(JTA) — A Holocaust denier, anti-Semite and white supremacist is about to become the Republican nominee for an Illinois congressional seat.
Arthur Jones, a perennial candidate since the 1990s for the 3rd Congressional District representing parts of Chicago and its southwestern suburbs, in a political fluke is the only Republican candidate on the ballot, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday. The primary will be held on March 20.
Jones, 70, is a retired insurance salesman. His website for this congressional run, Art Jones for Congressman, says by way of introduction: “I am not now, nor have I ever been a follower of any political party, though I am a registered Republican.”
A section of the site headed “Holocaust?” says that “The idea that ‘Six Million Jews’ were killed by the Nationalist Socialist government of Germany in World War II is the biggest blackest lie in history.” It also calls the Holocaust a “racket” designed to “bleed, blackmail, extort and terrorize the enemies of organized world Jewry into silence or submissiveness to Zionism and communism – both movements founded, financed and led by Jews. “
Jones is a former leader of the American Nazi Party and now heads a group called the America First Committee, which he told the Sun-Times is “open to any white American citizen of European, non-Jewish descent.”
Tim Schneider, chairman of the Illinois Republican Party, said in a statement to the Sun-Times: “The Illinois Republican Party and our country have no place for Nazis like Arthur Jones. We strongly oppose his racist views and his candidacy for any public office, including the 3rd Congressional District.”
In 2016, Jones was removed from the district’s GOP ballot in legal actions engineered by the Illinois Republican Party, which determined that his nominating petitions had too many faulty signatures, according to the Sun-Times. This time, Jones was more careful to have valid signatures and could not be thrown off the ballot.
The district is one of the most heavily Democratic in the state, and Jones will most likely be defeated in the November race. The Republican Party does not invest heavily in fielding a candidate for the district since he or she likely will lose, which is how Jones came to be the only candidate.
Jones said last spring in a speech to a National Socialist Movement gathering that he was sorry he voted for President Donald Trump, who has “surrounded himself with hordes of Jews,” including his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, the Sun-Times reported, citing a YouTube recording of the speech.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
