CHICAGO - The Republican Party’s woes continued last week with a Democrat, physicist Bill Foster, winning a special election to fill the usually reliable Republican House seat vacated by former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
Foster beat dairy magnate Jim Oberweis by 52% to 48% in the special election and the two will face each other again in just eight months in the general election for the full two-year term.
The loss of the long-time Republican seat is another indicator of the difficulty the GOP will have regaining control of the House this fall, as more than 24 incumbent Republicans have already announced their retirements.
CUNA bet on the losing candidate in the Republican primary for Hastert’s seat, contributing the maximum allowable $5,000 to Republican State Sen. Chris Lauzen, who lost to Oberweis.
Hastert was a strong credit union supporter and among other things, helped push through the 10-year effort to get a credit union-backed bankruptcy reform bill passed.
But after the GOP lost the majority in the House in 2006, Hastert lost his enthusiasm and retired in November, in the middle of his 11th term.
