(gentle upbeat music) (intense music) (device chimes) - Welcome to "Meet the Candidates" ahead of the November general election.

I'm Jak Tichenor.

We're joined by Carbondale Democrat Brian Roberts, who's facing incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Bost in the 12th District US House contest next month.

Mr. Roberts, good to see you.

- Good morning.

- Tell us about your background.

You're an attorney here in Carbondale.

What do you want folks to know about your background and your interest in this contest?

- So, I grew up in Iowa, born and raised in Burlington, Iowa, came down to Southern Illinois in the early '90s to go to law school.

Loved it here and decided to stay, so I raised my family here.

I opened my law practice in 2001.

I'm a general practitioner.

I basically help people throughout Southern Illinois.

I got involved in politics probably in the mid '90s, and I just think that what interested me in getting into this race is I think that there's more that can be done for the people in Southern Illinois.

- What should people know about you in terms of your... You said you started getting interested in politics here in the '90s.

What should people know about your interest in politics, and what drew you into the race?

- Well, my interest in politics, I started actually when I was young.

You know, I was kind of a news junkie and always wanted to know how things worked in the world.

After I became an attorney, I got to meet some people that held political office, and, you know, I would talk to them about various issues and just over time just became more and more active in the party.

It's part community service and part just something that really interests me.

- Let's talk about the 12th Congressional District.

In terms of territory, it's the largest congressional district in the state of Illinois.

It's basically the southern 1/3, 2/3 of the state going all the way from Cairo on the south up to the Effingham-Olney area up in that area.

It's very diverse, lots of rural areas, some larger cities like Marion, Mount Vernon and the like.

As you've toured the district and talked to folks, what have they told you are the top issues to them as far as what they want their member of Congress to do on Capitol Hill?

- So, well, first I wanna say yes, it is a big district.

I've been traveling the district for the last year now and put a lot of miles on my car.

I've been to a lot of the communities, and I've been to every county in the district.

And there's a varied range of issues that people are concerned, and people talk a lot about guns and gun safety.

A lot of people still talk about immigration.

It's an important issue to people.

Inflation and prices are an important issue to a lot of people.

And a thing I guess I didn't realize before I entered this race is veterans' issues are very important to many people throughout the district.

I've had a lot of people, a lot of veterans, talk to me about veterans' issues.

- And of course, we've got the VA hospital over in Marion, which is a very, it's a major employer and a major source of healthcare for veterans in the southern part of the state of Illinois.

- Yes.

- You mentioned inflation.

Let's talk about that and drill down on that a little bit.

Consumer prices rose 2.9% in July.

That was the first time that the inflation rate's been below 3% in 2021.

Even though it's cooled somewhat, a lot of Illinoisans are still feeling the pinch when it comes to high prices for food and all the stuff that makes your household run.

What should Congress do to try to help working families make ends meet when it comes to trying to close the gap on inflation?

Or does Congress even have a role in that, or is that just part of the capital marketplace?

- I think it's a mixed bag.

I mean, I think the Federal Reserve has done a really good job over the last several years in kind of setting interest rates to help inflation.

And I think what we've gone through recently is, believe it or not, if you read the studies, a lot of it kind of still stems from COVID.

Of course, it's a supply and demand, and a lot of what we're feeling now is supply chain issues and stuff that started in COVID.

But I do think tax policy can help the interest or help inflation and deal with some of that stuff.

I mean, if you look, corporate profits are at an all-time high, particularly in the grocery market, but yet grocery prices for people are at an-all time high.

So I think tax policy with taxing corporations and corporate profits can control some of that and help people.

- Let's talk about the Illinois economy a little bit.

When you look at Illinois, it's the fifth largest economy in the United States.

And I think the gross domestic product for Illinois is over $1 trillion, has been for several years.

If Illinois were its own standalone nation, it would have its own seat at the United Nations because the economy's so big.

But at the same time, even though we are a leader in terms of economic growth and development, the statewide unemployment rate is still fairly high compared to the nation.

Looking at it for July, I think it was 5.5% unemployment for the state of Illinois compared to 4.4% for the country as a whole.

As you look at the 12th District, 34 counties across the southern part of the state, a lot of them are doing fairly well.

They're right around that four to 5% range, but some of them have had chronic poverty rates for a long, long time, chronically high unemployment rates.

Lawrence County right now checks in with around 9.5%.

You go to deep Southern Illinois, Pulaski County's 8.3, Alexander County, 6.8, Wabash County, 8.3.

As you look at the district and its diverse nature, what is your prescription for trying to grow jobs in those areas to try to catch them up with the rest of the state?

- I just think that we need to work with businesses and people in the community to get people to invest in our communities.

And I think Congress can play a role in that through grants and business grants and things like that.

And I just think that someone in Washington, which is one of the reasons I'm running, really needs to advocate for Southern Illinois.

And I think that's an important role as a representative of the Illinois 12th Congressional District, is to work with those businesses, work with those community leaders, get government programs and private investment here in Southern Illinois.

And that's one of the main reasons that I decided to run, as I don't think right now we have a good advocate for the people in Southern Illinois.

As you look at statewide trends, the Pritzker administration, of course, has invested heavily in terms of tax credits for the electric vehicle industry.

He's also pushing very hard for something new called quantum computing in the Chicagoland area.

Downstate when you get to places like Bloomington-Normal, the electric vehicle industry, for example, hires thousands of people, particularly in Bloomington-Normal with the plant there.

Would the EV market be one area that should be looked into more for Southern Illinois?

- I think that is something that certainly could be explored.

I know we have Aisin over there in Williamson County that produces parts for car manufacturing.

So, I mean, I think everything needs to be looked into, and if we already have that base here in Illinois, it's expanding that base and growing that base that's important.

- On the other hand, small business employees a lot of people in the state of Illinois, Nationwide, for example.

What would you do in Congress to try to incentivize small businesses, say, that hire anywhere between 25 to 50 employers?

How would you try to incentivize those businesses to do more in terms of locating in Southern and South-Central Illinois?

- Well, as a person who started a number of small businesses myself, I can tell that it can be a pretty daunting task.

So I think that Congress and myself in Congress needs to work with people that want to start small businesses, and one other thing, the vice president's proposal on giving small business tax credits.

So it's really hard to get those businesses off the ground and survive the first year or two.

And I think any assistance the government can give them through grants or tax credits, or even have some kind of like the Small Business Incubator here in Southern Illinois that kind of help people get through that process of getting businesses up and running.

That's how you grow the economy, through small businesses.

- So you support Vice President Harris's plans for small business then?

- Yes.

- One of the keys to economic development in all parts of the country but in Southern Illinois in particular, Southern Illinois is a transportation hub.

When you look at it, the 12th District's bordered by two of the largest inland waterways in the country, the Ohio and the Mississippi.

It's kind of the crossroads when it comes to interstate highways and railroads.

You have airports like MidAmerica Airport at Scott Air Force Base.

What are some of the plans... As you talk to folks around the area, what are some of the projects that they tell you that would help the area in terms of job creation by improving particular projects, highways, roads, bridges, and the like?

- Well, that's kind of a mixed bag.

You know, I hear constant complaints about the constant work on I-57.

So even though that's a job creator, and it improves transportation, it improves transportation and makes Southern Illinois more important for trucking companies and other things, I mean, it's frustrating for people to see all the construction going on all the time.

You see that on social media.

I hear that a lot about the districts, but I mean, that's just kind of one of the prices of progress.

- Of course, agriculture is a huge part of the economic fabric of Southern and South-Central Illinois, Southeastern Illinois too.

Let's talk about the Farm Bill.

It's still basically an extension of the 2018 Farm Bill.

They still haven't managed to pass the permanent bill.

There's a lot of attention, of course, right now, focused on disaster relief with all the hurricanes we've been having.

So it doesn't look like Congress is going to get to pass the Farm Bill, that's about $2.2 trillion, I think, in the lame duck session of Congress.

What's at stake for farmers in getting that bill right?

As you talk to people in agriculture, what do they want to see in that bill to help them?

- Mostly they wanna see fair...

The people I've talked to, there's a lot of discussions about imports and exports, and I mean, we are a producer of agriculture for the world.

And we just need to have a fair trade balance with other countries.

- You mentioned a little earlier the topic of immigration has come up as you talk to folks.

We're a long way from the border, but there have been a lot of folks moving into Illinois, and it's been more of an issue toward the northern part of the state in Chicago and the like, but it's still on the minds of a lot of folks.

And immigration policy is a big issue.

The US Customs and Border Patrol agency is reporting that border security measures that they put in place recently have led to a 30% drop in the number of apprehensions from I think May to June of this year.

But it's still a big issue for a lot of Illinoisans.

It looks as though any kind of permanent solution to that's probably gonna wait till the new Congress.

And if you're elected to that new Congress, what would be your approach to immigration policy?

Who should be allowed to come here and stay here and maybe find a path to citizenship?

- Well, one of the things that's very frustrating for me, and I think a lot of people is, you know, there there's been a lot of talk about immigration and that we've been trying to work on solutions for that for years.

And you know, earlier this year, they had a bipartisan bill that was crafted in part by very conservative Republicans and Democrats that would've easily passed Congress that would've provided more Border Patrol, that would've increased funding for detection, that would've increased judges for immigration to streamline the process of approving or disapproving immigration applications.

And for political reasons, that bill was killed.

And that's one of the problems in Washington.

What I personally believe is I think that there are solutions to immigration such as sponsored visas, things like that.

I mean, I know there are employers, particularly in the agriculture arena, that need and want workers.

They can't fill those jobs.

They can't fill those spots.

And so they have some proposals, and I've read some proposals about a sponsored immigration bills, and I think that's an avenue that clearly could be explored and be part of the solution.

- A lot of the undocumented workers who come here want to work.

They want to find a way to, you know, get a piece of the American dream.

What about the idea of increasing the number of work permits for them?

- Well, that's kind of what I meant when I was talking about sponsored visas, where, you know, you have employers that need X number of employees, so you make those spots available for people to come here and fill those jobs.

- I wanna turn now to the topic of reproductive rights.

What's your position on reproductive rights for women after the Supreme Court decision on Dobbs?

- My position hasn't changed at all.

I think that's a decision that should be made between the individual and their medical professionals.

I don't think that the government really has a role in that at all.

I know it's been an issue in this country for decades, but to me that's a personal choice, and that's a personal decision for both men and women for healthcare decisions to make those decisions with their medical providers and their families.

- The 12th District is in many ways Second Amendment country when you look at it in terms of gun rights.

But at the same time, mass shootings continue to unfortunately dominate the headlines all too often.

And mass shootings would be defined by incidents in which four or more victims are involved.

Last figures I saw at the end of July said that nearly 500 people thus far this year have died and another 1,500 people have been wounded in about 400 mass shootings.

What's your solution to the problem?

Tougher federal background checks, checks on people who are buying/selling guns?

There's also, of course, Illinois has a national, has a state ban on assault-type weapons.

Where do you come down on all that?

- You know, I'm a concealed carry holder.

I'm a gun owner, and you know, this is a very complex issue.

On a personal note, I have a son who's a junior at UNLV, and I was in court this spring.

And in the middle of a hearing, and I see my phone keep lighting up.

And we take a little break in between witnesses, and I look at my phone, and I had over 40 messages, and they were like, "Is Alex okay?

What's going on with Alex?"

And then I saw an alert on my phone that said, "Mass shooting at UNLV," where my son attends college.

And the sickening feeling that I got just from looking at my phone, you know, I approached the judge, and I said, "Judge, could we take a break for a minute?"

And I went outside, and I called my son, and, you know, thank God he answered the phone.

But, you know, I started thinking, how many parents have made those calls over the last years, who's never got that phone answered?

So what frustrates me, and I think a lot of people, is it doesn't seem like we're trying to explore even options to try to help correct this problem.

I mean, Congress had passed a ban that prohibits federal funds being spent to study gun violence.

I mean, I don't know what the solution is, but what I know is I don't think that we're really looking for the solutions.

I mean, there are smart people out there.

There's data, and I think a lot of it has to tie in with mental health, but it doesn't seem to me like we're really looking for solutions.

There's these mass shootings, and everybody feels terrible for a few days, and we move on.

And then there's more mass shootings.

I mean, there needs to be solutions explored, and I don't think that we're really doing enough or really anything to explore those potential solutions to the problem.

- Let's talk about education for a moment.

The federal government still plays a role in education.

Although the lion's share of the funding comes from the state of Illinois and of course local taxpayers in the state.

What should the US Department of Education's role be in trying to raise the, or level the playing field between those school districts that have higher tax bases and those many cases in Southern Illinois that don't have much of a tax base at all?

- Yeah, that's a big problem in the way that we fund our schools.

And I think with federal tax dollars going to schools that don't have the property tax base to kind of make up that difference, that would be a good start in equaling the playing field.

You know, I've been in a lot of schools during this campaign and talked to a lot of places, and there's a huge difference in, you know, the infrastructure of the schools and teacher pay.

And the federal government can do something to kind of level that playing field, and I think that should happen.

- We're talking on the campus of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, which has historically been one of the leading institutions south of Springfield for its role in the higher education field.

We're still continuing as a state to lose a lot of our best and brightest going to other schools in other places like Southeast Missouri or Western Kentucky, Indiana, and the like.

Does Congress have a role in trying to improve the focus and the funding for higher education in the states in places like SIU?

- I think that's more of a state issue.

Certainly I think it's appropriate for federal monies to improve higher education throughout the nation.

But you know, Southern Illinois is part of the Board of Governors' schools, and those are more controlled at the state level.

- Energy, of course, energy independence, has long been an issue for the country.

And here in Southern Illinois, of course, coal was king for over a century and a half.

Clean Air Act of 1990 pretty much squelched the coal industry that used to hire thousands of miners across the southern half of the state.

We're looking at renewable forms of energy now.

What's Congress's role in trying to gin up that in terms of wind energy, solar energy, and the like?

- Congress's role I think in all the areas, economic, energy, all those areas, is to provide tax incentives, grant incentives, for people to again invest in the community.

You know, I grew up in Southeast Iowa, as I said, and their big part was the railroad.

There was a lot of railroad jobs and stuff, and those kind of went away.

And they've replaced those with factories that make wind turbines, and now that's the largest employer in Southeast Iowa.

And they did that through grants and tax incentives and things like that.

And again, I think that my role in Congress is to advocate to bring those kind of things to Southern Illinois.

- Is there still a place for coal in the energy portfolio for the state of Illinois?

- Absolutely.

- Student loan forgiveness is a topic that the Biden administration has tried to address in recent years with varying degrees of success.

It's one of the largest forms of consumer borrowing in the states.

We're around $1.7 billion.

Roughly one in five Americans have student debts averaging around $30,000.

What role should Congress play in terms of student loan debt forgiveness?

- I'm not personally in support of student loan debt forgiveness.

I mean, I think that there are some... Part of the problem is that we've allowed that, some of the commercial lending and student lending to be privatized.

And there's certainly some predatory lenders out there.

So I think that the federal system, like when I went to school with the federal student loan program, I mean, I had a lot of debt coming out of law school.

But the terms of paying back that debt were fair and reasonable, and I was able to do that.

So I think in legislating and putting caps, you know, I had an interest rate cap on my student loan.

And I think Congress has a role in helping students manage that debt, but I'm not in support of debt forgiveness.

- We've got a couple minutes left, and one of the things that a lot of folks are interested in is home ownership.

When you look at home ownership, buying a home, it's one of the most important factors in building generational wealth, but it's out of reach for a lot of Americans.

Does Congress have a role in making home ownership more affordable?

And if you believe that, what kinds of policies should Congress try to enact to make a difference?

- There are first-time home owner programs that are sponsored like Sally Mae and Fannie Mae.

And I think expanding those so that more people have access to get their first home is an important thing that Congress can do to promote home ownership.

I mean, we've done that in the past.

And again, one of the things that we do in this country a lot of times is we start programs through the government that are successful, but we wanna privatize those, and then it becomes a profit mode, and then that doesn't help people.

So I think continuing programs to help people get their first home, again, to help people with their student loans and pay their student loans, is a good program and a way to build wealth and job skills throughout the country.

And so I think those programs exist.

They just need to be expanded.

- We've got about a minute left, and I'll turn to a quick foreign policy question.

United States' continued military and financial support for the state of Israel continues to divide the American public a year after the Hamas terrorist attacks.

How should the United States help broker a lasting peace settlement in that region given the circumstances and the complications?

- I don't think there's ever gonna be a resolution without a two-state resolution.

And I think that the United States should get behind that.

I know Israel's been an important ally of ours, and Israel's generally not in support of a two-state solution, but sometimes our role as a world leader is to take the lead, and I think we need to promote a two-state solution to the Middle East crisis.

It'll never be resolved until that happens.

- Brian Roberts, thank you so much.

We've been talking with Brian Roberts, who is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the 12th Illinois US House District.

Thanks very much for your time today.

We certainly appreciate it.

- Thank you.

It's been a pleasure.

- [Jak] Thank you, sir.

(intense music)