OPINION: Jones, Petrilli interested in challenging LaHood in the fall

Mar. 15--Democratic county chairs who represent territory in the 18th Congressional District will have at least two people to choose from to take on U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, in the November election.

They are Stephen Jones, 65, a Democratic precinct committeeman and retired union member, and George Petrilli, 39, a Springfield lawyer.

A Democratic candidate from Peoria had filed last fall, but dropped out in December citing medical issues. LaHood is unopposed in Tuesday's GOP primary, and Democratic leaders will be able to name a candidate later to fill their party's vacancy on the November general election ballot.

Jones said he was a "card-carrying sheet-metal worker in one form or another for 47 years." Part of that time, he was technical instructor in heating and cooling.

"Anything that has to do with organized labor, I'm on board," he said. He said pensions and apprenticeship programs are in danger, and he is for fixing the Affordable Care Act but not for single-payer health care.

He said he is offended by President Donald Trump's attacks on people associated with the military, including a Gold Star family and late U.S. Sen. John McCain, who was a prisoner of war.

"Trump is bad, but his enablers are just as bad," Jones said. He included LaHood in that group.

Petrilli, who ran for Springfield Ward 8 alderman in 2007, does litigation work for Mandarich Law Group. He's a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana and Southern Illinois University law school, and also works in patent law.

He said his interest in seeking the congressional seat, as a Democrat, would be to "bring more of a bipartisan approach, or the statesman approach, to policymaking in Congress."

"I'm not a complete anti-Trumper," Petrilli said.

"I think it's that important to try to start driving the dialogue back to the center," he said.

On health care, he said, "I lean more towards allowing people to keep their private insurance. A lot of people fought very hard for that, and I think a blended formula works."

He also said the penalty for not having health insurance should be reinstated -- like people have to carry auto insurance.

He said he votes on candidates and issues and doesn't stick to a party line. Voting records show he voted in Democratic primaries in 2004 and 2006, and Republican primaries in 2002 and 2012.

"I think when both parties are trying to make more bipartisan progress, everybody wins," Petrilli said.

In response to his potential challengers, LaHood political director Jim Reis said LaHood is proud of his work for central and west-central Illinois in Congress. "He puts the ... 18th (District) first, and has worked hard to earn the strong and broad support of the voters. In the 2020 election he takes nothing for granted and looks forward continuing to build on his prior electoral success."

Remembering Sen. Harber Hall

Condolences to friends and family of former state Sen. Harber Hall, R-Bloomington, who died Feb. 22 at a senior living facility in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. He was 99.

Hall was elected to the Illinois House in 1966 and the Senate in 1972. He retired from the Senate in 1979.

A Republican, Hall was a native of Chicago who moved to Bloomington at age 5, and, according to his obituary, developed a lifelong love of politics working on successful campaigns for U.S. House of his grandfather, Homer W. Hall, in 1927, 1929 and 1931.

With his family on the move during his high school days, he attended Bloomington High, then Hyde Park High in Chicago, Moline High and Rock Island High, where he graduated. He majored in business administration at the University of Miami in Florida.

"I know everyone my age in the state of Illinois because I went to high school with them," he once remarked, the obituary said.

Part of his military service during World War II was flying 23 bombing missions over Japan. He returned to Bloomington in 1954 when released from active duty in the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel.

He worked in insurance and real estate, and with his brother Harry "Bud" Hall, who was State Fair manager during the administration of Gov. Jim Edgar, developed Crestwicke Country Club in Bloomington.

Hall split time between Bloomington and Florida, and continued a love of tennis until late in life -- playing just two years ago with grandson Harrison Harber Shepard, now 11, said Hall's daughter and Harrison's mother, Heather Hall Shepard.

"He couldn't move very well," Shepard said of her father, "but I have it on video."

A 2006 story in the Sarasota (Florida) Herald-Tribune noted that Hall was 85 when he won a tennis tournament in his age class.

"It is a good part of my life," Hall was quoted saying about the game. "It keeps me in good physical shape. I have always loved it."

His daughter said Hall also loved bridge and chess -- and a year and a half ago, "danced like crazy" at her 50th birthday bash.

She said her dad had "a quick sense of humor" and was "kind of the life of the party. Everybody wanted to be around him."

She said he traveled a lot, but had prostate cancer and declined in the past year. She said he was "cracking jokes with the assisted living nurses" and other staff "until like two days before he died."

She indicated he didn't like all the fighting he saw in politics, particularly over the past 20 years.

"He just wanted to enjoy people," she said. "He just wanted to enjoy life." And, she said, he "absolutely" did.

Contact Bernard Schoenburg: bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com, 788-1540, twitter.com/bschoenburg.

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