CHAMPAIGN– Advocates are calling on Illinois Democratic Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski to push back against the Trump administration’s cuts to federal agencies.
A crowd of around 40 people rallied Monday in frigid weather outside the entrance to the Lincoln Building, where Budzinski’s office is located in downtown Champaign.
Marci Adelston-Schafer with Champaign County Indivisible told the group that the congresswoman should expand her efforts to combat cuts made by DOGE, or the Department of Governmental Efficiency overseen by billionaire Elon Musk.
“Nikki Budzinski, we will watch your back as long as you watch ours, and you fight,” Adelston-Schafer said through an electric megaphone. “Because there is no other choice right now. You cannot go and work across the aisle, because you really can’t work across the aisle with an authoritarian government.”
Budzinski, who represents the 13th district stretching from Champaign-Urbana to Springfield and the Metro East, has criticized the Trump administration’s cuts to federal government agencies. That includes layoffs of Veterans Administration workers and his proposed elimination of the Department of Education.
Jeff Dougan, one of the organizers, said he appreciates Budzinski’s previous statements against those cuts. However, he also said that she needs to do more for her constituents.
“We need her to be a more active and full-throated supporter, throwing as many procedural roadblocks in the way as she can, in order to buy time for the courts to be able to tell the president that he is not above the law,” Dougan said.
While Budzinski’s Champaign office was closed on Monday for President’s Day, the Springfield Democrat was meeting that day with teachers and teacher union officials in the Metro East suburb of Fairview Heights.
At the meeting, Budzinski decried the Trump administration’s proposal to have Congress shut down the Department of Education.
“People need to understand the impact is real, and it’s local,” she said, according to St. Louis Public Radio. “It’s not this abstract Washington, D.C. jargon. This is going to negatively impact our communities.”
The rally in Champaign was one of many being held nationwide this week to protest cuts to federal agencies.