Will County Gazette

Former 11th-District GOP candidate Nick Stella thinks Rep. Bill Foster’s (D-Naperville) motivations for wanting to see the legal voting age lowered from 18 to 16 are as clear as they are self-serving.

“Most Democrats favor that kind of change because they think that’s a vote they can rely on,” Stella, who ran unsuccessfully against Foster in November's general election, told Will County Gazette. “That’s all the reason many of them need.”

With little hesitation, Foster recently jumped on board with such an amendment proposed by fellow freshman Rep. Ayana Pressley (D-Mass.). The measure ultimately failed by an overall House vote of 305-126, but Stella argues the mere proposal speaks volumes about the lengths that Democrats are willing to go just to win.

State Rep. Bill Foster (D-Naperville)

“Back in the 1970s, when the voting age was changed from 21 to 18, at least the argument was that we were sending young men to war before we were even allowing them to vote, and the thinking was that something needed to be done about that,” Stella said. “Today, there’s nothing even remotely on par with the depths of that logic. Just ask yourself how mature the decisions of most 16-year-olds are. As a father of a 16-year-old daughter, I can tell you they’re too influenced by things like social media and the like to be thinking out important issues like that.”

In introducing the measure for change, Pressley stressed that roughly 2 million teens between 16 and 17 were employed and paid taxes in 2018. Meanwhile, Stella counters that Democrats' thirst for winning reveals itself in many ways.

“You look at the way some of them are pushing for illegal immigrants to be able to vote,” he said. “I don’t think that’s anything any true American would be in favor of and absolutely believe it’s not representative of the views and feelings of the people of this district.”