Illinois state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz ( D ) has prided herself on the over two-decades of service she has provided to the diverse people of the 12th District and her history of listening to their needs and taking action on them.
Republican challenger Gene Witt claims he offers voters their first choice in six years. In what is being called a "change election" both up and down the ballot, Witt is hedging his campaign on the belief that voters are frustrated with the Democratic majority in Springfield and what he calls the "political game."
Feigenholtz talked with Windy City Times about the accusations Witt has leveled at her and addressed some of the issues paramount to her constituency and the LGBTQ community should she prevail Nov. 8.
Windy City Times: There's been a lot of frustration on the Illinois budget stalemate. Your opponent has called you one of Speaker Mike Madigan's "top lieutenants" and says the state's financial issues are on you both. How do you respond?
Sara Feigenholtz: I think that Mr. Witt has a very bad sense of history. Before Bruce Rauner took office, we were on a path to right the ship after the 2008 recession. We cut Medicaid by $1.3 billion. We began to reform pensions by trying to pass a pension reform bill that was subsequently rejected by the court but, at the same time, we created a two-tiered system for new employees coming in to all parts of the budget whether they were teachers or state workers. We knew we would have latitude without constitutional considerations so that we could remedy the problem.
We also removed some barriers to bill paying, we stopped the bad habit of cycling our Medicaid liability, we cut budgets and trimmed fat everywhere we could and we were paying our so bills. We were heading in the right direction. We had a temporary income tax increase that helped us do all of this and we were doing zero-based budgeting. Mr. Witt doesn't know that we would responsibly take a look at the revenue estimates that came in, not only from the Bureau of the Budget, but also from the Forecasting and Accountability Office. We would come to an agreed number that we had as revenue. It was divided in the House into five separate committees who went through our budget line by line. If there was an initiative that a bipartisan committee of legislators agreed needed to be funded, we would trim from another line. We had a capitated number and we could not spend through it. If that's not responsible budgeting I don't know what is.
Everything changed when Bruce Rauner tried to interject his turnaround agenda into the budget process. In the years I've been in the General Assembly, I have never met a governor who didn't know when a bill filing deadline was for substantive bills, who held social services, care for the disabled and the elderly, kids going to public schools and higher education hostage because of a greedy agenda that had no place in the budgeting process. If you take a look at all of the things that are on Bruce Rauner's turnaround agenda, in the context of budgeting, what is the dollar value of the passage of each of those items as far as the impact on our budget? When we have a capitated number and a bottom line, where do we plug in his agenda? Nowhere. There is a zero-dollar value to his agenda. He wanted a quid pro quo, he never sat down with leaders. He just hoisted it out to the media and made it divisive.
This is the third Republican governor I have worked with. There has never been a governor like this. Every other Republican governor sat down and compromised, had respect for the branches of government, did not call the Supreme Court "corrupt," did not start launching attacks on House Democrats on television in the middle of a legislative session creating an environment of hostility. [Rauner] governs only by chaos and has cut a path to destruction. He does not understand the branches of government or the legislative process and, if he does, he disrespects them.
WCT: There's a lot of discussion right now about the importance of down-ballot races. On the top of the Republican ticket, Trump wants to rid the U.S. of establishment politicians. Your opponent seems to be running on that. Why should voters stick with you?
SF: Gene is making a presumption that anyone who's been in office for X number of years is entrenched, corrupt, stale or lazy. I'm sure there are some elected officials out there who deserve that. There are 110,000 people who live in my district who I represent. If they want me to do something contrary to what the Democratic leadership ask me to do, I vote with my constituents because they're the boss. I am constantly connected to them. I am listening to what my community needs. I get things done. I deliver for my community. I change things for the state and my record speaks for itself. I have the energy, knowledge and wherewithal to be effective.
WCT: The LGBTQ community has come together to address gun violence. Should you prevail, where do you see Springfield going on the issue?
SF: When [former Chicago Police Department Superintendent] Garry McCarthy came to Springfield with his mandatory minimums bill, he wasn't very familiar with the politics of Cook County and the City of Chicago. Had I been the chief of police, I would have spent a great deal of time with the representatives who represent the communities who are being affected by gun violence and with legislators who struggled with his proposal. We at the General Assembly were not ready for it. I believe that people who are in possession of illegal guns should serve more time and be taken off the streets.
But the fact that some our criminal code will put people in prison if they steal a packet of hot dogs longer than illegally possessing a gun is a problem. We are trying to carefully craft a piece of legislation that takes a step in the right direction and I am very optimistic because you have prosecutors and public defenders who are inside the General Assembly who are trying to pass a law. I'm 100 percent for gun control but I am, also very weary of how our jails are stacked with minorities. We need to begin to take people out of jail for petty offences and not put them in there in the first place. Mandatory minimums became a very racial issue. So much work is being done now by every legislator and I'm holding out hope that some of the folks who are ardent gun lobby supporter will come to the table on this one because we've hit a tragic number of homicides in this city.
WCT: Your opponent is against the ability for transgender people to change birth certificates without surgery. We still have massive unemployment and violence problems in that community. What's your opinion of Mr. Witt's stance on birth certificates and what do you see Springfield doing to address transgender rights moving forward?
SF: The bottom line is that Gene is very out of touch with the community. For him to have such an insensitive, uneducated, ill-informed position is reflective of how he would fit in representing this community. You have to get it. You have to understand and be part of a community for a long time to fight for things and not reject them. I tried to explain to him that for him to even allude to the fact that people may want to change their gender to get minority contracts was really, really offensive. I tried to explain to him how it happens in real life.
In our office, we just had a mother who has a child who is transitioning. When she came in to see me, she asked me for help and told me it was important for the future of her child. Had she walked into Gene Witt's office, he would have summarily turned back the clock. Out history and legacy in Lake View is tolerance and you would think he would have figured that out.
I sponsored the bill with the ACLU many years ago. I think people have evolved. The [LGBTQ] community has a lot to be proud of. They are the examples everybody uses on how to organize and band together to fight which is why they will be so effective on the gun issues. They will be formidable and I know where my money is. It's not on the gun lobby.
For more information on the Sara Feigenholtz campaign, visit SaraFeigenholtz.com .
