The congressman from the 18th District is Republican Aaron Schock, who is the first member of Congress born in the 1980s. Schock was elected in 2008 to succeed Republican Rep. Ray LaHood, who became President Obama’s Transportation secretary. Read More
The congressman from the 18th District is Republican Aaron Schock, who is the first member of Congress born in the 1980s. Schock was elected in 2008 to succeed Republican Rep. Ray LaHood, who became President Obama’s Transportation secretary.
Ambitious as a child—Schock started his own Individual Retirement Account at 14 and amassed $18,000 working in a gravel pit in high school—he graduated from Bradley University with a finance degree in just two years. While still in college, Schock decided to challenge the sitting Peoria school board president because the board had refused to let him graduate early. The incumbent challenged Schock’s petition signatures, and he was disqualified. Undeterred, Schock staged a write-in campaign and went door-to-door to campaign. On Election Day, he won with 60% of the vote. After two years, he was elected vice president of the board, and the following year, at 23, was unanimously elected school board president. Schock didn’t stop at local politics. In 2004, he mounted a campaign against eight-year incumbent Democratic state Rep. Ricca Slone, in a district rated as 60% Democratic. He argued that her liberal votes stopped jobs from coming to the district. Schock was outspent but, relying on the same grassroots outreach that had made his school board campaigns successful, won again.
In the Illinois General Assembly, Schock passed several bills in his first five months in office, including reforms in disability testing for students in elementary schools and a change in the way colleges report eligibility of transfer courses. Schock also worked on identity theft, prescription drug affordability, and road construction issues. He was also an outspoken opponent of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s economic policies.
When LaHood announced his retirement in July 2007 after seven terms, Schock quickly made plans to run for the open seat. He met with LaHood in mid-August to seek his support, and LaHood gave him the names of county chairmen to contact. Shortly afterward, LaHood learned his son was considering running for the seat, and so he called the chairmen to ask that they stay neutral, only to learn Schock had already received 11 endorsements. LaHood’s son decided not to run. During the campaign, Schock made some missteps. In November 2007 he called for China to impose sanctions on Iran in an effort to stop its nuclear program and, if it refused, for the United States to sell nuclear weapons to Taiwan. His two opponents in the Republican primary criticized him sharply and LaHood said the remark showed immaturity. Schock later said that his statement was meant to underscore China’s importance in dealing with Iran. In any case, he won the February 2008 primary with 71% of the vote.
In the general election, he did not shy away from President George W. Bush, as many other Republicans were that year, and even invited him to a summer fundraiser that brought in $700,000. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, from the neighboring 14th District, endorsed Schock as “the embodiment of the kind of candidates the Republican Party needs to win again.” His general election opponent, former television news reporter Colleen Callahan, was selected by the state Democratic Party to run after the withdrawal of primary winner Dick Versace, the former Bradley University men’s basketball coach. Schock raised $2.6 million to Callahan’s $600,000. Callahan ran ads criticizing Schock after he was investigated for possibly backdating tax documents when serving as a notary public for his father. Two weeks before the election, the Peoria County state’s attorney dropped the case. Schock won 59%-38%, losing only one county.
Schock arrived in Washington with near-instant celebrity as the new “Generation Y” congressman, parlaying his youth into positive stories in the media and television appearances. Attractive and unmarried, the liberal blog The Huffington Post named him the “Hottest Freshman” of the 111th Congress (2009-10). He was featured in a four-page fashion spread in the September 2009 GQ and was grilled about his abs on the Colbert Report comedy show. But one high profile admirer was rebuffed. On his February 2009 trip to Peoria to promote his massive economic stimulus bill, President Obama invited Schock to ride with him on Air Force One and then, during his speech, praised him as “a very talented young man” who would support his recovery plan. But like all of his House Republican colleagues, Schock voted no.
His legislative work included a 2009 bill to allot $310 million for courses in energy efficiency and green technology, which was approved unanimously by the Small Business Committee. He promoted an increase in the ethanol blend limits from 10% to 15% (although he’d like to see 20% eventually), and he supported the innovative efforts in the private sector to develop biodiesel fuel. On the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, he stirred Democratic opposition in February 2010 with his proposal for a bipartisan commission with power to abolish agencies and programs that fail to achieve goals or are duplicative.
Schock was re-elected easily in 2010. His political challenge in 2012 will likely be redistricting, controlled by Democrats in Illinois. Republicans in 2010 captured the adjacent 11th, 14th, and 17th districts.
