Democrat Thorsland Launches Congressional Bid

The head of the Champaign County Zoning Board of Appeals wants to challenge Republican Congressman John Shimkus of Collinsville in next year’s general election.

Democrat Eric Thorsland runs an organic farm in Mahomet and is a research engineer at the University of Illinois’ physics department.

Thorsland said he wants to make support for food security a higher priority. He said the food stamp program should be part of the federal farm bill, and that the House’s proposed $40 billion in cuts to food stamps over the next decade are a "poor decision."

"It's a decision led more by politics than the reality of the situation," he said.

"I think that assistance is assistance," Thorsland added, saying the food nutrition program and the farm bill should not be seperated. "If we're going to assist people with their insurance payments, if we're going to assist them with the price of crops, assisting them to eat too is equally important."

Thorsland also said if elected, he would also like to go after credit card fraud.

“There’s always the chance to clean up what appears to be a very small percentage of fraud," he said. "There was in this state the desire to put pictures on link cards. A better issue to save the general economy more money is put a picture on a credit card. If we want to really save money, let’s make the credit card companies put pictures on the credit cards.”

Before Thorsland can challenge Shimkus, he must first get past the Democratic Primary. Also running is Democrat Angela Michael of Highland, who has based her campaign on her opposition to gettting an abortion.