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Last Updated June 22, 2005
Illinois's western prairies are some of America's richest agricultural land. They were first settled by Yankees coming overland from northern Indiana and Ohio and Upstate New York. After 1848, Germans left their homeland in search of better opportunities and settled this land that in so many ways resembles the flat, orderly plains of northern Germany. All these migrants farmed quarter-sections and built small towns, with banks and stores, community churches and libraries. As farming expanded, so did the need for agricultural equipment. Entrepreneurs and investors built farm machinery factories, and the Quad Cities of the Mississippi--Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa, and Rock Island and Moline, Illinois--became one of the nation's biggest agricultural equipment manufacturing centers. These plants were unionized in the 1930s and 1940s, and in post-World War II America their wages went up as the demand for ever more sophisticated machines rose among the Midwest's government-subsidized farmers. But eventually the cost of subsidies rose too high and the market had its revenge. In the early 1980s farm profits vanished, land values declined and orders for new machinery and equipment dried up. The result was a depression in western Illinois and neighboring Iowa, and a political swing toward the Democrats and away from the Republicans who had been the ancestral party in most of this area. In the 1990s the Democratic tide receded a bit, but this was still one of the few parts of rural America carried by Al Gore in 2000. Recent job losses--in Galesburg, Maytag closed a factory with 1,600 jobs despite local tax breaks--and wildly oscillating farm prices have helped Democrats maintain majorities here. The 17th Congressional District of Illinois includes the state's portion of the Quad Cities plus several rural counties to the south: All of the Mississippi River border with Iowa and south almost to St. Louis. But that is not the entire district, for redistricting in 2001 changed its shape considerably. Removed were counties north and directly east of Rock Island and Moline. Added was a thin strip of land along the Mississippi River and the lower Illinois River. Connected to that was an extension that includes rural Macoupin County and a tentacle heading east, plus a very thin strip of land that includes central Springfield (but not the state Capitol building) and, some miles further east, a portion of Decatur. Decatur is home to Archer Daniels Midland, the largest agricultural processor in the world and a key promoter of ethanol. It would be fairly easy to drive directly from any part of the 17th District to another, but only if you crossed over into the 18th or 19th Districts. To drive from one end of the 17th to the other while remaining entirely inside the district would take many more miles and many, many more hours than to drive from Chicago to the southern tip of Illinois in Cairo. There is, of course, a good political explanation for this weird configuration. Illinois's redistricting was a largely bipartisan, incumbent-protection project, negotiated by Speaker Dennis Hastert and 3d District Democrat William Lipinski. For many years Republicans hoped that the Republican counties outlying Rock Island and Moline in the 17th District would outvote those Democratic towns and oust local Democratic Congressman Lane Evans, who was first elected in something of a fluke in 1982 and then was helped by the Democratic trend in the Farm Belt in the 1980s; he later survived several serious challenges. So the current 17th was drawn to help Evans: the Republican counties east and north of the Quad Cities were removed; the Mississippi River corridor casts few votes; Macoupin County is historically Democratic; central Springfield and Decatur are solidly Democratic. The old 17th district gave George W. Bush a 6% margin in 2000; the new 17th gave Al Gore a 10% margin. Lane Evans, first elected in 1982, is now the ranking minority member on the Veterans Affairs Committee. He grew up in Rock Island, the son of a union firefighter. He joined the Marine Corps in 1969 after high school and served two years, then went to college and law school and worked as a legal services lawyer. In 1982, he ran for Congress--a seemingly quixotic race against longtime incumbent Republican Tom Railsback. But Railsback lost his primary to a conservative and the economically hard-pressed district voted 53% for Evans. He calls himself a "populist" rather than a liberal; by most standards, his voting record is solidly liberal and one of the most pro-union in the House. But he was one of 31 Democrats who voted for the Republicans' impeachment inquiry in October 1998, though he later voted against impeachment. He was a strong opponent of NAFTA, GATT and normal trade relations with China. He fervently favored higher agricultural subsidies during his five-year tenure on the Agriculture Committee, but left that post to take a seat on Armed Services in 1988. There, his major cause has been a ban on land mines, which continue to injure thousands of people years after wars are over. Evans has devoted much time to veterans' issues. He worked hard for years to get compensation for veterans who claimed they were harmed by exposure to Agent Orange, and ultimately succeeded. In 1994 he began to investigate what he and others have characterized as Gulf War syndrome. In 2004, working with Veterans Committee Chairman Christopher Smith, Evans helped pass bills to increase assistance to homeless veterans, to fund research on complex multi-trauma injuries in combat, to increase G.I. Bill benefits for apprenticeships and on the job training programs, to expand VA home loans and to give the Veterans Administration more flexibility in paying medical professionals. He has sponsored bills to further address Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other mental health concerns of veterans. But the House Republican leadership abruptly removed Smith as committee chairman in January 2005, and it is not clear whether the new chairman, Steve Buyer, will work in harmony with Evans as Smith did. In the years of agricultural unrest and high unemployment in western Illinois, Evans was re-elected by wide margins. In the 1990s he had closer calls. After he defeated Republican Mark Baker, a former TV anchor, in 2000, Rock Island County Republicans filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that Evans had illegally coordinated his campaign with two purportedly independent committees. In February 2004, after settlement efforts failed, the FEC filed an unusual suit in federal court charging that the 17th District Victory Fund and the Rock Island Democratic Central Committee spent some $330,000, two-thirds of it raised from unions which could not legally contribute directly to Evans, at "the direction of and in close coordination with" Evans's campaign manager. The FEC said that the Victory Fund had no charter, bylaws, members, meetings or office space in the district and that contributions to it were solicited by Evans campaign officials. Evans said the charges were "baseless" but at one point conceded "mistakes." Local Republicans compared the situation to the scandal around former Republican Governor George Ryan, but there was little resemblance: that was a case of bribery, carefully concealed, whereas the Evans case rests on the degree of coordination between committees openly committed to the same cause. In May 1998 Evans announced he had Parkinson's disease, which was diagnosed in 1995 after he found he could not wave with his left hand at a Labor Day rally in Galesburg. In 1998 he said he could not stand long without pain or smile easily, but could still jog and that he had lost weight under doctor's orders. In 2000 he spent much of his ad budget talking about his Parkinson's disease; one showed him jogging and saying, "If you hear someone say they're worried about Lane Evans, tell them you saw him running today and he's doing just fine." In 2002 little was heard of his illness. But in 2004 his Republican opponent, onetime Quad Cities TV anchor Andrea Zinga, raised it loudly. By this time Evans had trouble getting up from a chair and pouring a soft drink, and he had speech therapy once a week to prevent "lazy tongue," though he said he still went out running some mornings and regularly traveled throughout the district and traveled to Europe for the 2004 ceremonies commemorating D Day. But Zinga said he was not physically fit to serve. "People who are on the medications he is on may have trouble with judgment, which can be worsened by excitement or stress." Evans assured friendly audiences, "I may be slow, but I know which way to go." Evans was the first Downstate congressman to endorse Barack Obama in the 2004 Senate primary, and Obama recalled that after a campaign tour of the district with Evans, "For those concerned about Lane's health, don't worry. I couldn't keep up with him." Tom Schroeder, the executive director of the Rock Island County Council on Addictions, said, "The next time you hear some washed up TV news reader spouting mean-spirited and hurtful garbage about our congressman, tell her to go straight to some place really hot that rhymes with bell." Evans refused to debate Zinga until she apologized and said, "I'm a better congressman now that I have had this tragedy happen. I can understand what families are going through." How did this issue play? Parkinson's disease produces physical infirmity but no mental impairment, and Evans's heavy schedule in the district suggested he was far from incapacitated. He was reelected 61%-39%, carrying every county but Adams, a heavily Republican county included in this district only because it was the essential land bridge between two swaths of Democratic territory. Speculation inevitably arises as to what would happen if Evans does not run again. Possible Democratic candidates include Phil Hare, his district director since 1982, Rock Island Mayor Mark Schweibert, state Senator John Sullivan and Clarence Darrow, grandson and namesake of the great lawyer, who served as a lawyer in the Marine Corps and moved to the area proclaiming an interest in politics.
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