The sixth-term Congressman took questions as part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences public lecture series, "Rebuilding Democracy."
Earlier this year, Rep. Kinzinger was one of only a few Republicans to break with his party on a vote to impeach former President Donald Trump. Between 2017 and the beginning of this year, Kinzinger voted just over 90% of the time in line with the Trump administration.
Still, he says there is a path for healthy bipartisanship. “There's going to be moments when you can't have bipartisanship, when there's just logical differences in values and what you vote on,” said Kinzinger during Tuesday night's forum. “That doesn't mean democracy has failed, it actually means that it's working.”
The LaSalle County GOP voted to censure Kinzinger over his statements and actions against former President Trump. And the Republican legislator already faces opposition within his party for his seat.
- Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project which is a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms.
