(bright music) (dramatic electronic music) (tablet chiming) (dramatic electronic music) - Welcome to "Meet the Candidates" at the start of the election season ahead of the general election on November 5th.

I'm Jak Tichenor.

We're joined by Illinois Green Party candidate Chibu Asonye of Champaign who's running for Congress in the 13th Illinois House District.

The 13th District runs from the Metro East area through Springfield and then over to the Champaign-Urbana area.

Good to have you on the program.

Nice to meet you.

- Hi, it's good to meet you too.

- You're competing against freshman Democrat US Representative Nikki Budzinski of Springfield, and Republican candidate Joshua Loyd of Virden.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

- Yes.

Well, again, my name is Chibu Asonye.

I currently live in Urbana-Champaign, and I'm from the city of Chicago, but I went to school here, and I've been living here for the past like three, or four years.

I really love Illinois, and I'm excited to see what we can kind of do, and what we can kind of be.

I realized that...

I realize that the federal government and the grants that it can offer to Illinois is really important, and going through, and so, that's part of why I decided to do Congress.

A little bit else about myself, I do love living in Illinois.

I grew up in public schools, so I really wanna continue making strong public education.

I love the public libraries.

In fact, I recently got a new book.

(Chibu laughing) That's where I was earlier.

Other things about me, I'm a Green Party candidate, because I know that the two-party system is not serving Illinois, and does not represent the interests of Illinois, and I wanted to go with a political party that did have ballot line access, or to continue ballot line access, 'cause that's something that's also important to me, not only running for myself but running for the future behind me.

- What prompted you to run for Congress?

Why did you pick Congress over, let's say, state representative, or State Senate?

- War.

I truly believe our federal government is allowing us to fall into another war, a potential forever war.

Other folks in my community is worried that it's gonna be World War III, and it's on Congress's job to declare war, or to stop it, and I want to be a person in the room, and have voices in the room that will say no rather than yes, and moving money from war and waste back into our communities, back into like Illinois, into America is also what's really important to me.

Thinking, again, about like public schools, and public schools, it's not only the state and the local governments that have to fund it.

It's also the federal government, and we need to actively take away money from our military, 'cause they have such a ballooning, huge budget that they haven't passed their audit for.

I wanna move that money directly back into the states, so that way, my state representatives have the money and the grants to actually fix the infrastructure that we in Illinois continue to complain about.

- Let's talk about kind of the infrastructure in terms of the election.

You were on the ballot, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections, up until Friday of last week, when we're talking now on the 28th of August.

I believe from all the press accounts I've read that it came down to the number of signatures that you had on your ballots.

There is a big difference between what a regular party candidate, Democrat, or Republican, versus an independent candidate has to do in terms of gathering signatures.

- Yes, I collected, within 90 days, the law states that I need to collect 12,710 exactly, 12,710 verified voter signatures.

I was advised by Green Party people and friendly allies across the district that I needed to get at least double of that.

So the actual goal was to get 25,000 verified signatures that were also going to be notarized, and I did not.

I got 1,555, according to the count by the state (mumbles), led by the State Board of Elections, which is a huge feat, considering that we only had 90 days, and me and all my volunteers worked full-time.

We're still proud of that.

But yes, I needed 12,000, I got over 1,000, and I still got more than both of my competitors, or my running mates also got, which is less than, which is less than 800.

So I'm proud of myself, but it was an uphill battle that's meant to, meant to be lost by independents and third parties.

- So running as a write-in candidate, how does that kind of set the level of challenge for you to get your message out?

- It is (mumbles), it's frustrating that I'm not going to be allowed on the Illinois State Board of Electors Voter Guide.

I think that's gonna be one of the biggest hindrances.

My name won't be just an automatic fill-in bubble.

However, my story has been kind of encouraging to people, and a reckoning to say, "Oh, it really shouldn't be this difficult.

"Why is this so hard?"

At the same time, I'm logged on social media, I'm talking to constituents all the time, and letting people know that it can write in my name.

So I believe that I can get a good percentage.

I believe that I will be able to go to different candidate like luncheons and dinners, things like this, so people know who I am, and they can know to write me in.

But yeah, it is more disappointing, I think, to the people who believe in electoral system within Illinois to say, "Yes, you deserve to be on it, "even if we don't plan on voting for you."

And so, that whole option of you get more voices, and your choices are just gone.

But being a write-in is a little easier in terms of you have to go to each of the counties in which you're eligible to be a write-in for.

So since it's a congressional district across several counties, and mine's seven, and different parts of other ones, so I went to each of the seven counties that make up Illinois District 13, and submitted in person the paperwork also notarized to become a write-in ballot.

The other part is my name is Chibu.

My full name is Chibuihe.

It's Nigerian, and I'm Nigerian American.

And so, the last big barrier when it comes to being a write-in is the correct spelling of someone's name, and the intent behind the spelling.

While the county clerk's offices were generally kind, and considerate, and helpful, I'm putting my name as Chibu, so people don't have to spell my entire name, which is Chibuihe, and if someone spells it slightly incorrectly, or makes it rather than a U, it's two Os, those things can be thrown out.

And so, that's also part.

It's the intent behind the person, but it's also at the discretion of each county clerk based on each county.

Those are all the hit, or misses.

I'm happy I did it, though, because at least then people still have a choice.

- You touched upon some of the Green Party platform planks here at the start of our conversation.

Let's dig a little deeper.

In terms of inflation, for example, consumer prices rose 2.9% during July, the first time the inflation rate's been below 3% since 2021.

Even so, a lot of Illinoisans are still feeling the pinch of higher prices for food, gasoline, and other necessities.

What should Congress do to help working families make ends meet, or does Congress have a role?

- Congress does have a role.

Congress absolutely does have a role.

Congress can, and I do think at this current moment it would be good for us to pass different types of price controls.

Rent is extremely expensive, and is getting more and more expensive.

The colleges in my community are expanding outwards, which means that students are expanding outwards.

With the loans that students are able to get, again, it increases the amount of rent that the actual community members outside of students have to pay.

However, the federal government can go to college campuses, can go to, can pass price controls that say, "At this current moment for the next four years, "we're gonna cap, we're gonna stop where rents are."

Maybe it's 850, maybe it's $3,000 depending on where you live, because California's really expensive.

That's not only going to help Illinois, but it's gonna help the larger country.

Gas has been fluctuating up and down, up and down partly because of inflation, partly because of what's kind of going on on the global scale.

However, the United States government has a lot of oil reserves, and when we previously released those oil reserves, the idea was that gas would come down.

However, maybe it was in all the other spaces, but in Illinois, in Downstate Illinois, it didn't go down that much.

So if Congress's job would also be to decide the prices when we end up releasing that oil, so that way it's not just California that gets a dip, it's also Eastern Illinois, it's also in Mississippi, because the prices vary so much, but we have to consider where actually the most expensive things are.

And so, yes, I do believe that price controls would be helpful with inflation at the current moment.

I will also say that during the COVID-19 pandemic, some would say that we're still in that pandemic, we created different national legislations that also did in fact help cut prices, or not just cut prices, but help the feeling of your wallet not being shrinking so much.

Not everyone has children.

However, the child tax credit did in fact help a lot of families, and that was the federal government.

Those are all things that the federal government can do, and we could move the money and those taxes to the states, so that way states can, what is it, even pay off some of their debts, 'cause that's something that also happened during the COVID relief.

During the COVID relief showed and highlighted that actually the federal government has a complete and utter role that doesn't have to be oppressive.

- Let's get a snapshot of the economy in the 13th Congressional District.

Our statewide unemployment rate for Illinois stood at 5.2% in July compared to the national average, 4.3%.

Six out of the seven counties in the 13th District all report jobless rates over 5% with Macon County topping the list at about 7.4%.

What does the Green Party plan to do in terms of improving those statistics with job growth?

What can you do as far as creating jobs in your district?

- The Green Party as a collective believes in having good union jobs, and believes in having like access to public housing, and wants public education.

So there's several things that will need to happen to create good jobs in our community.

We want them to be green jobs.

We want them to be potentially with agriculture, since Illinois is a farm state.

So I would say that the first thing would be for joblessness is to, one, backtrack, and ensure everyone has healthcare, everyone, so that way, your healthcare is not tied with your job, and you can now go off to potentially be self-employed, or smaller companies will be able to lessen that load, and rather employ more people.

Currently, there are several, there's a plant in Belleville, which was meant to be reopened.

However, due to, I would say due to not the best, how do I say this more delicately?

It's like an international company, or foreign company ended up buying the steel plant, and now they're going to potentially close it, or definitely close it.

Those are things that are now going to contribute to the jobless factor.

We need to put the main parts of our manufacturing back into the hands of Americans and of Illinoisans.

I know that US Steel owned it, and they ended up being bought out.

But rather than creating this opportunity for people to become less, to have less jobs, we need to actually hold into account the corporations that will be moving into it.

So this particular company that's a foreign born company to take it over, we'll have to pass a law, and pass rules that say actually you can't fire anyone, you can't encourage them to retire.

You have 10 years to figure this out and stay.

Illinois needs to do some long-term planning, and the federal government can help with that long-term planning, so that way, yeah.

And then in terms of shifting from like coal power plants and fossil fuels moving into like clean energy jobs, currently, a lot of our sustainable infrastructure is actually imported from other countries rather than made in the United States of America.

And so, we wanna shift, which we should, and the Green Party wants to, and as well as I do wanna shift into creating a energy sustainable society.

It needs to be based on what's sustainable within our communities, what's sustainable on our, like on our lands, and moving those jobs, so rather than importing solar panels, you know, from out out of the country, we would be making these solar panels inside the United States, inside Illinois with the resources that we have practically here.

And I understand that solar panels are just one type of renewable energy, but that is going to be expounded upon with different, like with all the different types.

In Illinois, we have several.

Yes, nuclear, yes wind.

There's several different kinds of sustainable energy that we have here, and again, all those materials need to be made here, and that will create jobs in our communities, these smaller, more rural communities that have been, because they're not next to a big city, and there's no public transport to get you from one place to another.

So those are all things that we wanna focus on people rather than on profit.

- Let's talk about immigration for a moment.

That's been a hot topic, of course, for the last several years.

The US Customs and Border Patrol Agency is reporting that recent border security measures have led to a nearly 30% drop in border apprehensions from May to June of this year.

Border security still remains a very, a topic on a lot of people's minds.

What is Congress's role, and what is the Green Party's role in, or platform like in terms of border security?

- Yeah, the first I'd say is the Green Party, like any other political party, has huge spectrums.

While we tend to be more to the left, we all tend to be more like humanitarians, or like humanists, we do, we are mindful that what is perceived versus the reality is still being, is still practical.

I say this because in Illinois we are not a border state, but in Chicago, I would say particularly the like immigrant crisis, or the surge in like crime is perceived to be the reality, and like you said, it's actually down.

The role that Congress needs to play is to reallocate resources, so that way we're actively addressing the actual issue, which, in my opinion and in the Green Party's opinion, is not just on, is not about having more ICE agents.

It's actually about having the judges who will be reviewing cases of asylum, of migration, of all those different things that we have, 'cause it's not just people who are immigrating here.

You know, there's many, many different factors of what people can come into our country for, 'cause that's how our country kind of works.

We have immigration, and different types of migration to different places.

That's all relevant.

What we need, what Congress needs to do is to move money from ICE and border control, and move that to where it actually matters, which is the judges and the lawyers to process the folks who are coming to our country, and allow them to have an expedited, more concrete, fast conclusion rather than what ends up happening is people have three years, four, well, the concept is that people have three, or four years, and then they get lost in the shuffle.

Well, if we had the judges and the lawyers make that happen, which we do in our country, 'cause we're a capable, educated workforce, if we shifted those resources, the perception of the migrant crisis I do believe would turn into reality, which is every, it's getting lower, and we just need to work through the process.

We also need to stop couping other countries, but that's another conversation.

- What is your position on reproductive rights for women in the wake of the Dobbs decisions?

Some congressional Republicans are still pushing for a national ban on abortion.

Where does the Green Party stand?

- Absolutely no to a national (mumbles), a national ban on abortion.

The different kinds of reproductive rights do need to be enshrined.

As an individual, you have bodily autonomy, which is what Roe v. Wade was actually about, whether you have the bodily autonomy to do these things, and the answer was yes, and now, people wanna say not per se, or with exceptions.

The Green Party and myself as representative believe in having complete and comprehensive full spectrum healthcare, including dental, which is a part of what Congress should be doing and making for that.

As a result, full and comprehensive reproductive services will be made available, including family planning, including contraceptives, including sexual education, including if someone wants to get their tubes tied, because, you know, depending on how you want to live your life, that's how you do it.

Families can look like a lot of different things, and in the Green Party, we wanna support all types of families.

And so, yes, with the end of Roe v. Wade, we would, like we would make it so that there's not allowed to be a national abortion ban.

I would not hand it back to the states, because that's unhelpful, particularly when the state's legislature are actively gerrymandered and not representing the interests of the people.

We've seen time and time again with the referendums from the past two years that abortion, not only is it a hot topic, but it's not gonna go.

What we need to do, what I want to do is create a society where, you know, people feel confident and competent in their decisions and their choices and that whatever those decisions and choices look like, or whatever ends up happening, the society as a whole is able to hold them with that.

And so- - Well (mumbles).

- [Chibu] Yes.

- Sorry.

I wanna turn to the issue of gun violence for a moment.

Mass shootings, defined as incidents in which four, or more people are involved, are still, unfortunately, a part of the American scene.

The latest figures show that as of July 31st, a total of 473 people have been killed, and over 1,500 have been wounded in 372 shootings.

What is your solution to the problem?

Tougher federal background checks, renewing the federal ban on the assault type weapons?

- As an individual and as a congressperson, I would be more than happy to review a national assault ban as long as that included our security state and our police state.

My personal belief is we need very strong gun education since we have so many guns in this country.

What is it, even we have more guns per person here in some places.

That's ridiculous.

However, it's the truth and the reality of our time and place.

And so, any adult that has a child under 18 that has a single weapon, all adults need to know how to use that weapon.

All adults will need to know how to have a gun license, because you as an adult in that space may end up using it, or you have to help your child know how not to use it.

I do believe that we'll need the federal government to help institute that, so that way, across the country it's consistent.

I do think, well, and so, the reason why I wanna make it where I'm okay with a national ban on assault weapons as long as the security state doesn't also have access to it, one of the contentious things I've been seeing when it comes to the police state and the civilian state is why does the police state need these kinds of weapons?

And it is typically in response to civilians in the black economy, or the informal economy, the black market economy has access to these guns.

But where United States manufacturers are building these guns, are creating these guns, are creating a market for these guns, if we lower the market, then this police state may not need it, and if the police state doesn't need it, the civilian state will be more okay with like letting it go.

I believe in, I think that, not I think.

Our strong, we currently have, at least in Illinois, pretty robust gun regulations.

We did pass the assault weapons ban.

It's less enforceable, but that's also part of why we need to make it, that's also part of why we need to make it where it's both the civilian and the security state that doesn't need it, 'cause we need to have trust in each other to not have those weapons out there, and I'm trying to think of other parts.

But yeah, once I'm not with, once I live in a building that's by myself and not with minors, I plan on owning a gun.

I know how to utilize guns, and I think that that's why we need to go, we need to shift into gun education, so that way, people know how you use it, and if you don't wanna use it, congratulations, you don't have to.

- Home ownership is 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 sure that home ownership is more affordable?

And if so, what kind of policies would you endorse as a member of Congress?

- I would say in our current ecosystem and our environment for home ownership, yes, the federal government actually does have a role currently.

We have two distinct issues.

One, like corporate real estate mongrels, moguls are taking up a lot of public infrastructure, a lot of homes, single-family homes, first-time homes.

They're buying those up with cash.

That has to stop, mostly because not only are some of these places, not only is it being so above the asking price that like no individual person can get that much money, or family can get that much money, it's also making it so that rent in like apartment style buildings are also increasing.

- Go ahead- - And so, Congress's job would be to, one, tackle making it so that way extremely multi-billion luxury homes need to be paused, and that's not the focus of where building should be, but it's also making it so that way the like single-family homes, first-time homes, small duplexes need to be currently only in the reach of families, individuals, not corporations, and not people who plan on renting that above market value.

- One final question, we've got about a minute left.

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

More than 1/3 of the debt load is held by just 7% of borrowers who owe more than $100,000.

What should the federal government do?

Should it intervene in loan forgiveness?

- Yes, it should.

The federal government should do what it already has done, which is pause student loan repayments, stop them, and then cancel the debt completely.

- Chibu Asonye, thank you so much for your time.

We appreciate it.

Chibu Asonye is the Illinois Green Party candidate in the 13th Congressional District of Illinois.

Thanks again for your participation.

- Yay, thank you for having me.

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