Winning In The Heartland: Meet Dr. David Gill

We want to introduce you to an old friend who’s running for Congress in Illinois, David Gill, a life-long progressive in a swing district that Obama won in 2008 and then lost by a handful of votes in 2012. It was the wrong kind of district for Hillary and Trump beat her 49.7% to 44.2%. But in the primaries Bernie swept the district by a landslide, beating Hillary in the biggest of the 14 counties, Champaign 20,581 (65.9%) to 10,542 (33.8%) and outpacing Trump and Cruz combined (17,253 on the same day).

David marched with organized labor in Pana, IL on Labor Day “because the fight never ends. As Mother Jones said: ‘I know that there are no limits to which the powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.’ Fighting against those powers requires us to be bold in our demands; that’s why I stand for a $15/hour minimum wage and tuition-free public universities, colleges & trade schools. Solidarity forever!”

He was an enthusiastic Bernie activist and the platform he’s running on is almost entirely based on the issues he and Bernie have long championed. We asked him to re-introduce himself to Blue America members.

Running On Economic Populism To Take Back A “Trump District” -by David Gill candidate, IL-13

I’m a physician in Emergency Medicine and Family Practice, and I’m seeking the Democratic nomination for Illinois’ 13th district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. I live in Bloomington with my wife Elaine, and we have six children, two cats, two turtles, and two rescue dogs.

As a doctor, I’m a 25-year member of Physicians for a National Health Program, a group of 20,000 doctors that has been pushing and pushing for single-payer health care here in America. And with the Republicans on the verge of completely messing up health care, the door is going to open very soon for single-payer in this country; and we can take full advantage of this opportunity by having the strong voice of a progressive physician such as me helping to lead the charge.

And as a doctor, I’m also a 20-year member of Physicians for Reproductive Choice.  We must have representatives who stand up for women’s rights at all times, because the opposition is stomping on those rights every chance they get.  I’ve also been a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union for 24 years– I was standing beside my friends in the LGBTQ community, standing up for marriage equality, even when such a position was very unpopular. And we must have representatives who will protect marriage equality and who will stand against discrimination of every kind.

I’m also a long-time member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. And we must have representatives who believe in science, who will stand up passionately in the greatest battle in human history:  the fight against climate change. There is no more important battle, because if and when we lose this one, there won’t be any more humans left to battle about anything.

But of course, we have a Congress made up of too many men and women who stand against single-payer and science and civil rights. They take the big money from the insurance industry and the pharmaceutical industry, the arms manufacturers and the oil industry, and then they work on behalf of those corporations. We need representatives who stand against this corporate ownership of our politics and our government, and I intend to work tirelessly to undo the impact of Citizens United, up to and including working to pass a Constitutional amendment stating explicitly that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.

I ran for this seat once before, back in 2012. And my Republican opponent, Rodney Davis, was very lucky that year; for in years that end in a “2”, and only in those years, it’s relatively easy for an Independent to get on the ballot in Illinois, and in 2012 there was a liberal Independent who got on the ballot.  He traveled around the 14 counties of this district, saying all the same things as me, talking about single-payer, campaign finance reform, gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose, and climate change. So I was running against both Rodney Davis and this mirror image of myself. I wound up losing by three tenths of one percentage point, the liberal Independent took 7% of the vote and Rodney Davis went to Congress as an “accidental congressman.”

We intend to reverse that result next year, with the help of citizens from all across the country. Ours is very much a grassroots campaign, fueled by ordinary citizens from all walks of life who want to see a caring, thoughtful healthcare professional fighting for their well-being within the halls of Congress. 2018 does not end in a “2,” so Rodney Davis won’t be protected this time around by some liberal Independent, and I intend to beat him soundly in a two-man race this time, with the support of all those ordinary Americans.