ALTON TELEGRAPH: U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski talks about issues affecting US, southern Illinois

COLLINSVILLE – U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski recently sat down in her Collinsville office to talk about some of the issues in the district, which covers a large part of Southwestern and Central Illinois from Venice to Champaign. Prior to entering Congress, she had been a labor organizer and worked for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and as chief of staff for the federal Office of Management and Budget until returning to Illinois to announce her first run for Congress.

She is seeking another term, and is currently circulating nominating petitions.

Q. What role does a representative plays?

“Foremost, it’s constituent services. We have 4 different offices in the 13th Congressional District (Collinsville, Springfield, Decatur and Champaign). A lot of what we’ll typically do is help constituents if they’re looking for assistance with VA benefits, Social Security benefits, IRS. That is probably the bread and butter of a congressional office.

“The second is what I think of as bringing back the federal dollars. These are your tax dollars wanting to make sure they’re working for you. We work really closely with the local communities on what their priorities are and then we help to advocate for those dollars to come home. For those projects in Washington.

“We had great success last administration.

“Let’s just start with the inland waterways. We advocated for $120 million of investment on our locks and dams. We need to be doing more that it’s going to require continued investment.

“Right here in Madison County and Edwardsville, the city of Edwardsville had applied three times for a big infrastructure grant that we helped to bring that home on the third time. It was about a little over $20 million.

“I will say that this administration has frozen a lot of these bigger federal grants that we’ve been awarded. So we’re fighting to make sure we get those dollars in. But that was a really important project for Goshen Road.

“And then the Boys and Girls Club.

“We’ve also been advocating, we have community project funds that I’ve been advocating for a whole series of different initiatives within the Metro East area where we bring back money.

“In this administration, we’re hoping we’re facing a big deadline at the end of September to get a budget done. And if that budget gets done, I have 15 projects in there that I’m hoping will be funded.

“Then there’s the legislative, and we’ve had some success even in Washington with a pretty difficult political situation.

“I have passed a few bills to actually help support our veterans, in particular because I serve on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. A lot of those pieces of legislation were really trying to clear out the bureaucracy to make it easier for veterans to navigate the VA and to get the care that they need.

“I’ve also tried to be a good advocate on some of the specific issues that veterans deal with, like military sexual trauma. We want to make sure that we’re properly training the VA employees to handle or work with the veteran survivor of military sexual trauma that requires them to be additionally trained so they’re not retraumatization a veteran that’s a survivor of that.”

Q. The 13th District covers everything from industrial urban to very rural, how hard is that to represent?

“I love the challenge of it all. It’s a very diverse district with obviously diverse interest. I often say that the district itself is kind of stitched together by farmland, so no matter where you go, we care a lot about corn and soybeans, and if you’re here in Collinsville, we care a lot about horseradish.

“But we also have great universities on the eastern and western side of the district, the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign or Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville. We’ve got great community colleges too. So we have a lot of diversity.

“And I really lean on my local mayors to tell me what’s important to them and that’s how we prioritize the work we’re (doing).”

Q. How would you characterize the general political climate?

“Very challenging, and the reason I say that is we have a White House that continues to try to undermine the legislative branch of government, whether it’s through the budget process, through ongoing trade negotiations that the President is doing.

“It is very difficult and then of course, it’s very politically, deeply partisan.

“Right now we just went through a very difficult negotiation. Democrats were not even at the negotiating table when the Republicans passed the “One Big Ugly Bill” and then Trump administration signed it into law, which created some very extreme $900 billion of cuts to Medicaid, $187 billion of cuts to SNAP.

“It is very challenging. I think my role is to fight for our communities, which means continuing to try to find some places where we can agree on both sides of the aisle. I try to do that. I’ve done that in the veteran space. I’ve done that in agriculture.

“But I’m going to fight back against this administration when they’re trying to take away people’s healthcare. They’re trying to make communities more food insecure and I’m going to continue to fight back against that.”

Q. What do you think needs to be done to make it a more cooperative atmosphere.?

“I think the Trump administration is making it really challenging and the fact that the Republicans, at least in the House of Representatives and largely in the Senate, are following the administration pretty locked up. It’s hard to kind of have everybody at the table, they’re not interested in working with Democrats right now. I think what would make it better, as I think most legislation is made better by both sides coming to the table, not one party has the corner on a corner store on all good ideas. We all have our own good ideas. And I think we make better legislation when we try to negotiate together,

I’m somebody who doesn’t think compromise is a bad word. I think we should be working together and coming to those compromises to help support our communities. That’s not what’s happening in Washington, and that’s not the current environment.”

Q: You’ve got the midterms coming up a lot of times, those are often seen as a referendum on the president. What do you see is happening.

“Well, I think the president is very concerned about what’s happening.

“That’s why you see what he’s doing in Texas or maybe potentially what he’s going to be doing in Missouri, which is redistricting in a very unprecedented mid-decade redistricting effort to steal five different congressional seats in Texas.

“He knows he’s not winning on the issues, and so he’s trying to, quite frankly, cheat going into this midterm election because I think voters are going to hold him accountable.

“When he said that his number one priority on day one was reducing costs for people, and you go to the grocery store right now and look at what the price of a pound of beef is, you can’t argue that prices have gone down. They’ve really only gone up.

“And so I think on the issues, on the substance, he’s losing and I think this is going to be and should be a very bruising, mid-term election for him.”

Q. Now you brought up redistricting now looking specifically the 15th and 13th (Congressional Districts), they are unusual districts, what is your take on that?

“I would just say that there is a lot that the communities of the 13th District share in common with each other, from the universities to Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville or University of Illinois.

“Like I said, we all care about corn and soybeans, no matter where you go, there’s a lot of common interest within this district. And as this district was drawn, which I had no role in, I’m honored to represent it. I’m honored to fight for the people in this district.”

Q. You are running for reelection, but the election catching a lot of interest is filling U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat. What’s your take on that?

“We’re going to have a gubernatorial election as well. Our statewide officers are all going to be on there. It’s going to be a very busy ticket in Illinois.

“But looking at Sen. Durbin’s seat, you know the importance for me as a House member, I work very closely with my United States senators, whether it’s Senator Durbin or Senator Duckworth, I want to see whoever the person is that fills Senator Durbin’s seat hopefully has as collaborative of a relationship that I have with the senator now.

“After this next election, we will work really closely on a lot of the regional issues, a lot of the infrastructure issues as well. We’ve pulled in the same direction, so I’m looking for that person who is going to understand the uniqueness of our downstate communities and be my partner.”

Q. That’s about it for general questions, but I have a few specific questions. What is the status, from a federal standpoint, on the Alton sinkhole?

“I think that still is kind of waiting to see with the local community decides what they’re going to with that space.

“That (issue) led to is US introducing federal legislation on mining mitigation to try to figure out how we can prepare other communities by learning from that experience in Alton.

“But I think right now we’re trying to work in partnership with them on what they’re going to decide to do.”

Q. Another issue, Cahokia Mounds and attempts to place it in the National Park System?

“I’m very supportive of that. We were successful last administration getting a designation of the National Park in Springfield for the site of the 1908 Race Riot. I know there’s been a lot of organization around Cahokia Mounds. I’m Happy to work with folks locally.

“I will say we face a lot of legislative challenges with getting that done through the legislative process, Because House Republicans have refused to hear in the Natural Resources Committee.

“In the in the case of Springfield, we were able to get that through the Senate, but the Natural Resources Committee wouldn’t hear it in the in the House, so we ended up making an appeal to President Biden to utilize the Antiquities Act to do it with the stroke of the pen.

“We don’t have that administration anymore in this case, so I would think that in order for us to make progress on Cahokia Mounds, we’ll need to take back the House majority, have a natural resources committee that is supportive of our national parks, funding our national parks and willing to do redesignations or designations.

Q. Recently, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling allowing parents to opt out on LGBTQ-related education for their children, a direct contradiction to what Illinois is doing. What is your take on that?

“I think that is a local and state issue and I think the Supreme Court should allow those families, those communities, those school boards, to make those decisions.

“And we want to be always supportive of an inclusive environment that includes all of our history, that includes all of our kids in our community and that everyone feels welcomed and safe.”

Q. What about ongoing issues with U.S. Steel in Granite City?

“I’ve been fighting and demanding answers on the deal, the acquisition of US Steel by Nippon, working to try to get any assurances we can for investment in Granite City.

“I believe that what they the the type of steel that they make in Granite City is unique to any other place in the country and it deserves investment not just because these are people, men and women that have built the community and made the profit for US steel, but that it has unique offerings that that should qualify it for additional investment.

“We have yet to get those assurances. We have led the charge now within the administration to demand more transparency around how that $7 billion that was a part of the investment agreement made by Nippon, where that’s going, who that’s going to. Because since that deal has come out, we know the CEO has been able to cash in pretty handedly for US Steel. That’s not right.”

Q. What about the Bethalto water issues?

“This has been brought to our attention by community activists around kind of lead tasting water, so we know that they have done some of their own research into this issue. They’ve shared that with our team.

“We are actually meeting with the city of Bethalto (Aug. 28) to see how we can be a resource to some of the state revolving fund in particular is something that maybe we could work with the governor’s office on releasing some state funds to help the city address some of those issues, so we want to work in partnership with the local government be a resource.”