something like this (and who can deny its accuracy): We have good reason to be afraid. We're more vulnerable than ever to another attack on our soil, because the Bush administration is fighting the war on terrorism totally the wrong way. In fact, in Iraq it isn't really fighting the war on terrorism at all. In growing numbers, critics, even conservative ones, agree that the President's misadventure in Iraq has diverted us from the war we have to fight, the war against the real threat: Al Qaeda.

At the huge DC peace rally, speakers denounced the war as a diversion from another pressing threat. "National security begins in New Orleans, homeland security begins at home," Jesse Jackson told the crowd. When real danger was upon us, the President's critics charged, you were busy doing something else. You failed in your solemn duty to protect us. How can we trust you to protect us in the future from the threats that we fear? One demonstrator's sign summed up the point succinctly: "Make levees, not war."

Again, who can deny that making levees makes much more sense than sending more Louisiana National Guards to Iraq? But if we only hold back the peril we fear, and stop at that, we won't ever get real safety or security. Here's why:

Hurricane Katrina has sealed the public image of Bush as a failure. He is, after all, a one-issue president. His success hinges completely on getting high marks in protecting us from danger. Now his big gamble -- turning the war on terror into a war on Iraq -- is backfiring big time. When the waters of Lake Pontchartrain washed away much of New Orleans, they also washed away most of Bush's "political capital." But he had already been losing plenty of that between the Tigris and Euphrates.

The Bush administration still doesn't seem to get it. With hundreds of thousands descending on Washington to protest his war, the President could only repeat his stale old mantra: "will, resolve, character." With more of the same coming from the White House, we can pretty well count on a steadily weakening presidency -- unless there is another terrorist attack that kills a large number of Americans or destroys a symbol of American nationalism.

The President's only chance to recoup would be a reprise of 9/11, sending another chill of fear up the spine of the body politic. Bush's success has always depended on the fear factor, on the prospect of threat without end.

Fear does move public opinion. That's a lesson the anti-Bush forces have learned well. Their nemesis in the White House has turned out, in this way, to be their master teacher. They are using fear most effectively to bring down a presidency built on fear. It's a delicious irony.

It's also a blessing, at least in the short run. A weakened presidency suffers on every front. The privatization of social security is moribund and will soon be pronounced dead on Capitol Hill. Chief Justice Roberts will be bad, but he may not be the Scalia clone that Bush promised his right-wing base. And when was the last time you heard the words "compassionate conservatism"? Though there is plenty to worry about under a weak Bush, it would have been far worse under a strong Bush.

But what price will we pay for this blessing in the long run, if we purchase it with the currency of mounting public fear?

The Price of Fear

Fear can be an energizing emotion. It can move us to fight or flight. But fear, when it becomes overwhelming, is more likely to paralyze -- think of the proverbial deer in the headlights. Long ago, in Hiroshima, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton discovered that when there's too much fear, it curdles into despair. If threat seems to be everywhere, with no escape in sight, people stop trying to imagine how things could get better. In fact, it seems that they stop imagining anything at all, except more peril. Lifton called this condition "psychic numbing."

His great insight was that the bomb didn't have to fall for this tragedy to befall us. In a sense, Hiroshima had already come to America. During all those Cold War years, when Americans lived under the shadow of superpower "mutual assured destruction" or MAD (as the madly accurate acronym of that moment had it), seeing no way out, psychic numbing took its toll. What historians often call the "national security state" has actually been a national insecurity state, based on the sort of numbing fear that was bound to make Americans more conservative, more fearful of change.

The idea of a whole society working together to imagine a better world, and then turning imagination into reality, has been off the American radar screen for some six decades now (except for a brief ray of light in the 1960s). When it seems safer to allow no significant change at all, politics naturally becomes an exercise in circling the wagons and hunkering down for an endless siege. The 9/11 attack and the Bush-orchestrated response insured that the United States would continue to be a hunkered-down national insecurity state (and now a homeland insecurity state) well into the 21st century.

All of us, supporters and critics alike, have absorbed this lesson. When we criticize Bush because he has failed to keep us safe, we score valuable political points. But we pay a price for those points, because we reinforce the basic premises of the national insecurity state -- that danger is everywhere and can never be eliminated; that all systemic change is dangerous; and that our best hope lies in a government strong enough and pugnacious enough to prevent significant change and so protect us from fear's worst effects.

The urge to be safe, to keep fear at bay, is certainly natural and understandable. But after more than half a century in a state of heightened national insecurity, Americans have largely forgotten the other side of the human coin: the urge to be daring, to take chances that can lead to positive change. Insecurity is now in the national bloodstream. That's why anti-Bush campaigns that evoke fear can be so successful. To be successful in the longer term, though, we have to constrict that sense of insecurity, to return it to the more modest place where it belongs, until actual security comes into sight.

Otherwise, no matter how much anti-Bush campaigns weaken the President, they end up reinforcing the pervasive insecurity that has been the key to his political success. They make it more likely that the public will want future leaders in the Bush mold, who demand "peace through strength." No flip-flops need apply.

Securing a Politics of Hope

The human resource -- potentially so readily available -- that can help us break out of this cycle of fear and numbing is imagination. Imagine American political language and life no longer based simply on the question, "How can we be safe?", but on the question, "How can we make life better for all of us?" Imagine it for a little while, and you begin to realize that such a profound shift would give us the best chance -- maybe the only chance -- to be really secure.

Consider, for example, Class 5 hurricanes. It's a good idea to build stout levees, if they are just a first step. For real security, though, we have to move beyond fear to hope. We have to focus on the positive changes that will help everyone, even if there is never another great storm. We should reclaim wetlands -- nature's own buffer against flooding -- to create a stable environment where a myriad of species, including humans, can flourish creatively. We should support the decades-old local organizations in poor, stricken areas, the folks who know how to build vibrant communities in their own neighborhoods. We should take steps to cool down the Earth to make wetlands more stable, growing seasons more predictable, and harvests more bountiful.

The prospect of really making things better gives people a reason to think and act together. It makes them feel empowered. Once set loose, hopeful attitudes and actions build on each other. That's when genuine change begins -- whether in relation to wetlands, poverty, global warming or any other issue, including the "war on terrorism."

You hardly have to be as well educated as the average Al Qaeda activist (who, it turns out, is pretty well educated) to see that present American efforts to "make the world better" are mainly efforts to protect U.S. power and interests. The President and the power brokers can hide that truth behind a verbal smokescreen, using phrases like "protect America," "keep our nation safe," and "defend our homeland against foreign enemies." It's an easy rhetorical trick.

Once you start talking the language of "protecting and defending," though, you're on your way into the land of self-fulfilling prophecies. To make the smokescreen work, the administration then has to turn everyone who disagrees into "the enemy." It's a natural next step to set out to destroy them, which, of course, turns them into genuine enemies.

But suppose the U.S. had spent the last six decades letting other people decide what "a better world" means to them and then helping them achieve their own goals. That's so far from the pattern of our foreign policy that it takes a wrenching effort just to imagine. Try to make that effort; then ask what kind of "terrorist threat" we would have. There's no way to know for sure. But it seems a reasonable bet that we'd be a lot safer than we are today.

It makes sense to join the liberal chorus of "end the war in Iraq so we can protect ourselves against terrorists" as long as it's just a first step, as long as we go on to say things like: "Instead of draining our national treasury for endless war, we demand that our tax dollars be used to repair the damage done to Iraq and to fund services in our communities." Those words, from the United for Peace and Justice website, echo the sentiment of hundreds of groups that are imagining a better future.

Many demand that our tax dollars be used to fund services and repair damage all over the world. After all, that's actually the best way to begin to protect ourselves from danger. But even that won't work if we do it simply because we are scared. We'll never be safe if we make safety our ultimate goal. We'll be safe only if we let safety be a by-product of a society working together to improve life for everyone.

The best way to be secure is to imagine a genuine politics of hope. Imagine. Unfortunately, when John Lennon said, "It's easy if you try," he was quite wrong. After six decades of our national insecurity state, it's incredibly hard. But it's an effort that anti-Bush forces ought to make. The alternative is, however inadvertently, to reinforce the politics of fear that Bush and his kind thrive on. The belief that danger is everywhere -- that we must have leaders whose great task is to keep us safe -- is the one great danger we really do need to protect ourselves against.

Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of American Nonviolence: The History of an Idea, and is currently working on Monsters to Destroy, a book about religion and the neoconservative war on terror. He can be reached at chernus@colorado.edu.

Copyright 2005 Ira Chernus

New CAFTA Damage Report Tracks Results of CAFTA Vote in Key Districts

Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch has announced the launch of the CAFTA Damage Report, an on-going series of reports that track the consequences of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in districts where members of Congress voted for the agreement despite opposition from constituents or their own misgivings.

In a blow to the Illinois working families who campaigned to put her in office in 2004 and in contradiction to a 2004 campaign pledge to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Rep. Melissa Bean (D Ill.-8) voted in favor of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), which eked through the House of Representatives on July 27 by a 217-215 vote. Bean's flip-flop has the citizens of Illinois' 8th district worried that their Congresswoman is either unable or unwilling to stand up for their concerns.

PUBLIC CITIZEN NEWS RELEASES

Sep. 29 - Spotlight on Illinois Rep. Bean's CAFTA Vote as New Government Data Show Continuing Loss of Manufacturing Jobs

Sep. 13 - Spotlight Back on Illinois Rep. Bean's Vote in Favor of CAFTA as Government Data Released Today Show a Record Monthly U.S. Trade Deficit

Aug. 25 - CAFTA Damage Report - With Illinois Jobs at Risk, Freshman Rep. Melissa Bean Flip-Flops from Campaign Pledge to Oppose NAFTA Expansions, Casts a Deciding CAFTA Vote

NEWS ARTICLES ON BEAN'S BAD CAFTA VOTE
"CAFTA Vote Outs 'Bush Democrats,'" The Nation, August 28, 2005.
"Democracy Sold Out - CAFTA Approved by Pork and a Hill of Beans," CommonDreams.org, July 28, 2005.
"Labor Won't Forget the CAFTA Dems," Capital Times, July 28, 2005.
"Union chief rips Bean for backing trade pact," Chicago Sun-Times, July 29, 2005.
"Unions Say They Will Punish Democrats For Supporting DR-CAFTA Deal," Inside US Trade, July 29, 2005.
"Bean loses 'Person of Year' award over CAFTA vote," Associated Press, August 4, 2005.
"Bean's Vote on CAFTA sparks AFL-CIO reaction," Barrington Courier-Review, August 11, 2005.
"House Democrats under pressure after votes for DR-CAFTA," Inside US Trade, August 12, 2005.
"Bean's Vote Upsets Union," Palatine Countryside (Ill.), August 18, 2005.