With 40 days to go until Election Day, congressional nominees Daniel Biss (above left) and John Elleson shared the stage at the Skokie Public Library on Thursday for their first shared forum, with both finding ways to bring national issues back to their localities in the 9th Congressional District.
The League of Women Voters of Evanston (LWVE) hosted the forum with help from students at Niles North High School, who prepared the questions with input from resident submissions and worked as ushers and timekeepers. Moderator Lynnette Foss posed a dozen questions to the candidates, who won their primaries in March to run to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, in front of a modest crowd in the library’s auditorium.
Biss, the mayor of Evanston until Oct. 18, mostly retained his primary race stump speech that the country is “in an emergency,” adding a reference to the Sunday incident of federal agents forcefully detaining a resident and citizen, who was sent to the hospital for his injuries.
“We are seeing masked men abduct people off our streets,” Biss said. “Just the other day in Evanston, two ICE agents grabbed someone, threw him to the ground, beat him up, because they thought he was a different person with dark skin — a U.S. citizen, no less.”
Elleson, a pastor in Arlington Heights, brought a question on immigration policy back to his area as well, saying his congregation has “a lot” of undocumented immigrants and that he supports them individually. Nevertheless, he still said that if those people are “breaking the law, they shouldn’t be here.”
“What the laws are, we have to follow,” Elleson said. “If we could have more people in here, we should. But immigration is a tough thing, it tears it all apart.”
Among other hot-button issues, Foss asked the candidates what policies they’d support on regulating data center developments, like the one now proposed in Evanston. While Biss described the developments as “run rampant, out of control” and said he supports a national moratorium on them, Elleson said the U.S. is “going to fall behind” China without more data centers and argued they “could be a great revenue source” for the cities they’re in — including Evanston.
“I think Evanston could use the money,” Elleson said.
During a meet-and-greet after the forum, Elleson told the RoundTable he wasn’t aware of the data center proposal in Evanston, but called out District 65 and the city as potential beneficiaries of it.
“They’re $20 million, the school district said that, the city is in $12 million this year,” Elleson said, referring to the two governments’ projected budget deficits. “They could use the money.”
Biss, meanwhile, told reporters he’s not on board and said a moratorium should apply to data centers of all sizes.
“I certainly don’t support that proposal for that reason,” Biss said, referring to his support for a moratorium. “I haven’t studied the details of it, but when I say moratorium, I mean moratorium.
The League plans to post a full recording of the forum to YouTube by Friday afternoon.
Biss, Elleson make their national scripts local in first congressional forum is from Evanston RoundTable, Evanston’s most trusted source for unbiased, in-depth journalism.
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September 24, 2026 at 11:06PM
