Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., knocked a proposal from Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., that Chicago law enforcement round up members of a powerful gang as an “elitist white-boy solution” to the crime problem in that city.

“[It’s an] upper-middle-class, elitist white-boy solution to a problem he knows nothing about,” Rush, the only politician to defeat President Obama in a race for federal office (Obama challenged him in a 2000 congressional bid), told the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday. In a follow-up email to the newspaper, Rush wrote that “certainly a plan to incarcerate 18,000 black men is elitist. Why is incarceration the sole option instead of rehabilitation which is proven to work and not locking young men up?” He said a plan was needed that includes “the option to create jobs, provide affordable and safe housing, quality health care and improve schools in urban areas.”