Democrat rips Republican's "elitist, white boy solution" to gang violence
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., ripped his fellow Illinois colleague, Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, for proposing the mass arrest of 18,000 gang members in Chicago, telling the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday that Kirk's proposal was an "upper-middle-class, elitist white boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about."
At a press conference with Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on Wednesday, Kirk said he will ask the Senate Appropriations Committee to disburse $30 million "to go after gangs...and pick the biggest and baddest for a federal effort."
Kirk specifically mentioned the Gangster Disciples, a notorious gang in Chicago, saying, it's "completely within the capability of the United States government to crush a major urban gang."
That set off Rush, who told the Sun-Times that Kirk's proposal is a "sensational, headline-grabbing, empty, simplistic, unworkable approach."
The proposed solution "is not going to work," Rush explained. "It is not a law and order, lock 'em up solution."
"I am really very upset with Mark," Rush added, saying he'd continue laboring to "get [Kirk] to see the bigger picture."
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In a follow-up email to the Sun-Times, Rush did not address the racially-tinged character of his earlier remarks but doubled down on his characterization of Kirk's proposal as "elitist."
Kirk's current plan, Rush wrote, "does not include the option to create jobs, provide affordable and safe housing, quality health care and improve schools in urban areas, BUT certainly a plan to incarcerate 18,000 black men is elitist. Why is incarceration the sole option instead of rehabilitation, which is proven to work and not locking young men up?"
A Kirk spokesman, asked about Rush's comments, said the senator's "commitment to stopping gang violence in our communities goes back more than a decade."
Kirk "will continue to work with Sen. Durbin, Mayor Emanuel, law enforcement, and the entire congressional delegation to keep Illinois families safe," the spokesman said.