Three hopefuls vie for GOP primary nod for 11th Congressional District

BATAVIA – Three conservative hopefuls answered questions at a League of Women Voters candidates forum, each hoping to win the GOP nomination in the March 19 primary.

Jerry Evans of Winfield Township near Warrenville, Susan Hathaway-Altman of Blackberry Township near Geneva and Dr. Kent Mercado of Naperville responded to questions at the Feb. 22 forum at Batavia City Hall.

The winner will face incumbent U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, or his primary opponent, Qasim Rashad, in the Nov. 5 general election.

All three are in favor of providing taxes to support private, charter and religious schools and Second Amendment gun rights, among other issues.

Hathaway-Altman and Evans both said they are pro-life.

“I was very, very happy with the Dobbs decision that the [U.S.] Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade,” Evans said, “because I believe that Roe v. Wade was a decision based on judicial activism. I believe that Dobbs got it right. It also returned the decision back to the states.”

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe v. Wade.

In federal office, Evans said he would focus on ending taxpayer-funded abortions “so that people are not paying for abortions against their conscience.”

The Hyde Amendment, passed by Congress in 1976, bans the use of federal funds to pay for abortions with exceptions for when the life of the pregnant person is in danger or when the pregnancy results from sexual assault or incest.

“We have to make sure we have mandated child support for mothers who are pregnant with a child,” Evans said. “So if there is a man who got a woman pregnant, I believe that man should be paying child support right away.”

Evans said he would support better funding for pregnancy centers, especially if they don’t have family to help them.

Hathaway-Altman also supported decisions on abortion rights going back to the states.

“It’s not an enumerated right in the Constitution in the 10th Amendment. That decision and many others belong to the states,” Hathaway-Altman said. “I believe in small government.”

She said she would like to see Planned Parenthood offer options of adoption and other health care such as contraceptives and the morning-after pill.

“I’m a huge advocate for women. I believe in medical freedom, but I am very pro-life,” Hathaway-Altman said. “I want to make that very clear.”

Mercado said he would not support federal legislation to codify abortion restrictions.

“After Dobbs, it went back to the states,” Mercado said. “I would not support any federal legislation regarding codifying anything for abortion nor would I do anything on a federal level to limit ... abortion.”

Limiting gun violence

Regarding gun violence, Mercado said that also should be decided at the state level.

“I do not support federal overreaching laws,” Mercado said. “I am a Second Amendment rights person. I personally have a very large set of weapons that I inherited that are military-grade equipment. It is at the state level, as it should be, just like abortion and some of the other things have been done at the state level.”

Evans said the need lies in addressing mental health with more resources and focusing on more funding for school safety, such as police officers in schools, bullet-proof glass, locks on classroom doors and a single point of entry.

“There are a number of school shootings or mass shootings that would never have happened if we had done a better job at addressing mental health and done a better job at addressing school safety,” Evans said.

Hathaway-Altman agreed that mental health is in crisis in the U.S. and programs that address suicide prevention and school bullying are underfunded.

“We need to invest in more mental health care and we definitely need to put bad actors in jail,” Hathaway-Altman said. “We need to have a tough-on-crime approach for violent offenders and restorative justice approach for those offending for the first time that are not violent.

“I am a Constitutionalist. As I said before, I stand up for our Constitution and I am fully in support of our Second Amendment – and no more federal laws.”

Reforming K-12 education

Regarding federally funded policies to improve or reform K-12 education, Hathaway-Altman said “tax dollars should follow the child.”

“We pay a lot of taxes to schools,” she said. “Our rate in Illinois of literacy in math, English, language arts and reading are 37% when a child graduates high school. We have to focus on academic excellence. The way we do that is to create competition among the schools. ... I think the competitive nature of school choice would create that environment.”

Mercado said he believes in school choice.

“I believe in charter schools,” Mercado said. “I do agree with some of the other candidates to have the money follow the child. ... I feel that you need to have opportunities and apprenticeship training back into the school systems.”

Evans said education should be “centered on the student.”

“And it should be centered as well on the parent who is over that student,” Evans said. “We need to make sure money is following students and not systems. We should be empowering school choice.”

When families are struggling financially and their local schools are not succeeding, “I think it’s very, very important that we empower those children, especially from poorer backgrounds, to have those opportunities, whether it be a charter school or some other private school or something else like that,” Evans said.

Fossil fuel

Regarding the continued use of fossil fuels and environmental concerns, Evans said the U.S. should be energy independent and that includes opening the Keystone Pipeline and approving drilling leases on federal land for oil and gas.

“We need to make sure that we are focused on getting cleaner air and cleaner water,” Evans said. “I don’t know why anyone would be against making sure we have a healthier environment for people to thrive and live in the future.”

Although encouraging the pipeline and more oil and gas leases might seem counterintuitive, Evans said, the nation was getting better environmental metrics during the previous administration because of the effort to be energy independent.

Hathaway-Altman said the economy and inflation has hurt the middle class and low-income individuals in the past three years.

“And the No. 1 reason is we have to get back to a strategy that embraces fossil fuel and we have to become energy independent and net exporters of energy to actually get into a position where we are financially secure ... rather than in debt,” Hathaway-Altman said. “I’m a very big proponent of ecology.

“I love the Earth. I love going to the beaches and the beautiful countryside. I think we all agree we want to save the Earth. We need to combine strategies ... and capitalize on the ones that work.”

Mercado said he believes the U.S. has an influence on the environment, but a transition away from fossil fuels has to come from a sustainable energy plan.

“We have to be good to the Earth,” Mercado said. “We are the only country that is part of the Paris Accord that actually lowered our emissions. We are doing better than any other country.

“We need to work on a global capacity because you have China and India that are polluting at 10, 20, 100 times more than we are and you can’t cripple us in the meantime. I do want to make a transition, but we have to do that when we have sustainable energy.”

Evans is a small-business owner, father and husband who is making his third attempt to gain a seat in Congress. He came in third among a field of six in the 2022 primary and Hathaway-Altman came in fourth, both losing to Catalina Lauf, who later lost to Foster.

Evans came in sixth in a field of seven in the 2020 primary for the 14th Congressional District, losing to Jim Oberweis, who then lost to incumbent Lauren Underwood.

Hathaway-Altman said she has spent more than 32 years as a chief sales and strategy officer for a software company and is a small-business owner and owner of a nonprofit.

She said she is a Republican committeeman endorsed by state Sen. Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Rockford, and Kane County Treasurer Chris Lauzen.

Mercado is both a medical doctor and an attorney, as well as a humanitarian, father, husband and businessman. Mercado said he has responded to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, getting 1,000 beds to the area and personally performing amputations as a surgeon there, as well as donating $10 million worth of supplies to Pakistan.

The Central and Aurora Leagues hosted the forum, which is available for viewing on the BATV YouTube channel, the leagues’ websites and the IL Vote Guide.