11th Congressional District GOP candidate: Nick Stella

Nick Stella, U.S. House 11th District Republican primary candidate. | Rich Hein/Sun-Times

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On Feb. 6, Nick Stella appeared before the Chicago Sun-Times Editorial Board. We asked him why he’s running for the Republican seat in the 11th Congressional District of Illinois in the March 2018 primary:

My name is Nick Stella. I am a cardiologist. Born and raised in Chicagoland area and gone to college and medical school in Chicago. And I’ve practiced medicine on the South and Southwestern Side of the city for about the last 15 to 16 years.

My top priorities as a representative for the 11th Congressional District is to truly represent all of the people of the 11th District. In addition to that, we have to focus on working with the federal government, as well as state and local leaders to bring jobs to the 11th District.

There’s been an outpouring of jobs leaving the district and I think it’s about time that we started bringing the economy that is booming across the United States into the 11th Congressional District.

I think we need to look at multiple different avenues of bringing jobs into the district. Number one, we need to work with manufacturers. The very important thing that manufacturers want is a workforce that’s ready to go, and as such, I think we need to use the community college system and the vocational schools in the area to train young workers so that they’re ready to enter the workforce and ready to initiate a job fully trained and able to help a corporation make a product rather than having to have on-the-job training. In addition to that, I think we also have to strive to bring … more of a research focus into the 11th District. We have two wonderful world-class laboratories in the 11th District. The Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Laboratory. I think we need to work with government partners to bring scientific research into the district.

In addition to that, we have a wonderful research and development corridor on I-88 that runs right through the northern portion of the district and I think that we need to focus on bringing high-tech research through that corridor in order to help bring higher paying jobs.

The Chicago Sun-Times sent the candidates seeking nominations for Congress a list of questions to find out their views on a range of important issues facing the state of Illinois. Nick Stella did not submit a completed questionnaire.