Recently, Illinois Rep. Dan Lipinski, who faces a challenge from businesswoman Marie Newman in the March 20 Democratic primary, spoke with Chicago radio host Bill Cameron. Audio of the interview, as well as a transcript, are below.
Bill Cameron: Dan Lipinski is on the line. He's a Chicago congressman and Democrat from the Southwest side and suburbs. Dan, welcome back to the program.
Dan Lipinski: It's good to be with you.
C: The way I see the national press treating your current campaign; are you feeling at all vulnerable?
L: Well, I know that there is a lot of attention because the press likes to look for a fight within the party but I'm confident going into the election that everybody is going to look at what I have done over 13 years and so I'll keep fighting until Election Day, but I'm confident.
C: Why do you want another term?
L: Well, I want to continue to serve my constituents as I have over the last 13-plus years. I've really been a commonsense problem-solver. I have been able to deliver for my district over $375 million in transportation projects. I've also been able to pass numerous pieces of legislation in Congress that have helped to boost manufacturing jobs, empowered sexual assault victims in the military, have helped small business innovators, protected the environment, and made our community safer. Those are the things that my constituents are looking for, and I want to continue to do those things.
C: Now one of the reasons that the other side thinks that you are vulnerable is that Bernie Sanders carried the district apparently in the last election and that you're a little too far to the right and she of course, Marie Newman, is way over on the left. What does that tell you?
L: Well, first of all, I think there is a real misunderstanding about why Bernie Sanders won this district. Bernie won the district because he stood for middle-class Americans, working men and women. The number one thing against these bad trade deals now she—the first press conference I ever did in Washington D.C. was with Bernie Sanders. That was in 2005. That was against the Central American Free Trade Agreement. So Bernie stood up for the middle class, fighting for good jobs, and I think that what Bernie did and why he was successful, especially in the 3rd District, was—there are a lot of the Democrats in the 3rd District that see the Democratic Party as having lost that focus on working men and women, and I think that is exactly why I have been successful, because I've never lost that focus. And because those that look at Bernie Sanders' success in the primary and think that it is somehow because of the more progressive social issues. That's not it at all. It's because he focuses on the same people I focused on—the working class and helping working families.
C: You almost sound like you're a bigger Bernie-backer than Marie Newman is. Is that true enough to transmit?
L: Well if you are looking at what I have stood for, what Bernie stood for, and what my constituents have liked about both of us—I think that is really accurate. Look the Democrats, we lost. Hillary Clinton lost to Trump, a horribly flawed candidate, because working men and women, especially in Midwestern states looked at Hillary Clinton and didn't believe that she was really for the issues that they're concerned about. They're concerned about jobs today, in the future jobs for their children, and in Donald Trump they saw, even though he hasn't lived that out, even though he hasn't done that as president. They saw Donald Trump talking about those issues; talking about the bad trade deals. Hillary was in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, until Bernie finally, you know until she felt the heat from Bernie and had to say that she was against it. And they looked at that, and other things that Hillary was pushing and said "that's not what we want our president to be concerned about. We want our president to be concerned about, first and foremost, good-paying jobs". Donald Trump pretended like he was concerned about those things, and he won over some Democrats, enough Democrats in these Midwestern states, in order to win it. And that's a problem for the Democratic Party. If we continue to lose our focus on working men and women, we are going to continued to lose, and I'm afraid that I see that happening.
C: Well, what'd you think about the side trying to paint you as a Trump guy, because you show up in a photo in the White House in the background?
L: Well, that's just ridiculous, I went over to the White House, was invited with a bipartisan group of members to go over there. And it's funny, I didn't take a picture with Donald Trump. I was in the background of another photo. And that's ridiculous. People don't like that kind of politics, where it's just hate, hate, hate. I mean I opposed, I'm opposed to Donald Trump trying to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act, I opposed this terrible tax bill that got passed. But the fact that there's a picture of me at the White House, somehow makes me a bad person, a bad Democrat, that's just ridiculous. American people don't like that kind of stuff.
C: Okay, let me give you an opportunity to defend from some of the issues they raise to argue that you're a bad guy. Number one is that you voted against Obamacare, originally.
L: Well, people have asked me, "Oh, do you regret that vote?" and I don't regret that vote. We have seen the problems with Obamacare through the years. When that passed, I immediately said, "Okay, it's now law. I'm not going to support repeal. I'm going to support fixing it and that is what I have done over the years. Unfortunately, it passed and Democrats said that we can't admit that there is anything wrong with it, we're not going to try to change anything, and Republicans said we need to repeal it or we're not going to try to fix it. I've been trying to fix it over the last eight years. Look, 37 percent increase in premiums in Illinois for the Affordable Care Act plans for 2018. I put together a plan with the bipartisan House Problem Solvers committee, we put together a plan to reduce premiums in the Affordable Care Act by 30 percent. That's something that we got bipartisan support for, and I'm still hoping that we're going to do it and be able to get that accomplished. I've been trying to fix the Affordable Care Act. There are a lot of problems with it. Some have been fixed, but there are more that need to be fixed.
C: Issue number two is that you're supposedly a bad guy because you are pro-life.
L: Well, I am pro-life and I have made no, I have been very upfront and clear about that. Marie Newman is extreme on the abortion issue. The groups that she is supporting are extreme. She takes positions that are not supported by Democrats in this district. Taxpayer funding for abortion, these compromised pieces of legislation. This bill that we had just voted on last week that says that if a baby is born during a botched abortion, that the medical providers have to take care of that baby. That's something that all of these organizations that have poured over a million dollars into Marie Newman's campaign, they oppose. So she is taking an extreme position, that is out-of-step, not just with the district as a whole, including independents and Republicans, but even with Democrats.
C: Issue number 3 is that you're against gay rights.
L: Well I have, since the Supreme Court decided that Marriage Equality is the law of the land, I have supported that. Back 10 years ago I voted to add sexual orientation to federal hate-crime laws. I voted to end Don't Ask Don't Tell. So again, it doesn't really, those charges don't fit with reality.
C: And the one that surprised me when Newman was here to tape an interview with me on this show, is that you, Dan Lipinski, really don't bring home the bacon. That it's a myth and that your father Bill established that and that you're really not doing anything.
L: Well, that's laughable. I've brought over $375 million back for local transportation projects, and if Ms. Newman would walk a block-and-a-half down from her house to the Metra Station at Stone Avenue and La Grange, that is a station that was an old, historic, station in La Grange, that I brought back $700,000 to rehabilitate and to restore that station and so, I think it just shows again that Marie Newman is out-of-touch with even what's a block-and-a-half from her home.
C: That's Dan Lipinski, he is the 3rd District congressman talking about issues, because he has a tough primary fight with Marie Newman on March 20th. Let's talk about Trump. What do you think of his idea that we should arm teachers and we should do away with gun-free zones around schools as the remedy to what happened in Florida?
L: Well I think that is ridiculous. We all mostly love our teachers, not every teacher that we have had, but generally we love our teachers and we certainly support all our teachers, but arming teachers, I think, not only sends the wrong message, but it also would potentially increase the danger. I think that's a terrible idea from the President, another terrible idea.
C: What do you think we should do to end, or try to end, these horrible massacres in schools of all places?
L: When we talk about the gun issue in general, there are two different issues in terms of where these terrible murders are taking place. If we are talking about these school shootings, in these massacres, we've got to make it more difficult for anyone to get their hands on this type of rifle. There is no reason for people to have them, but we need to—we have a hard time in Washington making any, any, common sense change to gun laws because of Republican opposition. I've gotten, I have an F from the NRA. I believe in the 2nd Amendment, but the NRA is just way out there. It is making us less safe. We need to do more for mental health, obviously, there are mental health issues here.
Now, in general, background checks—we need to close the loopholes in background checks. Everyone should have to have a background check if they are going to be purchasing a gun. I've supported and cosponsored legislation to do that, but if we are looking at the city of Chicago, most of these murders that take place with guns are, in the first place they are illegal guns, so something else that I have cosponsored is to make trafficking of illegal guns a federal crime and we don't do that right now. Some of these guns that come into Chicago, into our area, come from out of state where it is much easier to get guns. These are just some common sense things that we should be doing, and every time that a horrible massacre, there is talk about doing some of this. Bump-stocks, after what happened in Las Vegas even the president came out and said we should get rid of, make bump-stocks illegal, a lot of Republicans said that and then nothing happened. Nothing happened. So, we've just got to keep pushing to get this common-sense legislation passed.
C: How about the Diane Feinstein proposal to at least put a 21-year-old limit on who can buy an assault rifle.
L: There is no question that we should do that. It is easier to buy an assault rifle than it is to buy a handgun. No one can think that that makes any sense.
C: How about bringing back the assault weapon ban?
L: The assault weapon ban that's a tough one. It's a tough one not because I think that people should have assault weapons, there are over 50 million AR-15 out there. So the other part of this is we need, if that's the first thing we try to do, we are going to get nothing done, and I think that that's an issue. We've got to start working on these other common-sense gun safety bills, to get those done. Again, I don't think that people, that there is a reason to have these weapons. It's a question of how do we change it, how do we make that happen.
C: One thing that I have seen about that is let them have them, but have them locked up at a shooting range-type facility, so that they wouldn't be out on the street. They could only use them under that controlled condition. Is something like that an approach that might fly?
L: I certainly support that, I think that Republicans, many Republicans, most Republicans, are going to say, "Well, no they need those at home to protect their home" and that's always the argument. Look, there is a very different mindset, a gun culture that is not what most of us in our area grew up with, some people did, but most of us have not and we need to figure out how to sit down and come up with some common sense ways of changing the law, to keep the guns out of the hands of people criminals, people with mental health issues, but like I said it is a very tough issue, because you have people in Congress who represent areas where they just don't understand the issue. They have lived with guns and they don't see a problem with it, where we're not just going to beat them over the head and get them to our side. We need to sit down and talk about why these changes in the law are important to safety for everybody from our schools in the suburbs to the inner city.
C: So if there were a roll call on an assault rifle ban, how would you vote—yea or nay?
L: I would support it, I just don't think that if we lead with that, I think that is going to be counterproductive.
C: And of course the mental health piece is an important one in the Florida story. What should we be doing to make sure that the mentally ill don't get guns?
L: Well, obviously there were so many signs that were missed or just ignored, and that seems to happen in a lot of these, before a lot of these massacres. Certainly needs to be, I believe, more federal funding. There have continued to be attempts by Republicans to cut funding for mental health services. A new idea for a law about being able to get, essentially something like a protection order, so that people who did have an issue, someone can go to get an order that they would not be allowed to have a weapon, this person would have legal recourse to appeal that, but something like that seems to make some sense.
C: Is that not now available? That would be something new?
L: That would be something new.
C: So you'd go to some local judge and ask for this kind of order?
L: That is my understanding of it and it's something that I've heard much more talk about after what happened in Florida.
C: Okay, let's move to infrastructure. The President is talking about a 1.5 trillion—T for trillion—bill this is right in your wheelhouse, but how would we pay for that, Dan?
L: Well, first of all his plan really landed with a thud on Capitol Hill. Not just Democrats or Republicans saying that this is not going to work. He's saying that we are going to make a billion dollars turn into $1.5 trillion in infrastructure—that's not going to happen. Unfortunately, the president is really pushing to move more towards private infrastructure building, which public-private partnerships can work in some instances, but in general that's not going to fix our infrastructure. What we need to do is have real federal commitment to funding for infrastructure. The Highway Trust Fund, which has paid for our transportation infrastructure—federal funding for transportation infrastructure for many decades now. We are taking money out of general revenue, because we have failed to raise money for the Highway Trust Fund.
I think a gas tax has not been increased in 25 years. I think that there are other way though that we could raise more revenue for the Highway Trust Fund. I argued when we were doing the tax bill, I said that this is a tax issue, it should be taken care of in this tax bill. Republicans refused to do that, but it is still something that we need to tackle, and I hope maybe there is some movement on this, and I'll keep pushing for it, because America needs infrastructure and things just keep getting worse. We pay for it one way or the other. We either pay to fix our infrastructure, or we pay for it, whether it is damaging it when you drive your car through one of these potholes that are all over the place now after the snow and the melt, or we pay for it, we can't move goods as well around our country and it makes the cost of business more expensive. For example, that's why the truckers have supported an increase in the diesel tax that they pay, because they say, "We're willing to pay it, because we know the roads need to be fixed".
C: And you'd vote for an increase on gas tax?
L: You know, Bill, you are always trying to get me to say I'll vote for an increase on the gas tax. The gas tax increase is not going to happen. There is a bill out there right now that would, say, put a fee on freight. So it would go on the companies that are moving the freight. That money, would then go into the Highway Trust Fund and that's probably a better way to go about doing it.
C: Would that retire the bonds on $1.5 trillion of infrastructure?
L: We are not going to get $1.5 trillion in infrastructure. It's just not going to happen. We need to do more, but that's a number that President Trump threw out there, but we are not going to get to that.
C: What do you think of Trump so far?
L: I think that President Trump has been a disaster. Starting out with the travel ban, which was awful, didn't do anything about security and safety really. He does not seem to really care, take an interest or care about real policy and how to get things done. He's really made it much more difficult to solve the problems that we have to solve. He talked so much about infrastructure and it took him more than a year to come out with this plan, which I don't think is going anywhere. He talked about trade—we still have yet to see what he is going to do in trying to fix trade laws. So many things he's done, in many ways, we always look to the president to set the tone of our nation, and the tone that he has set is horrible. He has divided our nation more than it was already divided, which I didn't think was possible. He has divided us more. We need to come together as Americans, work together to solve problems. That's what I've always been about, that's what I think we should be doing, and President Trump has made that more difficult.