AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Election 2020 House Missouri Bush
Activist Cori Bush speaks during a news conference Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2020, in St. Louis. Bush pulled a political upset on Tuesday, beating incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay in Missouri's 1st District Democratic primary. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
When Cori Bush defeated longtime U.S. Representative Lacy Clay in the August Democratic primary, she toppled a political dynasty. Clay was elected to represent Missouri’s First congressional district in 2000, the same year his father, Bill Clay, stepped down after serving 32 years. The primary win all but guarantees Bush—a nurse, pastor, activist, and mother—a seat in Congress. Her priority list is long, but the first item is additional COVID-19 relief. She envisions a $2,000 monthly stimulus check for individuals, a moratorium on evictions, more resources allocated to public schools, and national broadband to assist with virtual learning. “Medicare for All” is also on the docket: “COVID-19 hit us the way it did because we don’t have health care for every person,” she says. She continues down her list: a federal $15 minimum hourly wage, affordable quality housing for all, criminal justice reform. It’s ambitious. Bush has stated that she plans to pay for these costly progressive reforms by closing tax loopholes and diverting money away from defense. But she recognizes that persuading people to do just that might be a long game. However, she says, “the thing that we cannot do is to feel like we’re not winning and pull back. We have to continue. It may not happen overnight.”
On how to persuade lawmakers to back progressive reforms: I think it starts with us being very clear about the message and then using every platform we have to talk to regular people... The more regular on-the-ground people, as well as [those in] our activist community, who are pushing for changes, the more pressure [we can put] on lawmakers.
On how she’ll talk to people who may not agree with her: We need to go to the corner coffee house and the grocery store and make sure we connect with the community. Some of it is what we’ve already been able to do. Medicare for All made it to presidential debate stages. A few years ago, these things were like “Oh, it’s something that could never happen. People don’t want that.”
On her experience with homelessness: I had just had a baby, and I had a 1-year-old who was born prematurely, so he still had a lot of needs. We had to move into our vehicle. I thought, This is very temporary, maybe a couple of days, and then somebody will hear about this and someone will give us [a lead] on a place or a basement to stay in. Something will work out. It just didn’t happen for a while. I remember we had all of our clothing in trash bags, and we had a playpen—the kind you can break down—and that’s what my children slept in, in the back of our Jeep. ... It was just a really difficult time, and I was still working full time. I actually went back to work four weeks after I had my daughter. I couldn’t make it six weeks, because we needed the money. Nobody knew that I didn’t have a home and I was sleeping in my car.
And how that experience influenced her ideas on policy: I was making maybe $7–$8 an hour [working in childcare] at the time, trying to raise children. Absolutely [a federal $15 minimum wage] would have helped me. That’s also why I fight for a universal basic income. That’s why I fight for some of the things that I fight for—mostly everything is because of something that I’ve experienced.
