Candidate Q&A
Why are you running?
I am running because the people of Illinois 2nd Congressional District need a representative who brings a lifetime of experience fighting for social justice and economic equality along with experience in Congress and a proven track record of results. I previously served 17 years in Congress (Dec. ’95 – Nov. ’12).
I have the most detailed economic plan – to connect the Second Congressional District to the jobs, wages and opportunities of the global economy. I also bring to the race the most innovative healthcare platform to 1) evolve the Affordable Care Act; 2) address the maternal care crisis; 3) bring more mental health care resources to our communities; and 4) historic legislation to support unpaid family caregivers.
I will immediately work to reverse the social and economic damage done by MAGA and this administration to truly create a more perfect union and a level playing field.
I brought more than $986 million dollars in grants and direct appropriations to the District, rarely missing a vote. My lasting accomplishments include working with four governors to purchase 4,000 acres to build an inaugural airport in the District, establishing a national park in Pullman, providing freshwater to Ford Heights, building a dozen new metro stations from Hyde Park to 93rd Street, changing municipal zip codes, and providing signage to identify towns and villages along the Bishop Ford Freeway and I-57.
These federal funds have created economic activity and thus many job opportunities to 2nd District residents. Yet more needs to be done.
What do you think is the most pressing issue facing your constituents and how do you plan on addressing it?
The most pressing issue facing Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District is economic distress. We must connect the District to the jobs, wages and opportunities of the global economy. Since I was first elected to Congress in 1995, I’ve worked on creating a third Chicago area airport in the Southland. It will create substantial economic growth and job opportunities. If reelected, I’ll keep working to build that airport with a 10,000-foot runway for global travel and commerce, putting us in more control of our economic destiny.
Addressing the economy must not be done in a vacuum. I will vociferously oppose all actions by the Trump administration that threaten the Constitution, run roughshod over our democratic norms, and crush economic opportunity.
With the vision outlined in my book A More Prefect Union: Advancing New American Rights, and my experience bringing grants and appropriations to the district, if the people of the 2nd Congressional District send me back to Washington I will oppose the Trump tariffs, tax breaks for billionaires, and vanity projects that ignore working Americans. I will also continue proposing constitutional amendments like the right to vote, the right to equal high quality health care and education, and the right to full employment. Those rights create the foundation from which all Americans can succeed and prosper. I plan to keep these tenets front of mind as I fight for the people of Illinois’ Second Congressional District.
What is one unique challenge your district faces and how do you plan to address it?
The Second Congressional District is afflicted by economic crisis. Southland communities have higher unemployment rates, fewer job opportunities and lower average incomes compared of Chicago’s northern suburbs. That imbalance has persisted for decades. It’s the root of an economic struggle that has developed into vast disparities in health care access, education resources and transportation infrastructure.
It has become a crisis. Harvey is in financial distress. Several other Southland communities are reaching that breaking point.
We must connect the Second Congressional District to the global economy. During my 17 years in Congress, I worked with four governors to purchase the land for a new regional airport that will connect us to jobs, higher wages and vast economic growth opportunities.
The state of Illinois owns the land, and the Federal Aviation Administration has long recognized the need for a third major airport in the Chicago region to handle growing air traffic.
We can relieve O’Hare congestion, reduce airfares, and strengthen the Southland’s economic future. A new airport would bring freight and cargo operations that Midway can’t handle. It would create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs, attract logistics and manufacturing firms, and spark commercial development across the south suburbs and downstate.
We have the studies, the land, the money and the workforce. We just need Gov. Pritzker to release the land and unlock the gates to the global economy.
What do you think federal immigration reform should look like?
I favor comprehensive and humane federal immigration reforms that offer a path to citizenship for undocumented residents and increases legal immigration channels. We must also protect asylum seekers, modernize the legal immigration system to meet economic needs, and strengthen border security through technology and efficiency rather than physical barriers.
These reforms would strengthen the American economy by expanding the labor force, encouraging innovation, and generating tax revenue. The border is only truly secure when meaningful legislation is passed for immigration reform.
We must create a pathway to legal status and citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., including Dreamers (DACA recipients) and essential workers. I support expanding legal immigration, reducing backlogs in family-sponsored and employment-based visas, and creating flexible systems that match labor demand. Our immigration policy should support our economy by allowing businesses to hire necessary labor, while protecting the rights and wages of both immigrant and native-born workers.
We must immediately stop indiscriminate mass deportations in favor of an enforcement system that focuses on individuals convicted of violent crimes and upholds due process and legal rights. We need to drastically overhaul, if not abolish, the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement activities to ensure humane detention conditions and to prevent the separation of families.
We should also consider diplomatic and economic investments in Central and South American countries to address the root causes that drive migration such as unfair trade policies, poverty, political instability and violence.
How should Congress address the rising costs of health care?
The only sustainable way to address the rising cost of health care is to stop treating peoples’ lives as a commodity subject to the vagaries of the free market. We must treat healthcare as a right, not a privilege.
From the 107th to the 112th Congress I introduced a Constitutional amendment to do just that, guarantee every person the right to equal, high-quality healthcare. A Constitutional amendment that would stop treating healthcare like a commodity subject to reauthorization fights, appropriations struggles or the whims of differing political majorities.
The next best solution is to implement a Medicare-for-All or a single payer health insurance system. That would reduce administrative expenses, lower drug prices, and eliminate insurance premiums, with studies estimating potential savings of 3% to over 13%. A single payer system would also create a larger more diverse risk pool which would prevent massive, sudden rate hikes because the risks are spread across a wider, more predictable population.
Until that is done, we need to enhance the ACA by expanding Medicaid to all states, permanently extending enhanced premium subsidies, implementing a public option, and increasing cost-sharing reductions (CSRs). We should also adopt site-neutral payments (hospital vs. doctor’s office), reduce Medicare Advantage overpayments, and enhance price transparency for services and prescription drugs to curb rising provider costs.
What approach would you take on tax policy and what is your top priority?
My top priority is closing tax loopholes that allow wealthy individuals and corporations to pay lower effective tax rates than working families and main street businesses.
Wealthy individual tax filers use concepts like 1) borrowing against stock portfolios, 2) holding assets until death for a “stepped-up basis” to wipe out capital gains taxes, and 3) using ”carried interest" to treat income as long-term capital gains. We should implement a 25% minimum tax on total income, including unrealized gains, for households with over $100 million in wealth. The tax code should treat the annual appreciation of all assets as taxable income. Loan proceeds should be treated as a “deemed realization” of capital gains.
Wealthy corporations similarly avoid taxes by 1) using accelerated depreciation on assets, 2) shifting profits to low-tax countries, and 3) leveraging tax credits. We need to increase the corporate tax rate, end tax deferrals on foreign income by eliminating the offshoring of profits and implement a stricter global minimum tax by adopting a worldwide combined tax reporting system. We should establish a progressive corporate tax rate where higher profits face higher rates, eliminate tax loopholes (aka corporate welfare) for specific industries and treat capital gains as ordinary income.
In 2021, 19 of the Fortune 100 companies paid little to no federal income tax. During the 1960’s the highest marginal tax rate for some individuals was 91% to 70%, yet GDP averaged 5.3% annually, proving that higher tax rates won’t lead to a decrease in economic performance.
Is the House currently using its oversight powers in the way it should be? What areas of government need more or less oversight?
The House of Representatives under recent Republican leadership is not using its oversight powers properly. Oversight has either been misused for partisan political purposes or nonexistent for legitimate, fact-based inquiries. The current Republican leadership has completely abdicated the House’s Constitutional powers to serve President Trump at the expense of our Constitutional norms, moral character, national security, economic stability and international standing.
President Trump ignores the Constitution, setting several adverse precedents by illegally consolidating executive power, challenging established legal and constitutional norms, and targeting institutional independence. He has claimed powers not granted to him under the Constitution that have resulted in murder and mayhem both internationally and domestically.
When Democrats regain control of the House we must “Trump-proof” the republic. Several issues that need to be investigated immediately include Trump’s:
- Expansion of the unitary executive theory, implementation of Project 2025 and abuse of executive power for personal gain by extorting businesses, universities, and law firms, while taking personal steps to enrich himself;
- Weaponization of the Department of Justice by using it to target political opponents and misusing the pardon power to free political donors and dangerous criminals;
- Un-Constitutional usurpation of Congressional authority by unilaterally and arbitrarily imposing tariffs and directing federal agencies to freeze or withhold billions in grants and funding approved by Congress, particularly targeting “blue” states.
- Bastardization of Homeland Security’s immigration enforcement functions, creation of mass deportation internment camps, separation of minor children from their parents and the illegal deportation of people who are citizens or legal residents.
What is the most pressing foreign policy issue facing the country and what role should the House play in dealing with it?
Pressing foreign policy issues the U.S. faces include climate change, pandemics, global poverty, abuses of human rights, nuclear proliferation, military conflicts over diplomacy and managing the U.S.-China relationship.
These issues can’t be addressed until we reverse the Trump Administration’s deliberate dismantling of the post-1945 rules-based international order. The Trump Administration favors a “Donroe Doctrine,” “might-makes-right,” transactional and nationalistic approach rather than abide by multilateral agreements.
The House must limit the administration’s authority to use military force without explicit congressional approval. It must oppose the reallocation of 40% of foreign aid toward security, tariffs, and “loyalty” instead of development that builds good will and condition foreign aid on the protection of human rights and environmental standards.
We need to investigate the legality of actions like capturing Venezuelan President Maduro, strikes against alleged drug trafficking vessels, and potential overlaps between the administration’s foreign policy and private financial interests. We must demand transparency regarding efforts to purchase or acquire territory.
Our relationships with allies and multilateral alliances that share our goals must be strengthened. We should pass resolutions affirming the right of nations like Venezuela and the territory of Greenland to self-determination, resisting the notion that the region is a “U.S. backyard”. We must defend the principles of the UN Charter, focusing on sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the inviolability of borders against the “Donroe” assertion of regional ownership.
We should use these ideas to challenge the idea of forced, transactional dominance and move to a policy of multilateralism with shared prosperity.
How do you view AI and the role the government should play in its regulation?
The U.S. must promote leadership in AI and advanced technology with a strong emphasis on ethical development and democratic values. America must sustain its economic and geopolitical influence by ensuring that AI is safe, equitable, and serves the broader public good.
The U.S. should maintain a competitive advantage in AI for national security and economic prosperity, but we must emphasize that this pursuit must be balanced with strong ethical guardrails, human rights protections, and potential cooperation between geopolitical allies. To be sustainable, an effective federal AI policy should consider an “all-of-government approach” that in addition to technological innovation also addresses economic growth, infrastructure investment, and workforce development.
To help workers prepare for the job market changes brought by AI, we must commit to reskilling current workers and ensuring equal, high quality STEM education for future workers. To get broad buy-in from all Americans, we must concentrate on harnessing AI’s potential to build an economy that benefits everyone and invest heavily in domestic infrastructure such as modernized energy grids, clean energy production and chip manufacturing.
I support government action to ensure a world-wide, level playing field and to promote U.S. competitiveness, while also prioritizing domestic issues like antitrust enforcement and consumer welfare. Attracting highly skilled tech workers from around the world to ensure U.S. companies is vital to remain globally competitive. I support a strategic, government-led approach to ensure fair global markets, that is balanced with appropriate domestic regulation and a focus on broad-based prosperity for the entire U.S.
How would you describe the current state of your party and what changes or new approaches would you like to see your party adopt?
The Democratic Party is currently defined by tension between its establishment/moderate leadership that is seen as disconnected from working-class voters and energized progressives seeking to fundamentally transform the party. The party must update its approach and operations to more effectively combat the rise of right-wing authoritarianism and economic inequality.
To address the affordability crisis, we must embrace economic populism by adopting a bold, progressive platform that taxes the wealthy, strengthens labor unions, and takes on corporate monopolies to directly address income inequality. We must challenge systemic inequality by focusing on the “little guy,” rather than corporate interests. We must sharpen our focus on improving the lives of working-class families by emphasizing popular policies like Medicare for All and canceling student debt, demonstrating that the government can directly improve lives.
We need to view climate change as an existential threat requiring urgent, transformative action and demonstrate how a Green New Deal can benefit both the environment and the economy. We must boldly fight for our core values of workers’ rights, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and diplomacy over “Forever Wars.”
We must recommit to building comprehensive, local infrastructures that make the party more responsive to grassroots demands. We need to fight gerrymandering and work against the influence of big money in our politics. As a party we should fight for automatic voter registration, same-day registration, and restore rights for the formerly incarcerated to increase participation among underrepresented groups.