(The Associated Press circulated the following on August 3.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Canadian National Railway Co.’s plan to buy a railway in northeastern Illinois has divided the state’s congressional delegation and some of its most powerful politicians, and not along party lines.
For the lawmakers, including some who have organized a public hearing for next week in Chicago, the division has more to do with a fight between Chicago and its suburbs over increased freight traffic than with Democrat or Republican alliances.
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley backs CN’s $300 million purchase of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway. Illinois Sens. Barack Obama, the Democrats’ presumptive presidential nominee, and Dick Durbin, the Senate’s second-highest ranking Democrat, oppose the idea.
“If this acquisition goes through as it has been proposed, there will be a real change in the quality of life in many communities in the Chicagoland area,” Durbin said Friday in a statement. “Taxpayers in these communities are going to be asked to come up with dramatically large sums of money to find a way to deal with the impact increased rail traffic will have on their ability to provide basic services to businesses, schools and homes.”
Virtually all of the 19 members of the state’s House delegation have taken positions based on whether they think it is better to keep Chicago’s notoriously congested rail traffic as is or to shift some of it to the suburbs and the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern railway.
Democratic Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Danny Davis — who largely represent Chicago constituents — and Collinsville Republican Rep. John Shimkus support the shift in filings with the Surface Transportation Board, the group of federal regulators that is considering whether to approve the acquisition by the Montreal-based railroad.
In opposition — cranking out news releases, introducing legislation and holding news conferences — is a bipartisan group of suburban lawmakers.
The group that seeks to block the deal has even taken the unusual step of organizing a public hearing for next week in Chicago at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.