Rockford Sun

Catalina Lauf looks at government and in some ways longs for a return to way things once were.

“There was a time when men were honorable,” Lauf posted on Twitter. They took responsibility for their mistakes in leadership, in war. Not a single person has resigned over this, nor has the President admitted his failings. The arrogance is unfathomable. America is watching."

Lauf’s outrage stems from what she sees as the Biden administration's shortcomings in its handling of the U.S armed forces withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

“As many as 10,000 Americans are still stranded in Afghanistan," she posted in another Tweet. The Biden Administration said they will not prioritize Americans over Afghans in the evacuation of Kabul,” she said in another Tweet. “Joe put Americans last at our southern border and now he is putting Americans last abroad.”

Former Ambassador Kelley Eckels Currie has also come out to charge that the withdrawal puts women of Afghanistan at risk, even though they make up roughly half of the country’s population.

A pro-Donald Trump Republican, Lauf is now challenging U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ottawa), one of the former president’s most vocal critics throughout his time in power, in the 16th Congressional District.

“Over this last year — over the last two or three years, really — the country’s been in a lot of turmoil and we’re seeing that manifest itself in Congress,” Lauf told the Chicago Tribune, raising even more concern over that she sees as the “heavily politicized COVID-19 response.”

Lauf charges Kinzinger has lost touch with the district and is focused on issues that have no bearing on it.

“You have a representative like Adam who would rather spend his time and platform talking about impeachment and censoring Marjorie Taylor-Greene — another member of Congress,” she said. “That’s not representing the values of our district, and it’s not servant leadership.”

In formally announcing her run, Lauf, who previously ran in the 14th Congressional District, blasted Kinzinger as “a fake Republican.”

Kinzinger was one of 10 Republican lawmakers to vote in favor of impeaching Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington. Since then, he was also among 11 House Republicans electing to join Democrats in stripping Rep. Taylor-Greene, a GOP House member from Georgia, of her House Committee assignments.

Lauf, who formerly worked as a Trump appointee in the administration’s Department of Commerce, took the stage during the opening night of the 2020 Republican National Convention.

Lauf is on record as still being supportive of the former president’s hard line on illegal immigration.