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1-02-2024 12:41am
Congressman Jake Auchincloss on Pursuing Lower Costs, Gun Safety, and Defending Democracy
Darlene Cancell
Editor
Last month, Congressman Jake Auchincloss (D, MA-04), spoke with Westwood Minute, providing both a perspective on his work in his third year in Congress along with a look ahead at his priorities in 2024.
Cost of Living, Housing, Dominates Constituents’ Concerns
In 2023, the Congressman held 32 in-person or virtual town halls, hosted youth-focused events, visited 47 businesses and nonprofit organizations and all 35 cities and towns in his district. Concerns over the cost of living, particularly housing, struck him as a repeated theme among his constituents.
“The cost of housing is devouring senior citizens' budgets, sending them into a panic, blocking young families from establishing themselves and [from] creating a ladder to wealth creation. It’s one of the reasons Massachusetts has lost population over the last few years. Housing is the single biggest problem facing Massachusetts,” says Congressman Auchincloss.
He notes his strong support of the MBTA Communities Act in Massachusetts, which will result in developing more desperately needed multi-family housing. Additionally, he has co-sponsored the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, a bill which he says he will continue fighting for.
Also, to help control costs, he has focused on lowering the cost of prescription drugs “by taking on insurance company greed and corporate greed that is raising prices for consumers.” He will continue that focus in 2024. In 2023, he co-led a bipartisan bill, the Drug Price Transparency in Medicaid Act, with the goal of lowering prescription drug prices for Medicaid patients. It passed in the House in December and is before the Senate for reconsideration.
“I’ve been working with Republican colleagues to increase pressure on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the Big Three Pharmacy Benefit Managers, who are owned by the insurance companies, for their collusion and rent seeking that raises prices at the countertop for patients,” he says. He notes that he is working on bipartisan legislation “that really take on the drug pricing middle men, known as pharmacy benefit managers, who are capturing a lot of money in the middle of the supply chain without creating any [ ] value for patients.”
From students and youth, the concerns the representative has most often heard include climate action and clean energy investment, LGBT protections, and reproductive rights, he says. He notes having co-sponsored the Women’s Health Protection Act, which passed the House last Congress but was obstructed by the filibuster in the Senate. And following the historic climate action and clean energy legislation that Congress passed in 2022, in 2023, he has worked with the United States Treasurer on how clean energy tax credits are allocated to benefit Massachusetts.
Priorities in 2024: Lower Costs, Gun Safety, and Role as "Defender in Chief"
The Congressman notes that in 2024, along with prioritizing efforts to lower costs, his priorities include pursuing gun safety and continuing his role as what some have called being “Defender in Chief.”
“Last Congress, we passed the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. It was modest but significant improvement to gun safety policy in this country, and you know, this Congress, we find ourselves in the minority. I think there’s almost no chance that the Republican speaker will bring gun safety legislation to the floor,” he says. Instead, the Congressman he says he has been working with the Biden Administration ensure that ATF and Department of Justice are closing loopholes on background checks in existing legislation and cracking down on ghost guns.
The Congressman also notes he’s working to elect pro-gun safety members of Congress. He promises to be “ferocious in supporting members who will vote for an assault weapons ban, who will vote for background checks, who will vote for red flag laws, who will vote for safe storage laws to protect kids from their leading cause of death, and to defeat members who will vote against those things.”
Congressman Auchincloss notes that as "Defender in Chief," as some have called him, he supports President Biden’s foreign policy in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific, and notes that, “Joe Biden is the first president in American history who has had to protect democracy at home and overseas at the same time. Abraham Lincoln had to do it at home. FDR had to do it overseas. Joe Biden is being asked to do both, simultaneously. It’s hard.”
“When I think about defending democracy, what I think about is supporting the president in his efforts to uphold the rule of law in our constitutional republic,” he says. “I mean if you had to ask me the single biggest priority for 2024, it is, ‘Don’t let Donald Trump become president.’”
On the Status of Bipartisanship
In 2022, Congressman Auchincloss had called the 117th Congress the most bipartisan Congress that he has seen in his lifetime. The current Congress stands in stark contrast, however.
“Well, the China Select Committee has been a bipartisan oasis amidst the desert of buffoonery that has marked the 118th Congress,” he says, referring to his appointment to the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Outside of that committee, “The House GOP has been incompetent and dysfunctional. I don’t know how else to put it,” he says.
“That they have tried to default on the debt, they’ve tried to defund the government, they’re attacking Joe Biden and want to impeach him but can’t decide on who they want to lead themselves, much less offer a leadership agenda for the country. It’s been a clown car in the House with the GOP in charge. So, not nearly as good as last Congress,” he says.
Thanks to Congressman Jake Auchincloss for speaking with Westwood Minute.
Updated 1/3/2024 at 2:18 p.m.
