Bost won’t represent Belleville as of next year. This candidate wants to replace him.
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Belleville, East St. Louis and much of the metro-east have had the same representative in Congress for more than six years, but voters will see a new face in office after elections this November.
One candidate has picked up endorsements from practically every Democratic mover and shaker in southwestern Illinois, including local unions and established metro-east Democratic lawmakers such as state Reps. LaToya Greenwood, Katie Stuart and Jay Hoffman, and state Sen. Christopher Belt.
But who is Nikki Budzinski, a Democratic candidate for the metro-east’s new congressional district?
Budzinski, 44, was in Granite City this week to hold a petition signing event at the Steelworkers 1899 hall, but she announced her candidacy before new districts took shape following the 2020 U.S. Census. The labor activist was originally set to run against Republican U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis of Taylorville, but she ended up with a field with no incumbents in the new 13th Congressional District.
Two other candidates have announced intentions to run in the 13th: Republican Jesse Reising, an attorney from Decatur, and Democrat David Palmer, a retirement adviser from Champaign.
When state Democrats redrew Illinois’ congressional map last year, they cut a slice of the metro-east out of U.S. Rep. Mike Bost’s 12th District, putting Belleville, East St. Louis and parts of Edwardsville and Collinsville into the new 13th. It cuts across central Illinois to include parts of Springfield, Decatur and Champaign-Urbana, paving a favorable path for a Democratic candidate.
While state Democrats cleared the way, Budzinski is relatively unknown in the metro-east. She’s no novice to working in government, but she has mostly worked behind the scenes.
Budzinski’s political inspiration sparked during a college internship for Sen. Paul Simon, the politician known for his bowtie and bipartisan collaboration. He served as a Democratic lieutenant governor under Republican Gov. Richard Ogilvie from 1969 to 1973 before spending the next two decades in the U.S. House and Senate.
After graduating from the University of Illinois in 1999, the Peoria native landed her first job for Comptroller Daniel Hynes, spending five years as a scheduler before moving to the International Association of Fire Fighters and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
Budzinski’s interest in labor began with family. Three of her grandparents were union workers: a painter in Peoria and two teachers in Dixon. The fourth was a stay-at-home mom.
“Through them I could understand the importance of what it means to have dignity in the job, and working hard, and being able to provide for a family,” Budzinski said. “They lived very modestly and I think I would attribute them having the benefits of a union to be able to allow them to retire.”
Budzinski’s parents were also civic-minded, she said. Her father is a retired architect and her mother a retired interior designer who still live in Peoria. Her mother, the former president of the League of Women Voters in Peoria, in particular inspired Budzinski’s civic involvement.
Budzinski’s work in government, labor and on Hillary Clinton’s presidential run earned her a spot as a senior adviser to Gov. J.B. Pritzker in his campaign. She ran his transition and then served as senior adviser for his first year in office. Much of her role involved selling his policies to southern Illinois.
“I brought him to metro-east, I brought him to Decatur, I brought him downstate,” Budzinski said.
During her time working for Pritzker, Budzinski focused on getting a $15 minimum wage hike through the General Assembly and on implementing broadband internet expansion in southern Illinois. She left his administration in February 2020 to launch a political consulting firm, Budzinski and Partners, LLC.
Her time away from working for elected officials didn’t last long. In January 2021, Budzinski took a job as chief of staff for the Office of Management and Budget under President Joe Biden. She called the office “the nerve center for all the implementation of the larger initiatives” such as the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 economic stimulus package.
“That was really the first time I got the idea of running for office,” Budzinski said.
A temporary Child Tax Credit in the package “provided money in the pockets of people who were struggling during the pandemic, not knowing their future employment situation, not knowing how they were going to make ends meet.” Seeing Illinois Republicans vote against the plan propelled Budzinski’s ambitions, she said.
An extension of the credit included in Biden’s Build Back Better plan has so far failed. Budzinski says she wants to fight for it and other aspects of the bill.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we have to reimagine. What is the recovery going to look like? Can our community come out stronger? I believe they can if we invest in people again,” Budzinski said. “ ... And that’s really why I wanted to run for office, is to be a part of that.”
Policies and metro-east services
Budzinski says her priority would be “kitchen table issues” should she win a seat in Congress.
She wants to raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage, lower the cost of prescription drugs, make pre-K free and universal, implement mandatory paid sick and medical leave, and strengthen the Affordable Care Act. Budzinski would want to pay for the programs with higher taxes on people who earn more than $400,000 annually.
Though few Republicans in Congress and even a handful of Democrats agree on those issues, Budzinski emphasizes bipartisanship.
“We have to find ways to work together again in Congress,” she said. “We should find issues we can work together on, and on the issues that we can’t, I think it’s our job, it would be my job, to keep fighting for those issues that I really believe in, which again, are kitchen table issues to working people that I think will make a difference in their everyday lives.”
It’s not likely either of her congressional colleagues to the north or south will have much in common with Budzinski’s priorities. Incumbent Bost is running thus far unopposed in the 12th Congressional District, and incumbent GOP U.S. Reps. Rodney Davis and Mary Miller are competing for the 15th District nomination.
Yet Budzinski says she will try to work with neighboring Republicans, especially on issues affecting Scott Air Force Base. While the base is in the 12th District, its economic impact, employees and their families cross congressional lines.
“I would work really hard to work with (Republicans). That would be my job, my responsibility,” Budzinski said.
In order to get to Congress, Budzinski needs to convince metro-east voters she will represent them though her district strikes across most of central Illinois.
She has committed to opening a metro-east district office where she would hire people from the community to work in constituent services. She lives in Springfield, Budzinski said, 90 miles in either direction to the eastern and western sides of the district.
“It’s just like this campaign. I plan on traveling to every corner of it, listening to people, and that wouldn’t stop if I got elected to Congress,” Budzinski said.
She has the support of a network built through a career in government, labor and political advising, as indicated by her fundraising. Budzinski had outraised the other two 13th candidates as of late January. Her campaign reported donations from business owners and entrepreneurs, but her top donors were attorneys, consultants, and presidents of unions and political agencies.
If elected, she would inherit a longstanding flooding and sewage issue in Cahokia Heights that has yet to be resolved. Budzinski said she would “fight for those folks and make sure those communities get the resources they need,” but other elected officials have made those promises before.
The difference with her, Budzinski said, is that she would bring together local and state “stakeholders” to “collectively sit down and put a plan together.”
“It is sitting down and figuring out what the local leadership, the stakeholders, legislative delegation need to work together to leverage local, state, federal dollars,” Budzinski said.
Budzinski is an aunt of three and also a “very proud dog mom” of a 2-year-old French bulldog named Lulu.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREWhy we did this story
The Belleville News-Democrat wrote this story on 13th Congressional District candidate Nikki Budzinski because she became a serious contender for the nomination by securing endorsements from several Democratic metro-east and state leaders. The BND will also cover other candidates in detail as the race progresses toward the June 28 primary.
This story was originally published January 26, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
