CHICAGO — Illinois 7th Congressional District candidate Anabel Mendoza gave a wide-ranging interview with MeidasTouch Networks’ Legal AF and their over 1 million YouTube subscribers, where she spoke about the need for courageous leadership and her legislative priorities if elected to Congress, including lowering costs for working families. During the interview, Anabel also discussed the need to overturn Citizens United to prevent corporate interests from buying our elections.

You can watch the entire interview here. 

On why she is running in this critical moment for our country:

• “We are facing existential crises on all fronts. Quite literally, you wake up, you see a news story, and then it's compounded by[...] bad things that are happening across this country and that have been sowing for generations, and I think that's something that is really critical about this moment, and why I'm running right now as opposed to any other time.”

  
  

• “I truly believe that these midterms are going to be utilized by this administration as their final opportunity to put the nail in the coffin, to consolidate their power even more, ahead of what I believe is truly a threat of a third term of this administration.”

  
  

• “We need to take [Trump’s] lies extremely seriously, because every single time he has lied, he has pushed the bounds and had zero consequences for his actions.”

  
  

• “Whoever is elected – and it can't just be any other Democrat – we've seen that being a Democrat doesn't actually mean that you'll have courage in Congress. You have to be a force, and you have to be the right force for this moment, because this is the line of defense that we are going to have in Congress when this administration, and I say when, not if, when this administration threatens its third term.”
  

On confronting corporate capture and lowering costs:

• “The first one, I think, is overturning Citizens United. That is a major piece of legislation we need to get across, because this is at the core of the corporate capture that we are seeing.”

  
  

• “We need to quite literally grab it from the root, take it out and throw it out. This cannot be part of our electoral or political system anymore.”

  
  

• “Every vote that I take will be to lower the cost of living for the people who call this district home, and we know that that is going to impact this country.”

  
  

• “That looks like, of course, raising the minimum wage. That looks like rent control, making sure that we're holding corporate landlords who continue to price gouge, that continue to raise rents that nobody can afford, accountable.”
  

On building solidarity and our shared future:

• “Our futures are shared. Our safety is shared. We are really interdependent as communities.”

  
  

• “If we don't come to this realization now, if we don't understand that, we have to be able to build true solidarity, and that means actually showing up and putting your body out there, putting your money behind your words. Putting your actions behind your words, that is what's going to actually transform the moment that we're in.”

  
  

• “The division is the strategy. The division is what keeps us vulnerable, what weakens our collective power.”

  
  

• “If we've learned anything from this moment, I hope the big takeaway is that we cannot survive it if we continue to operate in silos.”
  

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Anabel Mendoza is a community organizer, immigrant advocate, and the youngest candidate running for Congress in Illinois’ 7th District. A lifelong Chicagoan and the proud daughter and granddaughter of immigrants, she has dedicated her career to fighting for working families, immigrant rights, and a government that serves people, not corporations. She’s running to bring unity, honesty, and courage to Washington. For more information, visit www.anabelforcongress.com