Editor’s note: Ahead of the March 17 primary, Austin Weekly News is profiling the candidates running in the 7th congressional district in Illinois. Whoever wins the November election will succeed Rep. Danny Davis, who is retiring after nearly 30 years in the position. This week, we reported on Dave Ehrlich.
Dave Ehrlich has taught graduate school classes on public policy for 21 years and worked for congressmen, or participated in the group that is Congress’ watchdog, for 22 years. And now he’s running for the 7th congressional district.
“I think it’s pretty incontrovertible that I do have more experience with both policy and in Congress,” Ehrlich said, compared to the race’s other candidates. He’s running for Congress because “ICE invaded, and I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines. I had to get involved.”
Ehrlich worked for Cong. Charles Rangel, who represented New York City districts for 46 years and was the first African American to lead the Ways and Means Committee — the tax-writing body that drafts legislation for taxes, tariffs and social service programs. Rangel also founded the Congressional Black Caucus.
Rangel was one of the prime sponsors of the Affordable Care Act and the main sponsor for the low-income housing tax credit, “which has provided 90% of affordable housing in the U.S. over the last 30 years,” Ehrlich said.
“I would want to continue his legacy. He was interested in the same kinds of issues that I’m interested in,” Ehrlich said, adding that he wants to lower the cost for ACA and expand Medicaid to cover more uninsured people. “I learned a lot of internal stuff from him and also how to work within Congress.”
Ehrlich also worked for Claude Pepper, a congressman representing the Miami area who served as chairman of the House Rules Committee that has jurisdiction over the terms and conditions of debate on legislation on the House floor.
“He was one of the people who advocated getting into World War II before the rest of the world,” Ehrlich said. And he helped create the Lend-Lease Act that allowed the U.S. to sell or transfer defense equipment to allied countries. Ehrlich added that Pepper was “Mr. Social Security” and advocated for the elderly and liberalism.
Ehrlich spent 15 years working for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which is the investigative and consulting arm of Congress.
“GAO is the watchdog of Congress,” Ehrlich said. The office analyzes most any part of federal government operations (aside from open market activities and the National Security Agency) to work with committees and get consensus from Republicans and Democrats. “We’re also trained to look for corruption, waste, fraud and abuse.”
Though Ehrlich no longer works for the GAO, he said the office has done 30-some investigations on the current Trump Administration, including ones involving the newly created Department of Government Efficiency and a brokerage firm that seemingly had insider information that Trump’s tariffs wouldn’t pass.
“I think reducing corruption will solve a lot of these other problems,” Ehrlich said.
Ehrlich’s platform
Over the last 21 years, Ehrlich has taught over 140 courses to over 3,000 students on climate and environmental policy. While teaching at UIC, Indiana University, the Illinois Institute of Technology and DePaul University, Ehrlich said he often educates students about legislation that would help slow the effects of climate change, like a carbon tax and/or cap-and-trade plan.
A carbon tax would simply put a fee on fossil fuels, while a cap-and-trade would set a legal limit on how much governments and companies can pollute, and allow them to auction off their emission permits, in an effort to reduce greenhouse gases.
“We could do it here in Chicago without having a national plan, which is what we’re going to have to do for the next couple years. We’re going to have to separate from the administration and do things locally,” he said.
Ehrlich is advocating for clean air, the lack of which affects lower income neighborhoods more than wealthy ones.
Ehrlich cites a New York University study that shows that at least 80% of health disparities can be attributed to environmental and socioeconomic factors, while 20% is attributed to health and behavioral factors.
“Eating more vegetables is good, having good health care and having good access to health care is great, but we need clean air and jobs,” Ehrlich said. “Lower income people benefit more through jobs and through cleaner air than wealthier people, but they still benefit too.”
Ehrlich also cites the need for more green infrastructure throughout Chicago, largely to help prevent flooding but also to increase property values.
“The medium-term solution is infrastructure. It’s pretty cheap. You can get it done by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, block-by-block. They’re looking for example projects that they can showcase,” said Ehrlich, who ran for the MWRD board in 2012.
Ehrlich, who’s not taking any PAC or corporate money, also stresses the importance of reforming campaign finances. While candidates are limited to receiving $3,500 per individual per election, wealthy people can funnel money into 501c4s which can then give it to a Super PAC to fund elections. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a 501c4 that operates the United Democracy Project Super PAC, which recently committed to spending $2.8 million on Melissa Conyears-Ervin’s campaign for the 7th district seat.
Without reform, “the people buying our elections will never be identified,” Ehrlich said. He said he’s seen congresspeople spend hours a day making calls to raise money to pay party dues in order to be a part of certain committees. Some committee taxes can climb to millions of dollars per term, “which tells you how much time they’re spending on policy,” Ehrlich said of those who have to raise that money.
Ehrlich said, if elected, he’d hold a comment period for legislation in order to hear how his constituents feel about particular issues. He said, though not always implemented, a federal agency is supposed to have a comment period of 60 to 90 days for proposed regulations from Congress. Before the agency decides how the law will be put into effect, it’s supposed to solicit comments and respond to everyone.
“When it comes down to actually putting these laws into effect, you need specific regulations, and you need to think about who’s going to respond, who isn’t going to respond, how are they going to get around the regulations, is it going to go anywhere or are people just going to ignore it?” Ehrlich said.
Other Democratic candidates who have thrown their hats in the ring for Davis’s seat include Richard Boykin, Kina Collins, Melissa Conyears-Ervin, Anthony Driver Jr., Dr. Thomas Fisher, La Shawn Ford, Jason Friedman, Rory Hoskins, Anabel Mendoza, Jazmin Robinson, Reed Showalter and Felix Tello. Republican candidates are Chad Koppie and Patricia Easley.
