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Community organizer running for Congress

by Judd Wilson Staff Writer
| October 4, 2018 1:00 AM

COEUR d’ALENE — Cristina McNeil, Democratic nominee for Idaho’s First Congressional District currently represented by Rep. Raul Labrador, is out to usher a blue wave into Congress this year.

McNeil, whose maiden name is Martinez and who holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Mexico, grew up in Mexico City as part of a family of 10. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1995, earned her MBA and became a real estate broker in San Diego. After the housing market collapsed in 2008, she and her daughter moved to Idaho. Her daughter now attends Boise State University.

McNeil was appointed chairwoman of the Idaho Democratic Latino Caucus in 2014. She has served as vice president of the Idaho Community Action Network, and volunteered for the Alliance for Justice, Main Street Alliance, and the Coalition for Immigrant Rights of Idaho.

After 15 years of activism as a community organizer but seeing no visible change in Washington, D.C., McNeil decided to run for Congress. On her campaign website, McNeil strongly advocates for state-related Democratic policies such as higher teacher pay, Proposition 2, and more money for Idaho infrastructure. If elected, she would have no say over these policies, but would instead deal with federal-level issues such as immigration reform and minimum wage. McNeil also feels strongly about these issues.

The candidate says she’s focused on common ground between the political left and right, Democrats and Republicans.

“Common ground across CD 1 has been people looking for solutions and opportunity, not necessarily battles between politicians,” she said during an editorial board meeting Wednesday afternoon with The Press.

McNeil said that 2018 is the year in which women of all parties seek to represent themselves in the political process. She said there is an imbalance and inequality in politics, which women are motivated to change.

“Women itself are getting a little bit tired of the same representation,” she said. “I don’t believe we can see any changes happen until we have different representation.”

McNeil said her top issue is health care. As someone who was completely paralyzed by rheumatic fever at age 20 and again at 33, McNeil said “I know what it means to have someone come feed you, dress you, and take care of you.”

She considers herself lucky to have had health insurance when she suffered that second bout, and as a Realtor has met many people who lost everything due to medical bills caused by catastrophic illness.

“I don’t believe that only a few should have the opportunity to take care of health issues. I believe it’s a human right,” she said.

When pressed on how far the federal government should go to provide for its population’s health care needs, McNeil declined to embrace Sen. Bernie Sanders’ single-payer health care system plan, saying that she would need to learn more before making a decision. However, she said a federal plan to provide preventive health care for all people would be “a great way to start.”

McNeil also wants to see the federal government require states to provide kindergarten and pre-kindergarten education, whether the states want it or not.

Regarding student loans, she said debtors should be able to refinance their student loans and to buy homes while still in student debt. She called her Republican opponent, former state Sen. Russ Fulcher, “completely radical” for suggesting that the U.S. Department of Education should be eliminated.

She called the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour “totally unrealistic,” but declined to support proposals to hike the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Minimum wage rates should be based on the needs of each state and their businesses, she explained. It would be “very tough for me to say” what the federal level should be increased to, McNeil said.

McNeil insisted that America’s economy needs undocumented immigrants to work in the agricultural sector, and that America’s farms have always depended on foreign labor. Prices for produce would double if Americans replaced undocumented immigrants as America’s agricultural workers, said McNeil. She explained that in addition to hiring illegal aliens, many farmers in Idaho don’t pay their foreign workers minimum wage.

However, rather than require adherence to existing law, penalize the farmers for exploiting laborers, or penalize the illegal immigrants for breaking the law and undercutting American labor, McNeil suggested the workers be granted temporary work permits and a path to eventual citizenship. She was open to the possibility of some penalty for the employers and workers, but insisted ultimately that if they met residency requirements, the illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay, work legally, and “have a path to citizenship.”

She also said President Donald Trump’s proposal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement with a new, United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement was dangerous so soon after a recovery from the Great Recession.

McNeil summed up by saying that she is “Not here looking for a seat. I’m here to work. To give all I have to make sure that Idahoans have what they deserve and what they should have had a long, long time ago.”