As the leaders of this great country, I urge my fellow colleagues in the House, governors, and presidential candidates alike to hold ourselves up to a higher standard.
A Supreme Court ruling is supposed to provide clarity to contentious legal issues, but in the case of reproductive rights, it was just the beginning of a long, heated, and grueling debate.
If nothing else, the cyber attacks that occurred during the 2016 presidential election have laid bare the very real vulnerabilities that exist across our government and the private sector. Imagine the harm that could be done if our enemies ever hack into the Department of Defense or Homeland Security.
Since 1975, violence has been recognized as a public health problem, in large part to former Surgeon Generals Dr. Koop and Dr. Satcher's pioneering efforts to make the health approach a national priority. Since then, we've seen that violence can be curbed - and stopped - if we treat it as we would any other epidemic health concern.
In Chicago in 2000, the Cure Violence health approach saw a 67 percent decline in shootings and killings, which soon replicated to 70 communities nationwide with multiple independent evaluations from world-renowned institutions, such as the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
We need to replace hyperbole with a reasonable, informed discussion about how to reinvent the federal budget with more transparency and better accountability.
Ironically enough, why I got into politics is because I came to the conclusion that if you wanted to save the world, which in my mind was through the environment, those elected officials seemed to be the ones who made a lot of the important decisions, if not the most important decisions.
Inhumane treatment of the undocumented cannot be rewarded with repeated budget increases. It goes against our country's most fundamental values and cannot continue. We must cut I.C.E.s budgets until these concerns are addressed.
Racial politics in Chicago has a long history of being intertwined with the mayor's race, but I'd like to think we're past much of that.
It should not take award-winning investigators to find out how this government operates.
Without the U.S. leading the way in trade negotiations, we likely will see irreversible damage to our environment and widespread abuse of labor and human rights, all while we lose out on the opportunity to expand our economy and create jobs.
Anytime a member of Congress wants to travel abroad - which we do from time to time as part of our official duties - we are required to check with the House Committee on Ethics as to whether the trip follows the ethics rules by which federally elected officials are bound. Not so with Supreme Court justices.
The modern labor movement that began around the mid-19th century has given us many of the basic working rights that we now take for granted.
Instead of focusing on attacking unions and the labor movement, we need to find ways to strengthen and empower workers so we can put more money in the pockets of middle class families.
I've visited Lincoln Park Zoo more times than I can count because I believe the more the public learns about our animals, plants and environment, the better equipped we are to play a leading role in protecting our planet.
Let's face it: when it comes to denying access to abortion care and reproductive rights, especially for low-income women with limited resources, there's no limit to how far some are willing to go.
I taught policy and politics for seven years at a university. I told my students lobbyists are not a bad thing; they're absolutely vital.
We know that trade doesn't just help Wall Street or even just Main Street; it also helps businesses on the side streets, such as Elston Avenue in my home district.
A lot of the O'Hare Modernization Plan may have been a mistake.
There's a world to save. Don't let anybody tell you you can't change the world. You can, and you have a moral responsibility to try.