One-on-one with U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski: Act on immigration, protect abortion rights

A freshman term marked by House Speaker drama and temporary orders to keep the federal government running, U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski still has a glass is half-full view on Washington.

"I can report that a year later: I'm still an optimist," she said on Monday. "We are really moving the ball forward and bringing back federal resources to address some of the bigger challenges I heard about throughout my campaign and in my first year."

Budzinski, D-Springfield, is again running in the Illinois 13th Congressional District this year coming off a 2022 victory over Regan Deering. Uncontested in March, Budzinski will face the winner of the Republican primary — either Thomas Clatterbuck or Joshua Loyd — in November. Holding funding and incumbency advantages, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report describes the district as "solidly Democrat."

She recently sat down with The State Journal-Register for a one-on-one interview, outlining what she has accomplished and what work lies ahead.

Rail Project, 1908 Race Riot site

Budzinski's first term brought nearly $300 million back to the 13th Congressional District, a district stretching from East St. Louis through Springfield and Decatur and ending in Champaign.

The Capitol City was a recipient of several of those grants, including more than $787,000 towards the Moving Pillsbury Forward project and another $450,000 to the Springfield Economic Empowerment Project. Still, work remains on the Springfield Rail Improvement Project which recently had an application for further funding denied.

The U.S. Department of Transportation denied a request for $138 million on top of the $98.1 million the project has already received. The money was being used to redirect downtown rail traffic from Third Street to the 10th Street corridor. According to Sangamon County officials, the denial would push back completion originally scheduled for 2025, by at least one year and likely add to the project's $475 million price tag.

More: Springfield Rail Improvement Project takes a major blow, feds deny crucial funding

Budzinski hosted President Joe Biden’s now former senior advisor and infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu at the construction site in April. She and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., hope to keep the administration's attention.

Budzinski and U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Dunlap, are also pushing bipartisan legislation that would establish the 1908 Race Riot site as a national monument. It's been a major initiative of the Springfield NAACP, its national organization born out of the riot in 1909. The group has come under fire recently following comments made by Illinois NAACP and Springfield branch president Teresa Haley.

Haley was suspended after comparing immigrants to rapists and "savages" during a November NAACP state presidents' meeting but has since been reinstated. The project's future will not be impacted by the remarks, Budzinski said.

"The site of the 1908 Race Riot is, quite frankly, bigger than me bigger than any individual," she said. Construction on a monument could happen with the passage of legislation or an executive order from Biden. "This is about the history of Springfield, it's about the community. And it's about lifting up, you know, moments in our history sometimes that are good or bad, but inform and tell the story for us moving forward."

Immigration, border reform

An increasingly hot-button issue in Illinois, Budzinski has joined a coalition of congressional Democrats calling for immediate action on border and immigration reform.

The solutions are two-pronged, she said, boosting border security funding to stop illegal immigration while providing a better-equipped legal pathway. In part, that means addressing the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program ruled illegal but kept ongoing by a federal judge in September.

A program former President Donald Trump tried to end, DACA protects "dreamer" immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children from deportation. The Biden administration attempted to codify DACA into federal law before the ruling — a program favored by Budzinski.

"The dreamers are young people that all they know is this country," she said. "They've lived in this country their whole lives. They still have yet to receive citizenship, some of them actually have served actively in our military."

Earlier this month, Gov. JB Pritzker sent a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott urging a pause in sending asylum seekers to Chicago. Receiving nearly 35,000 asylum seekers in the city from Texas since August 2022, Pritzker accused the Lone Star Republican of using the moment to flout a political agenda.

Much is the same in Washington, Budzinski said, where House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has signaled he would not advance an immigration package if it moves through the U.S. Senate.

"Rather than doing the hard work of bipartisanship coming together on where we need to find solutions, this Republican leadership in the House is publicly stating that they don't want to get to that work," she said.

Republicans have called on the Biden administration to resume construction of Trump's border wall and to enact tougher restrictions on those attempting to enter the country.

In Springfield, GOP lawmakers have castigated the use of state dollars in providing services to asylum seekers. Several accompanied U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Oakland, to a recent trip to the border.

"We understand that everyone wants to be humane, but the notion that we are obligated to take care of everyone that wants to come to our country is absurd," state Rep. Brad Halbrook, R-Shelbyville, said during a press conference last week.

Federal abortion legislation

Budzinski has stressed bipartisanship throughout her term, but she sides with fellow Democrats when it comes to abortion rights.

Several states including Missouri are considering putting the question on the ballot this fall, while Illinois state legislators have a working group exploring options that would expand access to abortion. The chance for a national ban would be more likely if Republicans could flip the Senate and the White House, prompting Pritzker to start up Think Big America — personally funding efforts to protect access nationwide.

For Budzinski, abortion access transcends partisanship.

"This is an issue that affects all women in this country and being able to have that freedom to make her own decisions," she said.

Illinois has become an island in the Midwest in terms of abortion access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. That same year, abortions increased in the state by 8% from 2021 to over 56,000 according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.

Potential Budzinski opponent Clatterbuck, a University of Illinois Urbana Champaign law student, told The News-Gazette he praised the Supreme Court's overturning. However, he is not in favor of a federal abortion ban.

Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Budzinski calls for border action, federal abortion legislation