Illinois 17th Congressional District Incumbent Eric Sorensen, a Democrat, accepted the Illinois Farm Bureau's political action committee ACTIVATOR endorsement on Monday, October 14th, on a family farm in Taylor Ridge, IL. Following the event, WVIK News spoke to Congressman Sorensen. He is running for reelection against retired 17th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Joe McGraw, a Republican.
WVIK News is including the entire interview with Congressman Sorensen for voters. The transcript has been edited for clarity.
WVIK News: Can you tell me what the main issue for the Farm Bill is in the lame-duck session? What piece of the legislation is at odds between the two parties at the moment?
Congressman Sorensen: So what has happened is you have a partisan farm bill that sits. Looking at the majority in the House Agriculture Committee today were Republicans. I was one of four Democrats to vote for it. And so right now, it just sits, and it gathers dust. No one's willing to do anything with it. And so what I have been saying and what I have said years ago was we cannot let this get anywhere near the election. And so I was calling for the farm bill to get done last March. You know, if we can't get this done by the right amount of time, March has got to be the time. I didn't want it to get to September, which is where it ended up, because now we're into a new fiscal year and it gets trickier and trickier. So what we need to make sure is. Is that we can meet the moment with a bipartisan deal between Senator Stabenow in the Senate. So she chairs agriculture in the Senate and G.T. Thompson, the Republican chairman in House AG. We need to come together and make sure we have a bipartisan bill, because right now it's not going to pass the House. And if we were to bring this partisan bill to the House, it's going to fail. But then if it fails, think of all of the things that. You know, for instance, crop insurance, it goes away at the first of the year. There are so many different things for dairy. We go back to a benchmark of 1945. There are so many archaic things that just stop. They dead end when you get to the end of the year. But also understand that farmers are having a tough time today. We had a fantastic season. You got the right amount of rain early on and then it dried out. Nobody is having to add more costs by drying out the corn. Or the soybeans. They just look good. They're coming right out of the fields. The problem is we haven't opened up enough world markets. So the price per bushel is way down. So we're doing nothing to help out our farmers as they're producing. And so those are some of the things in the next year or before the next year we need to get done.
WVIK News: Moving on to the economy. Inflation, I know, is starting to ease a little bit. Interest rates are starting to be cut. What legislation would you support in Congress that would help families be able to afford rents, groceries? Utilities?
Rep. Sorensen: Right, so we have to understand that one of the most highly inflated costs today is prescription drugs. And I hear this from my own pharmacist at the Osco and City Line Plaza in Moline. She tells me, she goes, the worst part of my job is when there's a senior that has to rip open the bag and slides an orange bottle back to me. She's like, that is the worst feeling. Because the drugs, the life-saving drugs that a doctor gives to a senior aren't ever making it to that senior. And so we're failing them. And so what can I do as a member of Congress? I can stop it. So the big pharmaceutical companies, they're playing games. They're stopping the process of getting generics to market. And so when I started looking at how this process has unfolded, as the FDA is studying the efficacy of a generic drug, they get three-quarters of the way around the board, and then the pharmaceutical companies will say, here's a whole bunch of data that we didn't give you, and here it is. So the FDA has to go all the way back to the start. And it delays things by years. And that's not right. When we're studying the efficacy of a drug, you've got to make sure that all of the data is upfront so that we can study it. You're screwing with the system. And we're not going to allow that to happen anymore. And so I'm championing the Stop Games Act. We need to get that across the finish line so then more and more generics get to market. And then I picture those senior citizens. They don't have to open up the stapled white bag because they'll be able to afford to take those drugs home.
WVIK News: And moving on to housing. What legislation would you support that would help ease the cost of housing in the country?
Rep. Sorensen: And look, and we don't see it as much as in other parts of the country. Look, I, you know, there are so many millionaires in Congress. I'm a thousandaire. Maybe not even that if I looked at my checkbook right now. But the realistic thing here is, you know, for somebody who doesn't come to Congress with means. I understand what it means because my basement apartment in Washington, D.C. that I have to have to do this job is $1,850 a month. I can barely afford it. But you know who doesn't have trouble? Is the bigwig, you know, billionaires that are in Congress. You know, they can afford to have that chauffeur where I'm on a line bike. You know, and so I understand what it is. I also have been in small market TV before this. I've never been paid very well. It may shock when people are like, oh, you were the TV guy. No, actually, we don't get paid very well. I drive a Chevrolet. So I understand what it means to have bills that pile up. You know, I needed a cost or I needed a life saving surgery in 2016 that nearly broke the bank. I understand what that is. And so we need to do more to lower the costs that people are paying today because it's not just, there's no easy fix. But the thing is, I can't help it because these are my neighbors that are struggling today and we need to do more for them.
WVIK News: And you mentioned that you would be willing to go back to Congress before November 12th to add more funding to FEMA with natural disasters being more frequent and the severity of climate change. What policies, including adding more funds, would you support to help within the 17th district and nationally be able to weather these storms and adapt to the climate with their crops?
Rep. Sorensen: Well, first of all, it is absolutely egregious that you have any politician that is spreading the lies that FEMA is out of money. They're lies. And we have to we have to call them out because FEMA is on the ground doing amazing work to help people. Seven hundred fifty dollars immediately. But then there will be money to come back after that. How do I know that? It's because the day before yesterday, I was in Cuba, Illinois, in Fulton County, where FEMA is there in the gymnasium and has helped the residents of Cuba, Illinois, with eight hundred thousand dollars worth of assistance after a huge flood. And so we are doing right by our citizens because the people in Fulton County in Cuba, they understand it. But then when I talk with the people that have come from all over the country to sit at a card table in a gymnasium in Cuba, Illinois, to help my constituents. And then when I hear the threats that are being hurled at them, that's not what our country is about. We need to get rid of the politics that just lie and smear and push people down to get other people up. Because it's infuriating when you have so many people that are working as hard as they can to do right.
Staff member: We have time for one more question.
WVIK News: Kind of moving to international policies. Since October 7th, the U.S. has sent about $18 billion of military aid to Israel. For you as one of the voting members, is there any potential redline securing any further aid to Israel? With the International Criminal Court investigating allegations of possible acts of genocide and war crimes. Does that worry you at all?
Rep. Sorensen: I think we have to separate the good people of Israel and the Jewish people from somebody like Benjamin Netanyahu. Who is, I don't think, behaving on the responsibility that he should. But understanding there has to be a situation here. Where the people of Gaza, the people on the West Bank, the people of Lebanon, the people of Syria. Have the ability to live their lives and have their self-determinance. And right now, it seems like we're going in the wrong direction. And so as we go forward, you know, especially in a Harris-Walz administration. I think there's going to be progress that has not been made so far. And so I look forward to that. But, you know, every time that I see atrocities that happen. I look at and I think back to some of the communities that I visited just a couple of weeks before October 7th. Because I got to visit Israel. It's much like when I did the weather on TV. I couldn't get to the TV station when the light turned on. You know, I had to get there two hours in advance. The same thing with the Middle East. I got to go there. I got to understand. I got to listen to the people. Understand what's going on. Before I can have an opinion. But also it's about putting facts in front of me as I make decisions down the road.
Rep. Sorensen: Thank you.
WVIK News: Thank you so much.
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