(upbeat music) (music continues) Welcome to "At Issue".

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Many, many times we've had Congressmen and Congresswomen on this program and we invite again Cheri Bustos to the program.

But before I introduce her formally, let me say that this may be the last time, at least as a Congresswoman, retired because you retired two days ago, that she's been on the program.

But we're not going to focus on current issues in Washington DC.

That's not what you ask a retiree.

You ask a retiree about the last 10 years when she served in Congress.

So let me welcome to "At Issue" Cheri Bustos.

- Thank you, H. - [H] 17th District Congresswoman, comma, retired.

How's it sound?

- Oh, you know, actually walking into your studio today it was the first time I've seen it in writing.

So you know, it feels fine.

I'm too young, especially by Washington DC standards, to retire.

So I'm not retiring, I'm just, I didn't run for reelection.

I will no longer be a member of Congress.

But I've got a lot of life and enthusiasm and excitement left in me.

So I'm just moving on to my next chapter.

- So let's back up 10 years.

Why did you decide to get involved in politics?

Because it wasn't just Congress, you had been on the East Moline Council.

- Yeah, well, so at the time I was a former journalist, so for 17 years of my career, that's what I did for a living.

And as you know, when you're a journalist you can't do anything politically because you are covering people in politics.

So I never pounded a yard sign when I was a journalist.

I didn't make any contributions.

I didn't support anybody.

The only thing I did politically was to vote.

And of course, that is a, you know, our right as Americans to be able to do that no matter what you do for a living.

So I left journalism after 17 years, went into healthcare.

And my boss in healthcare was I consider one of my best friends and a great mentor.

But he encouraged the people on his senior team to get involved.

So to serve on boards, I began to serve on boards.

There was an opening on the East Moline City Council and I got a phone call from someone who worked in the city saying you ought to run for the council seat, it's open.

It's a council I had covered for many years as a reporter.

So I knew the ins and outs, I knew the players and ended up running for that.

And that would've been in 2007.

I was a three-way race and I won overwhelmingly and was elected to two terms on that.

But here's what happened and why I ended up running for Congress.

Never anything I had planned growing up, never anything I had planned in my adult life.

But this region elected somebody who ran on the platform of eliminating the Affordable Care Act.

And I was working in healthcare at the time, knowing that we were on this unsustainable path in healthcare.

The prices were going up too fast, patients' outcomes were not improving.

And so for somebody to say their platform was to get rid of the Affordable Care Act rather than giving it a chance to succeed, that was happening on a professional level.

On a personal level, my brother, my only brother, three years older than I am, was on his deathbed during that election when this region elected the guy who was running on the platform to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.

He died within a week of that election.

And his family, my sister-in-law, my two nieces, they would've had to file for bankruptcy because they could not afford his care had it not been for my brother or for my sister and my mom and dad and I and some fundraisers and all that to pay his medical bills.

Most people are not that lucky where they have family members who can help pay for their health bills.

So I was personally motivated, I was professionally motivated to run.

And that would've been, I announced in July of 2011.

And here we are in 2023 and I'm very happy that I ran.

I'm very happy that I was elected.

And very happy that I was in a position to make a difference.

- The person you're referring to is Bobby Schilling.

But let's talk about two people that have served the same district in the past in long-term capacities.

Leslie Arends was one.

Leslie Arends served for I think 15 terms, something like that.

And he was a whip.

And then Lane Evans also.

So you were following in their footsteps.

Did that have any, and Leslie Arends was a Republican, Lane was a Democrat.

Any influence on you as you look back at your predecessors?

- Well, as a reporter, I actually covered Lane Evans.

So I started as a reporter in 1985.

Lane was already in office at the time.

And again, of course, like whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, that didn't matter as a reporter, you just covered whatever the issues of the day were.

You know, I think Lane Evans and I are very, very different people, we're different politically.

His major successes were around veterans.

He was a Vietnam era veteran and he actually worked his way up on the Veterans Committee and did just wonderful, wonderful work for our veterans in our region.

And he will, I think, always be remembered for that work.

You know, my committee assignments, I worked on transportation and infrastructure.

I've been on the agriculture committee for the entire time I was in Congress.

And I worked my way up into House leadership for more than half of my time out there and served on the appropriations committee, which many consider the most powerful committee in all of Congress 'cause it's where the money goes through.

- You gotta get used to saying, I used to serve.

- Yeah, I know, I know.

I do have to get used to that.

- Let's talk about those three committees and let's start with appropriations.

That's the money committee.

And it was the, what do you think the biggest success in your tenure on that committee was?

- Well, I was the number one Democrat in the entire House to bring back money, community project funding for our district.

Nobody brought back more than than I did.

So I think that's a direct reflection of serving on this very powerful appropriations committee.

The fact that, you know, this is a little bit of a combination of transportation and infrastructure and appropriations melded.

But I'm in my apartment, you know, just within the last year and early in the morning, my cell phone rings and it comes up as Mitch Landrieu.

And not a household name but Mitch Landrieu is our former mayor of Louisiana.

But he's now our transportation czar in the Biden administration.

That's his title, transportation czar.

So I see his name pop up and I answer the phone, I said, hello Mr.

Czar.

And he said, I have good news for you.

And I said, well, what's that?

And he said, we have $829 million for your locks and dams.

And that is really this melding of, you know, being in House leadership, serving on appropriations, having served on transportation and having worked very hard.

I look back on our records, it was three months into my first term where we began working on getting more money for our locks and dam system.

Built in the Depression era under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we have not had major investment in it that we've needed over all of these decades.

So this is the biggest investment in that since they were first built in the 1930s.

- And I suppose under that umbrella, you could look at the money you brought in for the Rock Island Arsenal.

- Yeah, you know, the Rock Island Arsenal, while it's not here in in Peoria, it has a major impact on our troops, on our national defense.

And I wanna give Senators Duckworth and Durbin a ton of credit because we have worked hand in glove.

I mean, it's in the Congressional district I represent but obviously also part of the state that they represent.

Tammy Duckworth, being a veteran, she understands firsthand the importance of a strong national defense.

Senator Durbin, who used to be on the Defense Appropriations Committee in the Senate and me being on Defense Appropriations in the House, we have been able to bring back, you know, gosh, more than billions of dollars actually for the Rock Island Arsenal in the time that I've been in office.

But what's very notable right now is we are bringing not just the Rock Island Arsenal but our defense into, you know, going into the next century.

We are going to play a major role in developing the next generation combat vehicle.

That's happening at the Rock Island Arsenal.

When during our conflicts, we were losing our men and women to the Humvees blowing up and not having the reinforcement that they needed, we did that work to make the reinforcement better so we weren't losing our men and women to these explosions that were happening under the Humvees.

That happened at the Rock Island Arsenal.

We built the backs of the Humvees for the ambulances at the Rock Island Arsenal.

All that happened on our watch.

And we are now gearing up for the next generation combat vehicle.

- More recently as a member of appropriations, the Rural Green Partnership was passed.

What does that mean?

- Well, actually it was my answer to other environmental policies that have been written, some of which have gained a lot of notoriety, that seemed to have forgotten our part of the country, that seemed to have forgotten that in agriculture we can play a major role in improving our environment.

So we wrote, in my office a few years ago now, the Rural Green Partnership that looks at things like carbon capture and how we can do that right here in the Midwest.

We look at things like biofuels and ethanol and make sure that we play a major role in looking at, you know, what our vehicles are burning.

We think ethanol should be a major part of that.

So we've done a lot of work around ethanol.

It's been a topic that we think is good for our environment.

We think it is, we wanna make sure that our vehicle manufacturers can burn ethanol at a higher level.

They've signed on to this, the UAW, the United Auto Workers have signed on to this, corn growers, et cetera.

So we have a wide variety of supporters for this legislation.

But I wanna make sure that when we're looking at the environment, that outsiders look at Illinois and the Midwest is that we can be part of the solution.

And we don't need fingers pointed at us as that we're always part of the problem but we can be part of the solution.

And this legislation is a reflection of that.

- Let's move away from DC and let's move to specifically how you interacted with constituents.

You have a huge district, parts of Rockford, parts of Peoria, the Quad Cities or the Illinois side of the Quad Cities and a huge rural area.

And then you said, I need to know who they are.

Relatively unique approach, Cheri on Shift and Supermarket Saturdays too.

I mean, how important was it, when you're committed to being in Congress, how difficult was it and how important was it to communicate with your constituents?

- Well, I wouldn't say it was difficult.

I mean, it's what I've loved most about this job.

As a former journalist, as you know H, how you get to know people you are covering or topics you are covering, at least for me, I learned in a hands-on way.

And so starting these, what we call Cheri on Shift which is basically a glorified name for job shadowing someone, you know, working shoulder to shoulder with the people who are changing the street bulbs 30 feet up in a cherry picker, or being in the boat that is coming back full of carp and bass and catfish out of the Illinois River and having those processed at the carp processing plant here in Peoria.

And you know, wearing rubber boots and having fish guts sloshing all around.

But more importantly, not just these jobs and learning about those professions, but it's the people in those professions.

And just how hard people work to support their families and the pride that they take in jobs that for you or I would be very, very difficult to do every single day.

This fisherman's been doing this since he was 16 years old and he's in his 40s now.

And you think about how hard that is, all kinds of weather, when it's cold outside, when it's hotter than heck outside.

The people who, you know, forge steel.

I've done 120 of these over time and my takeaway is when I go out to Washington and you know, we have these little voting cards, they look like kind of a driver's license with our picture on it and we put those in the little booth and we vote yes or we vote no.

My job is to picture the fishermen and the guy in the cherry picker and the people forging steel and iron or you know, working in manufacturing plants when it's really, really hot inside.

That's my job is to picture those people and make sure that I'm doing right by them when I'm out in Washington.

- That fisherman may very well have been Clint Carter who's president of the Midwest Fisherman's Co-op.

- I've met Clint.

But look, I just think about how hard Clint's job is or the other fishermen's jobs are.

And they take great pride in that and they should take great pride in that.

And we as people who don't do that for a living have to appreciate all the people, you know, in a sense, behind the scenes who make our lives easier and better.

You know, the people at the sewer plant, I've done that.

But those are all jobs that are necessary and hard and I really feel lucky that I've been able to get to know a lot of folks over these last 10 years.

- I suppose you haven't decided exactly where you're going now that you're retired for next, you know, your next involvement in the community.

But did any of the 120 or so Cheri on Shift jobs influence you as to what you might wanna do?

- How they've influenced me is just to make sure that in whatever I do next, that I'm doing something to make a difference and that I'm doing right by people, however that looks.

- The next question's twofold.

The biggest success, maybe you've already mentioned it, but the biggest success in your 10 year career in Congress and your biggest disappointment?

- Well, okay, I'll take a broad approach to the biggest success.

But we just were recognized as having the best constituent service of any Democratic office in the House or the Senate.

That's very broad and there's a lot that obviously goes into that, whether it's, you know, successful legislation or making sure that we get back to people, we're responsive, that we're helping to solve people's problems.

But to be recognized for that I think is really the ultimate of what you should be as a member of Congress, right?

Because it is about the 711,000 people here in this Congressional district.

And, you know, that span 14 counties and 7,000 square miles, 150 towns.

But I think doing right by the people at home is more important than anything.

That's why when I'm not out in Washington, I come home, I've worked nearly every Saturday and many and most Sundays over the last 10 years to make sure that I do have that understanding that we're doing right by people.

So very, very proud of that.

Legislatively, whether it's the locks and dams, whether it's making sure that the Peoria Ag Lab could stay open, whether it's tearing down the Harrison School, we've got another $2 million in our budget to build sidewalks in the 61605 zip code.

Oh, building the new air traffic control tower at the Peoria Airport.

You know, those all add up to being, you know, getting the most resources back home or getting the best constituent services.

If you wanna talk about legislation that impacts many, many Americans, it's probably a law that we passed this year and just actually recently in a kind of a one-two punch, getting rid of non-disclosure agreements and getting rid of what's called forced arbitration where employees have to have their company decide what to do if they've been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed.

It is now law, President Biden has signed those bills into law that, you know, I wrote what's considered one of the most important pieces of labor legislation in this century to get rid of those employment clauses in employment contracts.

And it impacts more than 60 million Americans.

So I think that's also very significant.

- One issue that occurs to me is those lead pipes over in Galesburg.

- Yeah.

You know, that was, what's really interesting about that, it was controversial at the time.

I didn't necessarily have community support at the highest levels to say, you got a problem with the quality of your water.

You've got these solid lead water pipes that are going from your water mains into people's homes.

And you know it's not a good idea to mix lead and water and children.

And so I wanna help you as a community get rid of those lead pipes.

So we turned our office into really a 24-7 mission to get rid of those lead water pipes in that community in quick order.

We got a $4 million grant, not something where the community had to match the fund because they weren't in a position where they could do that.

So we got a $4 million grant to begin getting rid of those solid lead water pipes that were going into people's homes.

And it was a great deal of satisfaction that we were able to do that for the families there.

And there was a great deal of, really, I was upset with some of the community leaders who didn't offer their support but rather were more worried about the reputation of the community.

In time we got everybody on board and I think they were grateful for it.

But I think you gotta always have your North Star as first of all, it's gotta be kids, the families.

And if you're always guided by the right thing you do right.

- Your biggest disappointment?

- You know, this is not Peoria related but rather it's Quad City related.

I wanted to, and now it's Peoria related.

I wanted to get that Amtrak route from Chicago to the Quad Cities.

I want it from Chicago to Peoria.

I want it from Chicago to Rockford.

I would've liked for all of that to have happened.

We still have $172 million that are sitting there.

We fought for that initially under the Rauner administration.

He wanted to not accept that and it would've gone away.

We had to kind of yell and kick and scream to Governor Rauner to say, don't give that $172 million away.

We've gotta make sure we have that so we can move that forward.

We didn't get that job done.

I'm hoping under Eric Sorensen, the new Congressman, I'm hoping that we can complete that and I hope we can get that done for Peoria as well in the future.

- Let me ask you about the 2020 election.

You were the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee trying to raise money and get candidates elected on the Democratic side.

It fell short of expectations.

The Republicans didn't gain control in 2020, but they gained some seats.

Do you consider that a disappointment?

- It was the hardest job I've ever had in my, not just in my political and governmental life, but in my entire adult life, hardest job I've ever had for a number of reasons.

But I look back on when I went in front of my colleagues and said that I wanted this job 'cause I had to be supported by my colleagues.

It was a four-way race.

There were four members of the Democratic caucus who wanted that.

I won on the first ballot.

And so I won overwhelmingly.

And my message to my colleagues was, we have to hang on to this very fragile majority.

So coming outta the 2018 cycle, we picked up seats to win back the majority.

However, we won them in very, very close, close races where the vast majority of those races we won, we won by one point or two points or three points.

They were very close, or even the ones we lost it was very close.

So my message was we have to hang onto this majority and it is a fragile one.

And so we did that.

So I'm just gonna say that, tough job, but in the end we delivered on what I said to my fellow Democrats that we said we would accomplish.

- [H] What's next for Cheri Bustos?

- Well, I will let you know when I've got it all figured out.

It'll be a combination of things, one of which I am the co-chair of something called the Council for Responsible Social Media.

That's not how I will make a living because it is not something where I receive a paycheck.

But it is something that I think is critically important to our children who are exposed to social media at a very young age.

I think it's very important to our democracy.

We saw what happened on January 6th.

I was on the House floor when that happened.

And so that's very personal to me.

But it's also something where one of the most terrible moments in America's history happened because of what led up to that on social media.

So hope to make a difference in making social media a more responsible place.

- And with that, our time is up and I thank you once again for your visit to "At Issue" and congratulations on your retirement.

- All right, thank you very much, H. - And Eric Sorensen will be replacing her as the 17th District Congressman, so we'll look forward to having him on "At Issue".

And until then, we will see you next time here on "At Issue".

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