When voters in the 14th Congressional District flipped the seat to Democrat Lauren Underwood in 2018, they expected the newcomer to immediately start tackling the key issue that got her elected: Health care.
After all, Underwood was a nurse, a medical professional and functionary in the Department of Health and Human Services during the waning years of the Obama administration. Her campaign crusade was she was going to save the health care system — which Republicans were accused of wanting to gut — for her future constituents.
Health care was the key issue in the 2018 off-year election that returned the U.S. House of Representatives to the leadership of California Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Underwood was one of the candidates who benefited from deep support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Granted, the Naperville resident ran against incumbent Randy Hultgren of Plano in the sprawling 14th District drawn by master mapmaker Michael Madigan, chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party and speaker of the Illinois House. Many Lake Countians figured Naperville was closer to Plano, which is somewhere down there, plus Underwood supported the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
Hultgren, who ran one of the worst reelection campaigns in recent memory, supported the Trump administration’s replacement for Obamacare. Underwood hammered her opponent in high-profile television spots that the repeal-and-replace bill would take away the right of individuals with pre-existing conditions to have affordable coverage; that people would be denied coverage or be charged more.
So far, what she’s done on the health care front is vote for the Healthy Families Act, which would provide employees the opportunity to earn a minimum of seven sick days a year to care for themselves or their families; sponsored a bill to ensure mental health and suicide prevention care for veterans; and co-sponsored a resolution to ban insurance plans that fail to include coverage for pre-existing conditions.
Also, in her first short months in office, Underwood has decided to follow the Democrat playbook. She also has the most liberal voting record in the House, according to VoteView, a project of UCLA political scientists who track the ideological voting records of members of Congress. She also has run into the same problem other members of her freshmen class have documented: Foot-in-mouth disease.
Like during the hearing last week before the House Homeland Security Committee when she blamed the immigration policies of the Trump administration for causing the deaths of five migrant children at border detention centers. According to the report by The Associated Press, the hearing became heated as Underwood verbally dueled with Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.
She termed Trump’s policy intentionally “inhumane,” according to the AP, which McAleenan said was an “appalling accusation.” Republicans were livid at Underwood and somehow got members of a Democrat-controlled committee to admonish the rookie lawmaker.
The AP reported her statement was stricken from the session’s record and she was banned from talking during the rest of the hearing. Could Underwood be more worried about the health of those wanting to get in the country than she is about the health of 14th District constituents already here?
While that may be an unfair characterization, you can bet the committee exchange will surface during her re-election battle next year. Already, a number of Republican opponents have surfaced, and there will be more to duke it out in the March GOP primary hoping to square off with Underwood in November 2020.
Perhaps her committee comments flared up in the heat of the continuing debate over what this country wants its immigration policies to become. Or she is truly passionate about treatment of those crossing illegally into the U.S. once they’re at border detention sites.
Either way, the first-term congresswoman will be defending her statement and stand in the coming months. She should understand she’s going to be under the microscope of a national political campaign.
Republicans want that seat back badly, and they will be parsing her words very carefully. She might want do the same.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
