It may not be as easy for U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller to retain his congressional seat in 2008. Not only have there been announcements of challengers, but as of last Friday, there are unanswered questions about his ethics.

Weller was first elected to the House in 1994. And he has easily won re-election since. It has been customary for him to run unopposed in the primary, but not this time.

Jason King, 35, of Normal, said he hopes to challenge Weller. Though King has no political experience, the moderate Republican charges that Weller is more concerned about serving special interests than in serving his constituents.

There will also be a Democratic challenger in Jerry Weber, 56, of Bourbonnais. Weber, who announced his intentions to run against Weller last month for the 2008 election, is the president of Kankakee Community College. Formerly, he served as vice president at Heartland Community College in downstate Bloomington which represents two large portions of the 11th district. Weber hopes name recognition in those large areas will help.

But there may be additional challenges for Weller, since the Chicago Tribune front-page article that ran Friday entitled "Inside Rep. Weller's Nicaragua land deal — Illinois lawmaker benefits from trade accord, fails to report extent of his ocean-view holdings."

The paper followed up on a story that first broke in the Chicago Reader last October, just before Weller was re-elected to his seventh term.

The Reader questioned Weller’s conflict of interest when he married Zury Rios Sosa, a Guatemalan legislator, while he sat on the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, where he governed activities in which he may have himself been engaged. In addition, the paper charged that Weller held unreported assets in Nicaragua, which violated the House Ethics rules. The story painted a picture of Weller as a land speculator and developer who cashed in on beachfront property.

And Friday’s Tribune story expounded on it, alluding to Weller’s lack of regard for environmental damage his subdivisions and developments were causing, as well as concerns that they may have been approved without complying with environmental laws.

The Tribune story indicated that Weller disclosed some of his holdings to Congress, but not all of them.

Even with what is known, Weller is said to have the most extensive foreign real estate holdings of any House member.

After traveling to Nicaragua, Tribune investigators said Weller’s activity in 2002, after his first visit to the Central American country, was far more extensive than what he disclosed. The story detailed the buying and selling of ocean property in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

The story also took issue with Weller’s advocacy for CAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement which allegedly benefited his own dealings by equalizing U.S. investments with that of local investors. While pushing CAFTA, Weller made no mention of his own investments.

The story indicated that Weller’s status as a U.S. lawmaker was a selling point in at least one transaction.

Weller was contacted in writing, but has not made any explanation of the discrepancies, according to the paper.