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

I will be honest, public transit isn’t a part of my everyday life at the moment. I take the “L” to the city, particularly for baseball and football games, the rigor of a campaign generally means that I am stuck in my car driving from end of the district to another. However, I have found when I have lived elsewhere that it was much easier for me to take public transportation and as it was more easily accessible and a lot more convenient for me to do so. I have found that public transit can easily be integrated into your life if you make it both affordable and convenient. That takes a major investment from all levels of government to do so and in such a way that it follows people instead of trying to reroute them through differing trajectories.

What are some transportation challenges in your district?

There are some major funding gaps on the horizon and without addressing them, the district may have to cut services by nearly 50%. The Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) oversees the budgets and programs of Metra, the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), and Pace and sees an annual ridership of around 2 million, so ensuring effective oversight and funding is crucial to maintaining transport needs for many Illinois residents. Improving public transit accessibility is also something the district needs in order to provide a greater swath of the population with bus stops and train stops. Finally, investment in transportation infrastructure maintenance and improvement is needed on aging roads, bridges, and other public transit systems.

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

Congress can enact and enforce national standards for public transit. This nation has not thought of public transportation as a national issue. Typically, it is addressed as a "local issue." If we are truly going to be able to integrate and modernize public transportation, we must think of it as a national priority and ensure the necessary safeguards are in place to protect long term projects across different administrations.

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

Last year, Illinois' Governor Pritzker unveiled a $50.6 billion six-year infrastructure plan for the state's roads, bridges, railways, airports, and more. About half the road and bridge funding, roughly $15.8 billion, is expected to come from the federal government. I think it is beneficial when state governments work with the federal government to improve the overall infrastructure as it helps all Americans. As a Representative it is my responsibility to ensure that money is delivered as promised.

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

I firmly believe that reliable public transportation is a symbol of effective governance. Providing reliable public transportation, both long distance and short, is necessary to provide transit options for Illinois residents. Expanding passenger rail service would greatly reduce the need for personal vehicles and free up some of the daily traffic that is experienced on the road systems. The development of high-speed rail would be very useful if Illinois could partner with neighboring states to develop an inter-state rail system that services the metropolitan areas at a minimum.

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?

When it comes to funding as with other things, we must acknowledge that we no longer live in the same old as we did a few years ago. We must be able to get more "shovel ready" projects queued up as to hasten the money transfer from the federal government to the state government. We must do more to speed up the process from approving the project to ground breaking to make it harder for any future administration to cut off funds on any project let alone any project that they may disagree with.

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?

I support clear statutory ICE standards, stronger training and verification, and independent oversight for rapid review and correction when individuals are wrongly detained. There must also be real consequences and remedies for agencies that violate constitutional rights, not just internal apologies.

When I am in Congress, I will do everything to take back the power of the purse that has been mostly ceded to the Executive branch. The amount of money that was directed to the Department of Homeland Security from the November 2025 Continuing Resolution was unacceptable. Since it was a CR, the administration had much more freedom to spend the money as they wanted. This is a failure of our Congress to set the terms of how money should be spent. One of the core functions of Congress is to work together to develop a budget for the country, but the last time Congress passed all its appropriations measures on time was in 1997. Relying on CRs to fund our government is laziness and complacency. ICE has become such a mockery of “law enforcement” that they can no longer exist. I will work to put financial pressure on ICE until we can abolish it in the next administration. I will work with that administration to build an immigrant enforcement agency that will focus on "the worst of the worst" and have real guardrails that are much harder to break. Immigrant enforcement agents should be easily identifiable through uniforms, and should not be able to hide their faces and should be brought back under the purview of the Department of Justice and not the Department of Homeland Security. We also need to de-militarize them. Under Obama and Biden, they were able to work with governors of all 50 states to get the worst criminals off the streets, and were able to work with them to deport a lot more individuals after they have served their debts to America.