In this week’s installment of Political Roundtable, Ian Donnis goes in-depth with the senior U.S. Representative from Rhode Island’s Second Congressional District, Seth Magaziner.
Ian Donnis: Seth Magaziner, welcome back to The Public’s Radio.
Seth Magaziner: It’s great to be back. Thanks for having me.
Donnis: You recently moved your first legislation since joining Congress, but with so little seniority, and as a member of the minority in the U.S. House, how much can you really get done?
Magaziner: Well, so far, we’ve been able to get more done, frankly, than I think a lot of people expected. You know, I ran for Congress, because I want to help working Rhode Islanders and I’ll work with anyone from either party in order to get it done. I’ve co-sponsored dozens of Republican-led bills, in addition to working with my Democratic colleagues, when I felt that it was the right thing to do for the people of Rhode Island. You’re right. We’ve gotten four pieces of legislation that I authored through the House of Representatives already dealing with a range of issues, expanding affordable housing, improving health care for members of the military. Those pieces of legislation are now over on the Senate side, waiting for consideration. But as a freshman in the minority who’s only been there for seven months, we feel pretty good about the fact that we’ve been able to get some things passed already.
Donnis: Is there a cautionary tale for you in the experience of David Cicilline. He served 12 years in the House, often in the minority. And you know, sure he represented the state, but he was unable to make headway on one of his top priorities, the effort to impose more regulation on big companies.
Magaziner: Yeah, well, Davidson Cicilline was a tremendously impactful member of Congress. He was a leader on a range of issues: lead sponsor of the assault weapons ban, lead sponsor of the Equality Act to guarantee full civil rights for LGBTQ Americans. And you’re right, he worked with Republicans as well as Democrats to enforce antitrust protections for consumers against the tech industry. He was making good headway on that. And when the opportunity for the Rhode Island Foundation CEO position came to David, I know that it was a very hard decision for him to leave Congress, because he was starting to get real traction on his push for tougher anti-trust laws in big tech. But the Rhode Island Foundation is obviously a tremendously important and impactful organization. And I know that he felt that it was an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up.
Donnis: And in the interest of full disclosure, we get a little bit of support from the Rhode Island Foundation. President Biden’s approval rating remains underwater, and a lot of Americans do not seem to share his upbeat assessment of the economy. Is that a concern for you as we move closer to the 2024 presidential election?
Magaziner: We all need to do a better job of making sure that people know how many accomplishments President Biden and congressional Democrats have delivered that help working people. I think sometimes as Democrats, we have a victory on an issue that we care about. And then we immediately go on and try to fight the next fight without taking a moment to educate people about what we’ve just done. So let’s just take a quick look at some of the things that President Biden has accomplished. He passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, which is not only fixing roads and bridges across the country, but also replacing lead pipes and expanding broadband access, especially in rural areas. He passed the CHIPS and Science bill, which is bringing back American manufacturing, particularly in the semiconductor industry. He passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which made historic investments in clean energy, has already created 150,000 jobs and kept the cost of insulin at $35 a month for seniors. And the list goes on and on. So I’m confident that once we get out and tell the story of what President Biden and Congressional Democrats have accomplished, that not only will the president be elected to a second term, but Democrats will take back Congress as well, so that we can continue to deliver results for working people.
Donnis: It seems as if President Biden has been silent on the ability of the Justice Department to handle the Hunter Biden issue in an impartial and fair way. Is that something you should speak out on?
Magaziner: Well, everyone should be treated equally under the law. That goes for Hunter Biden. It goes for Donald Trump and members of his family. Anyone no matter who they are should be treated the same way under the law. That is the bedrock of our judicial system in this country. And so, when it comes to Hunter Biden, a special prosecutor has been appointed, that is independent of the hierarchy of the Justice Department so that that special prosecutor can act independently and impartially. That’s the right way to handle it. And we should let the legal process play its course.
Donnis: Speaking of prosecutions, I imagine it’s a nightmare scenario for Democrats like you if former President Trump was able to win reelection next year, and then undo a series of prosecutions against him. If that comes to pass, what is the next step?
Magaziner: Well, we can’t let that happen. President Trump is unfit to hold office again. This is an individual who lost the election to Joe Biden, knew he lost but lied about it anyway, and incited a violent riot to try to overturn the election results. He has obstructed justice, he has stolen classified information and kept it in an unsecure setting.
Donnis: Sure, we’re familiar with this. But if your worst fear comes to pass, and he is elected next year, what is the backup plan? Or how do Democrats respond?
Magaziner: Well, I would say, first of all, we all have to mobilize and get involved in the next election to make sure that doesn’t happen. But the backup plan is making sure that we have Democratic control of Congress so that we can hold any administration and particularly a Trump administration accountable.
Donnis: You’re on the House Committee on Homeland Security. How is the nation doing enough to counter the threat posed by domestic extremists?
Magaziner: We have to do more. And this is an issue that I focused on quite a bit since I started in Congress earlier this year. More Americans have been killed by domestic terrorists over the last five years than by international terrorists. And that’s unusual. That didn’t used to be the case. But more Americans have been killed in acts of terror, committed by white supremacists, anti-semitic individuals, racially, ethnically-motivated, anti-government extremists than by international groups like Al Qaeda over the last five years. And so we need to direct the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to really focus on this domestic extremism threat. And we have to focus on it, not just from a law enforcement point of view, but also from an education and counseling point of view, because a lot of this extremism is being carried out by, by young people, by teenagers in some cases, which once again, speaks to the importance of having good counseling in the schools, and making sure that young people who are feeling alienated by society know that there are people who care about them, and there are other paths that they can take and places they can go. So we need a whole of government approach to this. Unfortunately, some of my Republican colleagues, even on the Homeland Security Committee, don’t seem to want to talk about this issue, even though many Americans have lost their lives to extremists in recent years. So we need to take this seriously.
Donnis: Do you believe here in New England, law enforcement is doing enough to counter the rise of hate groups that are trying to increase their ranks and intimidate people?
Magaziner: They’re trying to, and you’re right to point out by the way that there are groups even here in New England, that are neo Nazi type groups that are growing membership and becoming more organized. I’ve met with the Providence leadership of the FBI here at the Providence FBI office. I’ve met with the State Police here in Rhode Island. And I do believe that law enforcement is making this more of a priority here locally, but they need the federal support, they need the federal resources, and Congress has a role to play in making sure that those resources are made available.
Donnis: The State of Rhode Island has long fought sovereignty for the Narragansett Indian tribe for their land in Charlestown. Do you believe the tribe should have sovereignty over its land there?
Magaziner: I think that we need to work, all of us in good faith, you know, the state, the tribe and the congressional delegation to find a permanent solution. You know, the Narragansett tribe is in sort of an unusual situation where they were recognized federally, but they were recognized federally after the law that guaranteed tribes sovereignty over their land. So they’re in this kind of no man’s land situation where they are federally recognized, they are a federally recognized tribe, but they haven’t been given full federal rights to the land that they are on. We need to work together with the state and the tribe to finally at long last come up with a permanent solution.
Donnis: Is it realistic to think that Social Security can be preserved without trimming the money going to future retirees?
Magaziner: Absolutely no question. And the answer is that the people at the very top of the income scale, billionaires, millionaires need to pay their fair share of the payroll tax to fund Social Security. Right now, Elon Musk pays the same amount into the Social Security Trust Fund every year as the family making $150,000 a year. That’s absurd. If we lift that cap so that the same tax treatment is given to people at the very top as to working people, we could extend the life of the Social Security Trust Fund for decades. The other thing connected with that is that when Social Security was first created back in the New Deal era, most income was from salaries. And so the payroll tax that funds Social Security is based off of salaried income. But today, the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezos’s of the world, they don’t make most of their money from salary, They make it from investment income. And so if we apply that same Social Security tax to investment income, that is the primary source of earnings for billionaires and people at the very top, we could solve the Social Security funding problem easily and fairly and equitably, without any extra cost on working people. And without any cuts to benefits at all.
Donnis: We hear a lot about how there’s a lot less casual, friendly contact between Democrats and Republicans in Washington than in the past. What’s it been like for you trying to build relationships across the aisle?
Magaziner: Better than I thought it would be. You know, on a personal level, I find it easy to talk to many of my Republican colleagues. You know, I go to the House members gym every morning, and we talk a lot there with those who show up. But what I have noticed is that there are a handful of real extremists on the Republican side. We all know who they are. And most of the other Republicans in the House that I talked to, they don’t like that extreme group. They don’t agree with that extreme group. They don’t like the direction that they’re taking the House, but they’re scared to speak up. I’ve been shocked at how often a Republican member of the House will come over to me when we’re voting on some extreme piece of legislation and say, “Oh, I can’t believe they’re having his vote on this. This is ridiculous, like this is crazy.” But then they go and they vote the party line anyway, because they don’t have the courage to speak up. So you know, this is something that we need to deal with in our politics. I think many of the Republican members of Congress are more afraid of being primaried than they are of – than they are willing to work across the aisle with Democrats to get things done. We need to do some real hard thinking about how we can improve our political system so that the extremes on the Republican side aren’t able to dominate the agenda the way they have been.
Donnis: Rhode Island’s Second District Congressman Seth Magaziner, thank you for joining us.
Magaziner: Great to be here. Thank you.
