What types of transportation do you use during an average week, and how has this shaped your view of transportation policy?

Living in the suburbs, I mostly drive. However, having grown up in Chicago, I know the importance of good public transportation. Understanding my privilege at having choices – like purchasing a car – I tend to view transportation through the experiences of those dependent on other alternatives. My background in health care has sensitized me to a range of people whose access to vital resources is limited or dictated by how they could reach them, particularly low-income mothers and pregnant women, the disabled and seniors.

At a macro level, I prioritize transportation because of its significance in continuing to develop the 2nd Congressional District’s role as a hub for commerce in the Chicago Southland, the state and nation. This means constructing and improving roadways. At the community level, I prioritize improving the connections transportation can make between constituents, employment and critical services, which entails ensuring convenient rail and vehicular options.

What are some transportation challenges in your district?

South suburban transportation faces critical issues, including an expected $600-$700 million regional transit funding deficit for 2027, severely reduced ridership, and aging infrastructure. Suburbs deal with fragmented service between Metra and Pace, low-frequency options and limited last-mile connectivity, often requiring cars. These issues disproportionately affect lower-income, disinvested areas. The same is true for the Chicago part of the 2nd CD. For decades, residents on the city's far South Side have lobbied for an extension of the CTA Redline to 130th Street. Currently, the residents live in a food desert, a hospital desert and a jobs desert. Many residents have to take three buses to get to the nearest full service grocery store. Unfortunately, funding for the Redline extension is under threat from the Trump Administration.

How do you view Congress’s role in setting priorities for public transit, passenger rail, and strengthening accessibility in transportation?

Its role of providing funding, regulation and oversight can depend largely on Executive Branch priorities. President Biden committed to returning the U.S. from about 16th in the world, to its former No. 1 spot in infrastructure development, spurring states to undertake unprecedented improvement projects. Illinois developed a six-year $50.6 billion infrastructure plan, with about $15.8 billion expected to come from the federal government. The Trump administration has already withheld, put restrictions on or made threats about massive funds earmarked for projects in Illinois and other states deemed oppositional to its views.

As alluded to above, the 2nd Congressional District is a transportation hub for commerce via Route 30 from east coast to west and north to south. It hosts several major economic engines with both local and national importance, such as the South Suburban Airport, the $20 billion Psi Quantum computing campus, two of the state’s newest of nearly 15 Amazon fulfillment and sortation centers. All derive benefits from commuter rail extensions and highway development. I would certainly fight to make sure Illinois receives the funding projected to realize the business and employment opportunities envisioned.

What’s your position on the Federal government and Illinois’ current transportation infrastructure spending, and if you could change anything, what would it be?

As mentioned above, we need to receive the Federal funds factored into Illinois’ ambitious infrastructure development plan. At the state level, the conversation is too often framed as a fight between Chicago and the suburbs, on the different needs of CTA, Metra and Pace, with each crossing jurisdictions to cover a diverse region with greatly varying community size, density and travel demand. I prefer a more integrated approach that capitalizes regional and service factors that benefit the whole.

For example, CTA provides rail and bus service in 35 suburban municipalities. Tens of thousands of rides are served each day on 21 CTA rail stations in suburban communities. Roughly 1/3 of all regional bus rides that begin in a suburb are served by CTA. Approximately 40% of Pace rides include a transfer to/from a CTA ride, with several of the busiest Pace routes acting as an extension of CTA rail lines and bringing city residents to suburban jobs and destinations, and vice versa. Metra operates and serves more than 70 rail stations within the city of Chicago and helps power the Loop, the region’s biggest job center.

Studies have shown that, nationally, residents in the Chicago Southland have the longest commute to a quality job. On the other hand, the South Suburban Airport promises unprecedented local work opportunities at all skill levels. Public transportation, like extension of the Redline, to the district’s economic engines will open up ways for these benefits to travel throughout the region and beyond in all directions.

What is your position on investing to expand passenger rail service in Illinois, including the development of high-speed rail?

I fully support this, with the Chicago Southland identified as pivotal in connections that benefit local economies and families.

Federal funding for Illinois transportation projects – such as the Red Line Extension and Red-Purple Modernization projects – has come under threat from the Trump administration. How do you plan to shore up funding for critical infrastructure projects under a hostile federal climate?

In addition to points made above, I would educate my Congressional colleagues about Illinois’ position as the “premier national transportation hub,” connecting rail, air and highway networks. It is the only state where all six Class I railroads meet, features the third largest interstate system and provides two-day truck access to 83% of the U.S. population. Some 75% of the nation’s freight – valued at $350 billion, moves through the region. I would emphasize why areas/states far beyond our borders could derive benefits from ensuring Illinois infrastructure funding, much of which is particularly appropriate for the transportation-centered 2nd District.

Our streets have become increasingly militarized in the past several months as the Trump administration has ramped up DHS and ICE activity in our cities. This past summer, Congress voted to increase the ICE budget larger than most of the world's militaries.

What is your position on ICE and related immigration enforcement?

In Congress I will support a swift and humane path to citizenship for migrants, due process for all and accountability for agencies that violate civil rights. I would work toward ending racial profiling, ensuring immigration enforcement upholds our Constitution and that we have a swift, humane path for migrant citizenship. I would support reforming ICE to provide sufficient oversight, transparency and accountability to combat its current blatant disregard for due process and constitutional rights. I believe the Department of Homeland Security should at minimum focus on its original purposes to protect borders and legally process removal of proven criminals. I support current Congressional efforts to defund DHS and immigration-related detention centers and indiscriminate roundups without concern for due process, humane treatment or independent oversight.