Before leaving on spring break, our RPA professors decided we should go out with a bang. Each class member was assigned a local state legislative race to cover on primary night, March 20– flooding the market.

I was assigned to cover the much-publicized race between long-time incumbent congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. and Debbie Halvorson, a former congresswoman.

I was thrilled!
As it happens, my dad lives in the second district, in the rural parts that just got remapped after the census. I’d heard the grumblings and complaints from new second district residents.

I felt I could work a unique angle in the story, because I knew the thing that especially bothered a large number of families new to the district: Jesse Jackson Jr.’s airport obsession.

For almost forty years, there has been talk of building the so-called third airport in the small town of Peotone, IL, located in the rural part of Will County that was just assimilated into the district.

Though the proposed airport has ebbed and waned in popularity over the years, it matters a great deal to the residents in its immediate vicinity.

When I’d go to visit my dad, I’d always see lawns, ditches, and even the sides of barns plastered with square white signs featuring a black silhouette airplane stamped with the giant red circle and an emphatic “no” of a diagonal line crossed through it.

Through my interviews, I learned these signs were the work of an organization called STAND–Shut This Airport Nightmare Down. And for STAND’s nearly 5,000 supporters, Jesse Jackson Jr. represented a whole new chapter of their airport nightmare.

“Jesse Jackson Jr. has been a dirty word here for years, since the whole airport thing started,” STAND’s Vice-President Judy Ogalla told me in an interview.

Jackson, who’s long represented the southern side of the city, has desperately wanted a new Chicagoland airport easily accessible from the South side

He reasons that it would not only relieve congestion from Chicago’s very crowded O’Hare and Midway airports, but said he believes an airport would also bring jobs to some of the impoverished neighborhoods on the city’s South side. Politically, I imagine it would generate a lot of social capital for a politician to say: I brought this airport to you.

But he’s been thwarted politically one way or another through the years, since the proposed airport’s land was never in his district.

That’s all changed now.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tBEQxGFKFM[/youtube]

Now, despite protests from the Will County Board of foul play and unethical motives, Jackson is planning to host his ceremonial ground breaking on April 21, much to the frustration of some of his new constituents.

I could see the resignation in some people’s demeanors while I was at Halvorson’s election night party.  Others were just happy that Halvorson challenged Jackson in a primary– the first person to do so in 17 years.

[flickr id=”6875769878″ thumbnail=”medium_640″ overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]

[flickr id=”6875769784″ thumbnail=”medium_640″ overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”]

So who knows what will ultimately happen? While I’m definitely in favor of creating more jobs for the Chicagoans living on the South side, I’m not so sure the expensive airport undertaking is the best or only way to do that.

Only time will tell.

To learn more about how the airport issue panned out on election night, you can read my article on ChicagoTalks.org, where you can also see the election coverage of other races by Columbia grad students.