Politics
GOP Candidate Don Tracy on Running for the US Senate, the Future of Birthright Citizenship
Former Illinois Republican Party Chair Don Tracy won the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in last month’s primary election, pushing him closer to his goal of taking over longtime U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat.
Tracy is facing Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton in the Nov. 3 general election.
Illinois hasn’t elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 2010 when Mark Kirk assumed the role, but Tracy is confident he can break through in the deeply blue state.
Tracy joined “Chicago Tonight” to discuss his road ahead to Election Day and the most pressing issues to voters.
On why he’s running:
“Everybody should run for public office because it’s just an important thing in a democracy that you need — citizen participation. I’ve been in the private sector for many decades. I’ve been a lawyer more decades than I care to admit, but I’ve also been in business and I owned and operated my own small business at times when I had to struggle to put food on the table and make payroll at the same time. I think one of the hardest and most important of all human endeavors is politics and I feel like I’ve got the skill set by being a lawyer and having succeeded in business as well to do this.”
On the war in Iran:
“I’m hoping to hear that we’re continuing to make progress, that it’s going to be a very short conflict and that we will have successfully degraded Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its intercontinental ballistic missile ambitions, and its base as a state — the largest sponsor of state terrorism in the world — and that this will lead to at long last peace in the Mideast and elsewhere.”
On birthright citizenship:
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday on the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship. If upheld, the U.S. would not allow the children of undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign visitors to automatically become American citizens if they are born in the U.S.
“It’s a complex issue. It’s really odd that we have pure birthright citizenship right now, unless the Supreme Court says otherwise. … Just weird to me that you can take a vacation to the United States and have a baby there and your baby is a citizen of the United States and that people can intentionally do that — if you have a baby, your child is a citizen of the United States even though you’re here illegally. It’s just a weird thing, but we’ll have to wait and see what the Supreme Court says, what the actual law is.”
On immigration policy:
“The federal government has a responsibility to enforce immigration law and I think the administration has done a pretty good job of that throughout the country, except in sanctuary cities where there has been massive resistance — not only by many in the population but also by the political leaders of places like Chicago and Minneapolis, for example. … I visited Memphis recently where they just had a federal surge in immigration law enforcement and it’s worked out great down there, but the governor cooperated, the Memphis mayor cooperated, and as a result they removed 1,100 illegal firearms from the streets, they removed a lot of narcotics and contraband, and they found 150 missing children. Carjackings are down almost 50%, murders are down there.”
According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Facebook page, as of March 24, since the start of federal intervention, there have been more than 1,100 illegal guns seized in Memphis; more than 1,000 pounds of illicit narcotics taken off the streets; more than 150 missing children rescued; and murders have dropped 70% from their peak. Data from the Memphis Police Department also shows significant drops in crime following the arrival of the National Guard.
The statistics have not been independently verified.
On lowering costs for Illinois residents:
“Spending under Biden increased inflation, which increases the cost of living. Their (Democrats) war against traditional, affordable, reliable energy increases utility prices. … Health care inflation is running at three to four times regular inflation. Housing is increased in part because of bringing in 10 to 20 million unhoused immigrants and attracting them to Chicago with $3 billion and in government benefits. We (Republicans) believe in more market competition, more price transparency, more consumer choice and better drug price negotiations. And on energy we believe in more energy production and not not going green overnight. … Trying to go green overnight is going to bankrupt this country.”
