Early voting is already underway in Illinois’s 13th congressional district.
Incumbent Republican Rodney Davis is in a race against Democrat Betsy Londrigan. The district covers a large portion of central Illinois near Springfield, and just two years ago, Davis beat Londrigan in an exceptionally tight race-- less than a percentage point.
Davis lives in Taylorville, Illinois, a rural community of 11,000 people and says that rural healthcare is essential to small towns like his.
According to Davis, “Our rural hospitals are essential in getting people who may be experiencing heart issues or a stroke or blood issues. It gets them stabilized to go onto other larger facilities to get treated for that ailment, and many of my colleagues here in the House support plants that would close in Illinois alone 39 rural hospitals, including a number in my district. That’s a crucial point we have to remember those hospitals don’t just treat residents, sometimes they are our largest employer, so it’s an economic issue too.”
He says that he is a big fan of global trade and is working to address infrastructure needs that support trade.
“Well number one, I think we have to look at agriculture in its totality. In my district central and south central Illinois, its what are the market conditions going to look like when our crops get harvested, now through the rest of the harvest season. Are the lock and dam improvements that the Trump administration, for the first time in over a decade invested in fixing our lock and dam system along the Illinois and Mississippi River are those construction projects going to get done on time. That’s a big issue for our farmers, because the cost to transport products goes up exponentially in the Midwest if that system is down.”
Davis applauds the implementation of the U.S. Mexico Canada Agreement and thinks the Trump administration will be judged as successful on trade negotiations.
“China is a big deal. We need to start doing more bilateral agreements with the Korean peninsula, with also Japan, and others, but let’s not forget our friends in Europe...” the congressman adds. “We were this close in the last administration to getting T-TIP signed into law but they couldn’t get the deal done. I believe President Trump through his administration will work to get a deal set with the UK and the let’s focus on the EU; let’s make sure we can get American products into Europe just as easily as we now can into other parts of the world.”
For this Farm Bill and the next, he says it’s important to ensure the Commodity Credit Corporation is fully funded: “Well number one, the CCC is so important, especially now that we have been through a pandemic. You look at our grocery shelves at the beginning of the pandemic some items were bare, beyond toilet paper. We got an opportunity to take a look back and realize the success of our supply chain, the success of our food supply and how it gets to the grocery stores in the United States because we haven’t been wanting like other countries during this.
Congressman Davis has been on the Ag Committee for two farm bills and recently fought to include bipartisan legislation to fund child nutrition programs in the House passed continuing resolution.
For full interview, click HERE.