Jan Schakowsky on Inside the Skev Transcript

Aaron Masliansky (00:04):

Welcome to Inside the Skev. And I'm your host Aaron Masliansky. Today I am delighted to be joined with Jan Schakowsky, who represents the ninth district of Illinois,

Aaron Masliansky (00:15):

Which includes the Skev, Skokie in Evanston and many more areas throughout town. And,ujust want to say thank you for being here.

Jan Schakowsky (00:24):

Oh, it's really my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.

Aaron Masliansky (00:27):

Well, it's a, it's really amazing actually. I'm kind of pinching myself. I have the opportunity to speak with you especially during these times because I could talk with you for hours about a lot of different questions about what's been going on. But this has been an interesting year and you know, right now we're going through Covid, but at the beginning of the year we had an impeachment trial that was going on with the president then we almost went to war in the middle East with Iran. And then we have a pandemic to deal with. How do you prepare as a government for all these types of things that can come up?

Jan Schakowsky (01:07):

Well, we certainly were unprepared for the Covid 19 epidemic. There's no question about it. And we shouldn't have been. We saw during the earlier years of the Trump administration, a number of diminutions of our preparation that have left us more, more exposed in term, you know, I think about the freshmen members, I'm in my 11th term, the freshmen members began their service in a government shutdown. So the government was not functioning then they had an impeachment and now they have this nothing all three are things that I've never seen before either. And you know, in terms of a potential war, of course I was very much in favor of the Iran agreement that prevented them from getting nuclear weapons and was very disturbed when that was undone. So, you know, world worldwide we're, we're, we're seeing kind of a a, a change in democracies around the world that are becoming less so. And I think even here in the United States, we're in somewhat of a battle to save our democracy. So there's a lot of things that we are, we have to deal with. Although we're, we're preoccupied for good reason with the covert epidemic and pandemic right now. And of course it has changed really the life of every single American right now.

Aaron Masliansky (02:48):

Oh, it seems the life of everyone throughout the world. And whether we do though, because I think, you know, certain people, what we're dealing with right now, and I'm going to, I want to get into some of the questions about what's going on in the government response of what you're doing. But you know, one of the things is that right now people are hurting whether they're hurting financially, whether they're hurting physically isolating, you know, their mental health, whatever it may be. And you have a lot of people who think that the government has overblown it. And it's a first and a lot of people who are taking it incredibly seriously. There's two different sense of realities. And you have this with a lot of what's been going on and, you know, normally throughout the history of this country, we've had arguments, we've obviously had a civil war disagreement about, you know, fundamental aspects of this country. But right now we have fundamental questions about what reality is and whose reality is correct. How do you function in that type of environment?

Jan Schakowsky (03:53):

Well, it's really difficult though. I want to say Aaron, that most Americans think that it, we need to go slowly in terms of opening up the economy and people going back to work and businesses functioning. And, and so I think it's not like a 50, 50 disagreement in this in this country. We know that there are people who, who think that this still remains a hoax. And we get very, I think, unhelpful signals from the president of the United States who goes to a factory that makes mass and won't wear a mask. Science is what I think needs to guide us. That there really are facts in this world. There is truth, some things are and some things aren't. And sometimes there are gray areas, you know, when it comes to science, what is the best way that, that we should proceed?

Jan Schakowsky (04:50):

But, you know, we, we are seeing a president. I think that who just about every score has mismanaged. This crisis that most other countries have done a better job. You know, when you look now at both China, which he demonizes now as the mastermind behind this pandemic certainly started there. There's no question but, and, and you look at South Korea where, you know, they have pretty much eliminated the pandemic there and are able to go back to normal. You know, we, we see a tragic mishandling and a continuous mishandling of the situation because of a failure. The science matters that facts matter. That it's not just messaging, it's not just painting a compelling picture, which the president is very good at doing. Yeah. It's what is really happening and it is very disturbing when this becomes now a partisan kind of issue.

Jan Schakowsky (06:09):

There's no room at all for partisanship. Right now this is life and death. This exactly. You know, we see scientists like Tony Fauci who are not being allowed to justify why isn't he being allowed to testify to Congress? Isn't that the responsibility that we as the American people need to be able to hear from the experts in the house of representatives is that forum. Yes. You know, we're, we're about to hear from a whistleblower who is concerned that he was essentially demoted, fired forced to leave because he couldn't criticize the president of the United States. And disagree, not even Chris. I just disagree. With with the president Tony Fowchee has done that even right in front of the president when the president says, you know, this is gonna early on when he said, we're going to get down to zero, we're going to have a vaccine soon.

Jan Schakowsky (07:19):

Dr. Fauci would go to the microphone and say, no, I'm sorry. It's still likely to be a year, maybe even longer before we have the vaccine. Or when the president says, you know, we had a really look at this issue of you know, ingesting bleach and, you know, the, where the the experts, the people who really know including the Lysol company, right. Do not in any way and just drink Lysol. This is, you know, a poison. You know, most of us learned that as children that it's a fundamental thing. But what are you doing right now? What is the current update of what the government is doing right now to respond? I know you're working on some very critical things for the senior community. Right? Again, you know, I've been working on and focusing a lot on nursing homes where a disproportionate number of deaths in this country can be attributed to nursing homes, both the residents and the workers.

Jan Schakowsky (08:29):

By the way, I'm happy to say that the workers in the state of Illinois have achieved a there's not going to be a strike. They got the important things that they wanted. It wasn't mostly about wages. It was about sick leave. It was about having enough protective gear in the, in the homes. It was really much more about the quality of, of care, which for the workers, which influences the quality of care for patients as well. So that's, that's very good news. But we're going to have a comprehensive bill. And I think for our communities, for Evanston and Skokie, one of the concerns has been not only the money that's has to be being spent the pandemic itself, we are among the few municipalities that actually have our own health departments, both Skokie and and so there's been a good deal of money that has been sent in that regard, but it's also just the enormous loss of revenue of sales taxes and business taxes.

Jan Schakowsky (09:46):

You know, people aren't going out into the community and spending. And so the demand across the country from municipalities has been, we need direct help, not just going through the state. And so we're going to pass a bill that's going to have, I don't know, I think probably at least a trillion dollars that will be for state, County and local governments individually distributed. So we don't have to rely on on the state. And I think that that the governor, governor Pritzker has been doing a great job, but we don't have to rely on trickled down to municipalities. So it'll come directly to municipalities because the, the threshold before was if you were a municipality, over 500,000 people, well, you know, none of our Northern suburbs, certainly not Evanston, Skokie or any of them.

Jan Schakowsky (10:50):

So we're, we're going to see some relief and that means that we'll be able to put money into CDBG. That is the local funds that go to the safety net that we need in our, in our communities. There are for our first responders we want to make sure that they have all the equipment that they need, that they're able to take off the time and quarantine if they actually do have the virus and still get their, their paychecks. So there's been a lot of demands on just ordinary things in government, you know, fixing roads and taking care of the ongoing needs of, of cities. And so I looked, I very much look forward to, to that. In addition, you know, I mentioned the way that the speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi describes the next bill.

Jan Schakowsky (11:54):

It's about saving lives, saving livelihoods and saving our democracy and so on. The last thing, well, we want is something Illinois already has and that is vote by mail as an option that everybody will have the opportunity to cast their ballot. You know, if there are still people worried when comes election time and of course there still primary elections around the country that there will be the option to vote by mail and certainly by November 3rd, so that everybody will have that opportunity to vote any which way they want to. If it's important for people to go on election day, then the States will be permitted to do that of course as well. So, you know, we don't want to see voter suppression anywhere and we've seen it in our neighboring States and both Wisconsin and in Michigan and the 2016 election. So we want to make sure, and even recently in Wisconsin when writers now, there were huge lines, they were close to each other. There have certainly been people since then that have gotten the disease. I don't know that it can be directly attributed. But you know, every time you go out if you're not wearing a mask and you're not doing distancing, then you could be in danger.

Aaron Masliansky (13:27):

You know, I have a few questions about what you just said. You know, one is in terms of voting, why can't we do it through a system of online voting where there can be high security. I mean, things can happen with mail. Things can happen in person too in terms of security and making sure that the votes are correct, but why can't we go to figure out the system where it's digital, where we could increase significantly the amount of votes that people are able to, you know, everybody could be able to vote.

Jan Schakowsky (13:55):

Aaron, are there any States during digital, online voting? No, not that I'm aware of. Yeah, not that I'm aware of either. I think that ultimately, and I think that process will be moved along by the, I've heard 30%, sometimes even higher increase in digital communications. But of course the issue of security has been a huge one. We're struggling with that issue right now as members of Congress. Can we vote remotely?

Aaron Masliansky (14:28):

Right? How are you even conducting Congress right now with everyone being fearful of getting sick?

Jan Schakowsky (14:33):

We amazingly you know, we're later today every Monday and Thursday for a while it was almost every day. We have caucus conference calls, 180 people. We're on the last one on Monday out two 30, I think. So not everybody participated, but a good number. But it's difficult. I agree with you because when we're not there, if we have a Q and a period, which we always do, you're not going to get 180 people who may have an opinion that they want to weigh in on. So what I believe that we're going to do, and I think we're probably going to go back next week because there will be a vote on the next bill that have a lot of relief. So, you know, if our government officials and our towns are listening we should come up with that help for local government.

Jan Schakowsky (15:30):

There will be a vote on, I believe that it'll come down to proxy voting that people will, that numbers will be able to designate a person and the exact vote. It's not as if some numbers going to give me the right to vote for them, how I feel. It'll be on the exact, the exact vote. And then anyone who, and there are people who are compromised, who have relatives that they're staying with that need help. There's a lot of reasons that, that people will not be able to vote or expose themselves to the virus. And so I think a number of people will vote give up, give a proxy vote. There's still some concern about the security of online voting, remote voting and in Congress. And so until those are really cleared up, you know, we're on zoom right now. There's, it's been really recommended that when we have things that are I wouldn't say classified, but you know, you don't want to know that zoom isn't the best, the best way to, to go.

Jan Schakowsky (16:51):

And you know, hackers have sometimes been ahead of our ability to control them. And, and so I think it's understandable, but I have to tell you something else, Aaron, in terms of members of Congress, you know, we've identified or, or the government has identified who's an essential worker and we include people at the grocery store in warehouses who by the way are often mailing things out to us that certain aren't, that aren't essential, but they box them up and get 'em to us. You know, the, everyone, even though the postal services under really illegitimate attack but they're delivering six days a week, very necessary things, often prescription drugs, checks, et cetera. And so I just think that to show visibly that your government is working I think we need to go to Washington and, and cast those votes as many of us as, as really can, I think should be there. You know, it's fine for us to ask these other people to go to work, but I think central workers, and I think we should be there.

Aaron Masliansky (18:11):

You're absolutely essential workers. I mean, it's the functioning of our democracy, like you're saying, which is critical. Yeah. I, you know, one thing that I think about when you're talking about all these, these basically stimulus packages to be able to help local governments individual people. The PPP has been a huge thing. And it's been helpful for my business and so many others. And it, you know, thankful that it got passed.

Jan Schakowsky (18:41):

What did we get through? Did you get through Aaron in the first round?

Aaron Masliansky (18:44):

No. In the second round I did and my wife has a business too and we both were able to get it. And you know, we, we were with chase, so it's a large bank so it took maybe a little bit longer. I know other people have been able to, you know, they, they work with a smaller banker. And that might be something,

Jan Schakowsky (19:03):

I'm not going to point fingers on any one bank in the terms of some of the big banks, we were told first come first serve. That just simply was not true. They worked. In fact, there were concierge services for some of the big clients of big banks. And I kinda got, they probably wanted to protect their biggest loans. But I'm sorry. There were I think on the first round there was only a small percentage, 14% comes to mind. Maybe I'm wrong of just, you know, mom and pop main street businesses that actually got through. And in the second round we said it had to, I know that my bank it's in Rogers park to the Devon bank, never itself as a bank, made it with all of the people who applied to them at all. So now smaller banks are in line and minority owned banks, et cetera, and the second round. But you know, still there's people we're hearing from that have not gotten, gotten help. And this may be interesting. I believe that we will show that not for profits that are larger than 500 are going to be able to apply for that, that loan. Now, because I've been hearing from organizations that deal with people with mental illness and substance abuse and persons with disabilities that because they're pretty big organizations have not have been cut out of everything really. Yeah. And I think there'll be included in the next round.

Aaron Masliansky (20:53):

I hope so. They do critical work for people and who are, who need the help desperately.

Jan Schakowsky (21:01):

I think they didn't apply. They didn't fit into any category.

Aaron Masliansky (21:04):

Yeah, no, I'm glad that there'll be able to be included. I hope. And it's, you know, just these small businesses, like I had Nina Barrett from bookends and beginnings on my show and we were talking a lot about, you know, everything, this is a few weeks ago and you know, she's in a small business and a bookstore in downtown Evanston and you know, these types of things are the fabric of the communities you read. You know, Jane Jacobs and what she would always talk about how cities are how they live and we need these small businesses. So,

Jan Schakowsky (21:36):

You know, it's a lot of money. Let me just reply to them because you know, I think one of the things I've heard predicted is that we're going to see more mergers and acquisitions that it will be an opportunity for big companies to eat up some of the smaller companies. That's a real problem right now. There is legislation I am supporting that would prohibit those mergers and acquisitions until the end of the covert crisis to make sure that this isn't a time for the sharks to come out and eat the little fish who are really struggling to get the help.

Aaron Masliansky (22:19):

That could happen quite a bit. Yeah. Well it'd be interesting if that were to pass. But you know, with all the funds though, are you worried that we're going to run out of money or that us currency will become devalued with all the stimulus because we'll probably need to go on for a couple of years realistically until business can recover.

Jan Schakowsky (22:40):

Well, in some ways I'm not, I think that one, what is essential to really open up is confidence that consumers have that they will be safe. So, you know, the president can say everything is open right now and I assure you that people are not going to go out. I have a birthday this month. You know, normally we might go to a nice restaurant and celebrate and then maybe do a show or a movie or something. None of that is going to happen and it wouldn't happen no matter what any elected official or a bureaucrat said, fine, go, go, go out. And so you can't separate the virus from the economy and we're going to have to spend whatever we need to and then gradually begin to open up and gradually we will begin to see that kind of revenue return and investments being made.

Jan Schakowsky (23:40):

Now you notice the stock market, you know, while it took some deep, deep, really has been pretty steady for awhile, unless I'm, I'm wrong. But you know, so I think, I think we're seeing in the investment community some confidence that we are going to come back, but less ordinary people feel a confidence it's really not going to happen. And that confidence is based on am I going to get sick and die? Am I going to you know, make my family you know, come home then from somewhere and give it to them. Which by the way is something that frontline workers are really worrying about that, you know, if they don't have, and they still in some places don't have the productive year they need, which is unforgivable. Unforgivable. Yeah. And that's something that best would be coordinated at the federal level, but it's not, so it's being left to the States and to individual nursing homes.

Jan Schakowsky (24:49):

It's, you know, it's, it's just unbelievable how set loose these frontline workers have, have been. But anyway so we're, we're going to have to spend what it takes and that's going to take oversight too, because we did see in that first round that some businesses that shouldn't have gotten the money did get the money. And that, and we saw talk into that first care's bill about $131 billion in tax relief for the richest people come on. And so that's why we have oversight mechanisms in place now so that we can look out for that kind of exploitation. That, you know, there's, there's people who look at this as an opportunity to price gouge, to you know, do things that are going to help them personally.

Aaron Masliansky (25:55):

Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity out there for people to do that. For foreign governments to take advantage of the situation, to inflame our divisiveness. It's a, it's a serious time. Do you, you know, I want to ask you some more questions about you and your connection here to the area. While we have time, but before I ask that, you know, I I went to university of Illinois and I graduated in the early two thousands. It was after nine 11 and one of the classes I took was on the, you know, how we respond to bio warfare and chemical worker and all these different things. And I remember them talking a lot about the possibility of an aerosol virus being spread among a country as, as a act of war. Or it could just be an accident. So we're going through something similar to that right now and you know, what are we going to do to prepare for the next time? Something like this happens. Are we, are we taking lessons learned right now like the military does and using that to be able to prepare and prevent something like system happening you know, in the future.

Jan Schakowsky (27:08):

Yeah. I think opportunities have opened up because the pandemic has opened up these kinds of failures of disparities that have pre-existed for a long time. And now I think we'll be really forced to the front. Before in, in in 2019 we saw a loosening, for example, a nursing homes have requirements for infection specialists to be present in, in every nursing home. And now that's no longer a strict requirement that, you know, we are definitely needing infection specialists. And, and so we, we have an opportunity going forward to fill in so many of the gaps. Another one would be the digital divide has been exposed because distance learning has been hampered by people who don't have that opportunity. That's in rural communities and in urban areas too. Certainly racial disparities. When we see in the city of Chicago, over 70% of the deaths among African Americans who make up 20 something percent of 23, 20, 28% of the population.

Jan Schakowsky (28:36):

And, and so I think we're going to have a great opportunity to make those kinds of important trait changes. I think the military is actually a good example. You know, in, in, in real war time, the government has said you will produce these weapons of war. And we have seen a president not willing to use the defense production act to make sure that we have enough masks, not enough gloves for everyone in this, in the, in this country. And so I, I'm, I'm actually hopeful on that front that the glaring examples of these kinds of disparities will really move the country to do, to have a better public health system, which we desperately need. So, you know, there, there may be you know, a slight silver lining to, to all of this, that we can do better and prevent these things the next time.

Aaron Masliansky (29:45):

Well, I, I would hope that we're able to create a, you know, US-based system to be able to produce the masks that we need on you know, or whatever. We need to have a larger stockpile and, you know, be able to create the testing that we need on a very quick basis where we could just, you know, once you figured out how to test for it, turn it on. Cause that's what we really need every, every American citizen, you know, American resident, whoever

Aaron Masliansky (30:12):

Needs tens of

Aaron Masliansky (30:15):

Hundreds of tests. So we could test each ourselves on a regular basis.

Jan Schakowsky (30:20):

Millions absolutely millions a day. Have to be, ha have to be given. And you know, they say they're ramping up, but Aaron, we're in may, right. That we're, you know, finally seems maybe having that discussion at the at the federal, at the federal level. I'm glad you changed from saying citizens to residents because you know what, this, this virus does not know the difference. Correct. And so if we have immigrants who often are frontline workers that are getting the disease, we, we're, we're all at risk, right in the same bowl here. And, and so, you know, we see this discrimination against immigrants is not helping us move forward.

Aaron Masliansky (31:20):

It doesn't make a difference who you are, where you come from. We're all human, you know, and we've gotta we gotta think about that. We gotta think about that when we think about the world, about the world, heart health organization, you know, we need to coordinate, we need a coordinated global effort to really help all of us. I mean, this is the truest global challenge that we have faced two

Jan Schakowsky (31:45):

And guess what company, what country did not go to worldwide gathering of countries to figure out how to work together to STEM this pandemic to end this pandemic United States that didn't go, we were AWOL missing in action.

Aaron Masliansky (32:05):

It's a problem. It's frustrating. But, you know, the only way to, to break past that frustration in many ways is to become active and involved. And you're somebody who's been in government for a long time and you, you, you've devoted your life to civil service. What got you interested in it? How did you be, you know, become a representative?

Jan Schakowsky (32:29):

Well, I'm going to, I'm going to give the Fort the S the short version of my creation story, which actually Aaron began, was when I was a very young housewife living in Mount prospect and a group of women got together because we simply wanted to know how old our food was because every item in the grocery store had a code and not a date. You couldn't go through the milk or the package goes and find out how old things were if they were expired and really old. And so we became kind of detectives. We would go to the stockboys, push up against the shelf, say, how do you know how, and we found things that were days, weeks, months, and years beyond the date. We didn't question the dates. And infant formula and baby food were big offenders.

Jan Schakowsky (33:25):

And that was particularly disturbing to these young women that we were, we called ourselves modestly national consumers United cause he figured everybody wanted to know how old their food was. And so we ran a real campaign. We invited the press when we would do a store inspections. And finally Juul was the first to say, come to Juul. We have freshman States on our house brands and a big, it snowballed from there. The Oscar Meyer was one of the first of the brand name products to start putting bye-bye or best spot, best to serve by. And now they're pretty re re ubiquitous. And even internationally somewhat. Finding those dates. Well that changed me from an ordinary housewife to an ordinary housewife who could really make a difference in the world. I had stopped teaching when I had my two little kids.

Jan Schakowsky (34:26):

They were in the cart often when we were doing our inspections in the grocery store, we were threatened with arrest. We said, no, I'm sorry. The kids have to get home for a nap. Who can't get arrested today, it's not gonna work. Lawyers were hired by, some of the companies to follow us around, sometimes were just shopping and they were looking over our shoulder at shopping lists. But you can imagine it was an empowering experience for a young person and it was the bug that, that made me see that, you know, an ordinary person who has no title, no credential could actually when getting involved make a difference. You know, it's not like the hugest difference in the world, but, you know, I see people checking those dates, you know, and it's very rewarding to see that I'm tempted to say, wow, I did that.

Jan Schakowsky (35:26):

I don't know. But you know, so I ever since then really I've been an activist, an organizer and believe in grassroots of the efficacy of grassroots organizing. I'm constantly trying to get people call your Congress person. It doesn't take more than even 10 calls on a single subject to breathe, to bring it to our attention. It makes sense, the real difference. And, and so you know, it led me to run for office. My first race, I lost perhaps one of the Mo, perhaps the most important important race I ran because I learned to be a candidate. I learned to ask for money for someday we'll get the money out of politics and and, and learn more about policymaking and and then ran for the state legislature and won eight years there and then when, and that office and won and and ran against JB Pritzker by the way. He was in their eyes. I tease him every now and then about that. And and I still think of myself as an organizer trying to mobilize people to be partners in this effort to make our country and yes, our world better. And I believe we can do it. Elections really, really, really matter. I think we're living through an example of that.

Aaron Masliansky (36:56):

No, absolutely we are. And you know, one of the things that, why it matters so much is because when we vote, we're voting for the people to represent our interests. Now you represent the ninth district, which is anywhere from Arlington Heights to Evanson Wilmette down to, into Chicago in Rogers park. How do you represent such a diverse district and you know, put there, figure out what their interests are. Is it just based on people reaching out to you or how do you know?

Jan Schakowsky (37:27):

Well, you know, I've been doing these remote conversations with people in the in our business community, primarily our small business community with people who live throughout the district. We are taking calls on a tie. Aaron, we always have gotten every now and then a call of an adult weeping. That happens. It is much more common and now people are feeling desperate. I'm a pro, I'm a progressive Democrat. My interest is in everyday people. You know, the, the, the big companies, the wealthy Americans, they have the wherewithal to lobby themselves for themselves and to speak out for themselves and have a disproportionate amount of power already. It's just regular people like me. I mean, that's how, that's my background. I grew up in West Rogers park. I went to Rogers school. I graduated from high school that I'm very, very involved with most some, it was called immigrant high in Chicago magazine.

Jan Schakowsky (38:44):

It's a very different school demographically, but it's the regular people from that that, that district. And, and so that's, that is really my mission. Healthcare in large part driven drove me originally that every American is deserving of healthcare as a right. We're still not there. We're seeing it really and high relief right now. And I'm fighting right now to make sure that any vaccine or effective therapy is accessible and affordable for every single person. Free would be you know, if you don't have insurance it should be free to you.

Aaron Masliansky (39:28):

It should be know

Jan Schakowsky (39:29):

Because those are the things that have always driven.

Aaron Masliansky (39:32):

Yeah, no it, and yeah, I was just going to say it should be free because if we're spending so much money on things to help business and community, that is the, the, the silver bullet, the, that vaccine. So if we could, everyone can get it and then we have complete immunity. It's, it would be amazing.

Jan Schakowsky (39:51):

And by the way, you and all taxpayers have also invested in those products. We put a lot of money into the CDC in to the national institutes of health to do the preliminary scientific work to develop those products. And so we cannot allow companies to get exclusive patents and charging an arm and a leg for those after the major multi, multi billion dollar investments in the development of those drugs and those therapies. So you know, it's something we're going to have to really watch carefully to make sure that that happens, that people can afford it, that it's free.

Aaron Masliansky (40:36):

It's critical, it's really critical. You know, if somebody though wants to take your path and become involved in government or having a voice in the community, how do you, what do you recommend people do? How do they get involved?

Jan Schakowsky (40:51):

You know this is the time if you have a particular interest and you know, you, if you, if you are ambitious about running for office or you know, you want to raise your profile in an organization that is doing good, good work. We see leaders of the environmental movement that are deciding to run for office. And by the way, way young people are running for office. I just did an endorsement video for someone who is running to be the head of the high school Democrats. And so I endorsed him and you know, did a video for, for him. I'm always trying to lift young people to, to choose to, to run for office. We, we see young people now on school boards on local their, their alderman and city council members around the district now that are, that are young and diverse, representing different, different communities.

Jan Schakowsky (41:59):

And sometimes, so when you make a name for yourself as a leader of something, it can be a neighborhood organization. It can be an issue organization gun violence the environment. You know, and you can get involved in elections. Elections are based on merit. I'll never forget going into an office in Sydney, in Iowa where the woman who was running the office was all of 18 years old cause she had gotten involved in that campaign and was so incredibly productive and organized that yes, she could boss around the senior citizens and all the other adults that were there and mobilize young people to do it. It's, they're merit-based. Get involved in a local campaign, a national campaign. My campaign where we're, we're putting people all over the place and by the way, right now what we're doing is a good neighbor project because we want to make sure that it through, it's through my campaign and we're organizing all through the County, through democratic organizations, people who want to get involved in calling people who might be vulnerable.

Jan Schakowsky (43:23):

If they need help. And about 5% of the people that we call actually need something, but we're glad to help them. They need will meals on wheels. They need to get on the snap program, which is the food stamp program or they want some groceries delivered to their, to their house. And we make that happen. But most of them just want to talk. A lot of people who are isolated right now, this is really a breeding ground for mental illness or just anxiety. And so we're getting people just to do checkin calls and, and chat with people. And so if you want to get involved in the good neighbor program, you can contact my office and we can can help do that. And there's other many other things that are happening in Evanston that food pantries and delivering a food and, you know, check it out. Such a great amount of Goodwill being done by people. Right now all around the helping the homeless,

Aaron Masliansky (44:32):

Helping people who are in dire straights, the Niles township food pantry. Yup.

Jan Schakowsky (44:38):

Yeah. And you know, people have never been aligned before are in line. And I heard about, I think it, I can't remember the state, might've been Pennsylvania, two miles of cars in line to get food in the United States of America, the richest country in the world there. And this is one of the issues that we have to grab by the horns and do something about, it's not right.

Aaron Masliansky (45:06):

It's scary and that's why it's so important to get involved. You know, for me, I've, I'm, a real estate agent. I've been involved in real estate for for years and I always just had a more of a, a passion to be involved in things around the world. And uI've got myself very involved with the Chicago council on global affairs and what's amazing to me, what I've learned and even doing this show and having this conversation with you right now is that if you're able to put together the efforts and start to make those connections, you have the ability to have tremendous access to people. I've sat in rooms with people that I am pinching myself. Then asking, being able to ask them questions about things that are going on in the world that they have a direct effect on, just like right now. And I think that could be an inspiration to people to get involved.

Jan Schakowsky (45:55):

I absolutely agree with you. People know your power, know your own power and exercise it and you will be surprised, like Aaron just said, he was about the re the connections that you can make to, to, to people, to authors, to, you know, all kinds of people who are ready and willing if you'll do something and participate to deal with you.

Aaron Masliansky (46:26):

Yeah, absolutely. It's empowering.

Jan Schakowsky (46:29):

It sure is.

Aaron Masliansky (46:30):

Yes. So if people want to be able to find out what's going on with you and government how do you suggest they go ahead and, and follow that?

Jan Schakowsky (46:41):

You know, people who you know, can, can go to my website. That's easy to find. You can call me at 773-506-7100. That's an office number. Things are busy, but we try very hard within an half an hour to get back to to, to people. So, you know, I, I'm, I'm probably one of the easiest people to find online. And we do put out on our website we have a lot of information about the programs that are available. But if you haven't gotten that chalk for example, and you know, you make less than $75,000 and you didn't get your check for $1,200 for yourself, $500 for every child. And by the way we're pushing for not only another check to be sent out, but a lot of us are pushing for monthly checks to go out until this is over because we hear from people, yeah, I got my check. Doesn't pay the rent.

Aaron Masliansky (47:55):

No, it doesn't pay the rent. And then he helped with unemployment. And there's, you know, in my line of work as a real estate agent, a lot of us are independent contractors. So it's the first time people are trying to figure out how to file for unemployment. Because it's allowed, it's like a huge navigating pond to should you do PPP, should you, you know, can you get your stimulus? So I think what you've been putting out also, your weekly emails have been very important. And you know, just to so everyone know, go the https://schakowsky.house.gov/ and that's where you can get all that information.

Jan Schakowsky (48:26):

Right? Yeah.

Aaron Masliansky (48:28):

Well, Congressman, this has been an absolute thrill. I'm going to let you go so you can take care of the business of our country and we appreciate your service and thank you so much for taking the time.

Jan Schakowsky (48:40):

Well, let, let me, let me, thank you. I mean, I think you provide a service to our community as well. Aaron, thank you very, very much. I hope maybe we can actually maybe have a face to face breakfast sometime in the district. Okay.

Aaron Masliansky (48:56):

For sure. Well, thank you everybody for watching and we will be in touch soon.

Speaker 5 (49:23):

[Inaudible]

Speaker 6 (49:25):

[Inaudible].