The Issues and the Promise

A former Cleveland city council member and Ohio state legislator, Nina Turner stepped onto the national stage as an ardent defender of labor rights in 2011, when she was an outspoken critic of the wave of attacks on public-sector unions in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states. She went on to become one of the most prominent surrogates for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, when he sought the presidency in 2016 and 2020.

In 2017, Turner became the president of Our Revolution, the political organization forged by Sanders campaign veterans, and joined the Democratic National Committee’s Unity Reform Commission. She’s been a regular on national media, as well as a sought-after speaker at progressive events. Now she’s running for Congress, hoping to fill the Cleveland-area seat that came open when former U.S. Representative Marcia Fudge, Democrat of Ohio, joined President Joe Biden’s Cabinet as U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

“The promise, I believe, is that we are at a point when we can really start to solve these problems.”

With strong support from grassroots activists in Cleveland, Akron, and surrounding communities in Ohio’s 11th district, along with endorsements from unions and national progressives including Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Turner is running in a special election that begins with an August 3 Democratic primary. We spoke recently by phone about her campaign and the problems and the promise of the moment.

Q: You have said that this is a time of great challenges but also of rising movements that have the potential to address them. Let’s start by identifying the problems.

Nina Turner: The problems that I see are social and economic and racial and environmental. They are all of the factors and the variables that come barreling down on humanity, and it just so happens that, at this particular moment in human existence, we have a global pandemic that has exacerbated all of these challenges.

Q: The pandemic has revealed the nation’s vulnerabilities and, frankly, its failures. What have we learned over the past year about the challenges we face as a society?

Turner: They’re intersectional, they’re multifaceted. I mean, pick your compound word. Look at all the social, economic, and racial variables that impact us as a country, look at all the challenges, and you’ll see that they are compounding right now.

For example, we knew clearly that the Black community faced health disparities. But look at what COVID-19 has shown us. Black people are hospitalized at higher rates. Black people die at higher rates than our white counterparts.

When you start to peel back the layers, you know that—even before COVID-19—the racialized health disparities, of higher blood pressure, higher diabetes, dying earlier, not having the same access to health care, were there. COVID-19 is just turbo-boosting what was already a reality.

When we look at income and wealth inequality, we see that the ultra-wealthy in this country have increased their wealth by $1.3 trillion collectively during the pandemic. Meanwhile, back in the hood—meaning neighborhoods across this country, whether they’re Black, brown, or white—we see that the average worker’s salary or hourly wage has certainly not kept up with inflation.

We see the ravages of attacks on labor unions and how they have gone down, how they’ve been weakened, at precisely the time when we need them.

So it’s just this maelstrom of factors that were already there. But now, because of COVID-19, they’re dead-on in our face.

Q: And on the promise side?

Turner: No one in their right mind can deny that these things are true. Not anymore. So the promise, I believe, is that we are at a point when we can really start to solve these problems.

Q: Is that why you’ve decided to run for Congress?

Turner: I see this run very much as an extension of my work, of my ministry. And I do believe that if more people who are elected saw it as a ministry, we would do better for the people—because there’s something communal about a ministry and being laser-focused on the uplift of the least of these among us.

I often say on the trail that I want to center the working poor and the barely middle-class. Some people might call it the struggling middle-class. Whatever we call it, there is a squeeze on the middle-class, and it barely exists anymore.

So for me, when this opportunity presented itself, it just seemed like the moment was right. It is an opportunity to continue the work that I’ve been doing in my community and all across this nation.

“We have to reimagine what safety at home and safety abroad looks like, because it’s not about who has the biggest tank.”

Q: Many newer members of the House—AOC, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush—bring an activist sensibility to the work of legislating. Does that fit your vision of how you’d like to serve in Congress?

Turner: It does. That’s what I’ve always tried to do. I was a legislator on the local and state level and, since being a legislator, I’ve been able to really dip into that activist side of me. Now it’s coming full circle: Nina Turner the legislator and activist come together and, if elected, goes to Congress. Yeah, that’s beautiful.

Q: When Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, forty years ago, he said he wanted to govern with a bias toward the poor and the working class. Is that a grounding point for you when you think about your political vision?

Turner: Very much so. This campaign is about centering in this moment, and without equivocation, the poor, the working poor, and the barely middle class, and trying to force the body politic of this nation to bend toward the needs of the poor, the working poor, and the barely middle-class.

I think the point is that addressing poverty is a policy decision. The COVID-19 relief bill pushed by President Biden is a great example. It cuts childhood poverty in half. There are tax credits and the other things in that bill that will really help the working poor in this country.

If we can do that in a COVID-19 relief bill, that means we could do more and do it in a deeper way and do it most of the time. If we’re going to cut childhood poverty in half, why stop there? Let’s go for 100 percent.

In all of these things—whether it’s the socioeconomic strata, whether it’s dealing with Mother Earth, whether it’s dealing, as we must, with this country’s original sin of chattel slavery—why not go all the way and shoot for that 100 percent?

Q: You have a history of advocating on behalf of unions as vehicles for achieving social progress. Is that something you want to focus on in Congress?

Turner: Definitely. I’ve been in the trenches with my labor sisters and brothers over the decades. I’m excited and proud to enjoy the support of many labor unions—here in Cleveland, and national unions. That’s important to me, to stand on the side of labor.

I helped lead the fight in 2011 against Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, which sought to eliminate public sector collective bargaining in Ohio. The legislation passed. But, thank God, in Ohio, we have the power of referendum. The people get to have the last say, to reject something that the legislature puts forward.

That campaign against Senate Bill 5 took on national implications. We got out there and fought against that and convinced the voters that the Republican-controlled legislature went too far.

So yes, labor rights are a priority for me. It isn’t just what I’ve done legislatively. I’ve also been in the streets with these labor unions, with postal workers, with the “Fight for 15” that’s being led by the Service Employees International Union all across the country. I’ve been there side by side with these workers, and it is a source of pride for me.

Q: You also have a record of working on racial justice issues, particularly police reform. You’ve seen all the sides of these issues because you have family members who have worked in public safety jobs. Do you think you could bring a unique perspective to Congress on these issues?

Turner: As you know, my son is in law enforcement right this moment. So, absolutely I do see it on all sides. I see it from the side of Black Lives Matter, standing up to say that state-sanctioned violence against Black bodies can no longer be tolerated.

My son is a millennial. I understand the fear [that Black parents have for their children’s safety in interactions with the police]. This happens to Black people over and over again, the whole living in fear of law enforcement [just because] you exist in a Black body. Your lived experience, and the lived experiences of other Black people, tells you instinctively that you’re going to be treated differently—not just by law enforcement but by the entire legal system itself. It’s untenable.

I want people to understand something about the reforms that need to happen in the legal system, I would say from the courts to the streets. It’s not just policing. The challenges we face are bigger than policing. They are a reflection of the larger society. That’s the part that’s going to be the hardest.

Yes, we have to deal with racism and bias and bigotry and over-policing. We’ve got to deal with issues of life and death in the hands of law enforcement officers on the streets. We also have to deal with [enacting] real truth and reconciliation about how what we see manifesting itself in law enforcement is a reflection of a larger white supremacy, with an anti-Black, anti-poor, bigoted system—socially, politically, economically, environmentally.

In other words, this does not start and stop with law enforcement in the United States. It starts with a system that has never had true truth and reconciliation.

Q: You’ve been outspoken about the need for the Democratic Party to be bolder on issues of economic and social and racial justice, saving the planet, and peace. At times, that has put you at odds with Democratic Party leaders.

Turner: People need one party to stand up for them, and I want it to be the party that I’m a member of, the Democratic Party. It reminds me of James Baldwin, when he critiqued this country and said, “I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her.” That’s what I do for the Democratic Party.

I just want the party to be better. I want it to do better. I want it to leverage its power on behalf of people in this country who need us to do that. They need us to do it, and we must do it.

Q: California Democrat Barbara Lee and Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan have been pressing the Biden Administration to reduce the Pentagon budget. As a new member of Congress, how would you come into that debate?

Turner: Hot. I’m coming into that debate hot. Hell, I’m probably coming into most debates hot. But the spending is illogical. It doesn’t make sense. We spend more money [on the military] than the next seven to ten industrialized nations combined! $740 billion. We have to move more of that money to the domestic side.

We have to ask ourselves, what is true safety? What does it mean to be safe in the United States and in the world? That’s the question. What does true safety in the United States and the world look like? It’s both a domestic question and an international question, and on the domestic side that means investing dollars in health care and education and small businesses and infrastructure and the environment. That’s safety.

On the international front, that means helping to lead a discussion on what worldwide safety looks like. It looks like not hoarding the [COVID-19] vaccine, like industrialized nations not hoarding the vaccine at the expense of our poor sisters and brothers in other nations. It looks like helping poorer nations realize their capacity so that people are not displaced and feel the push-pull factors. It means addressing climate chaos as a nation and a world. We can’t go it alone on that.

So we have to reimagine what safety at home and safety abroad looks like, because it’s not about who has the biggest tank at this point. We cannot survive a World War III.

Q: We started out discussing what has been learned from the pandemic about this country’s vulnerabilities. What are some of the ways we can address those vulnerabilities?

Turner: We have to analyze the deep suffering: millions more people now are uninsured or underinsured, for example. It is very clear that health care should not be tied to one’s job. What is the possibility in this moment? The possibility is that we can stand up as a nation and say, “Let’s do Medicare for All.”

Millions more people have been added to the millions who were already uninsured and underinsured before the pandemic. We don’t need another study to identify the problem. Here’s the problem, here’s the solution. Here’s the problem, here’s the promise. The promise is, let’s set up a Medicare for All system right now. Let’s hold pharmaceutical companies accountable and change that right now. Those are the kinds of examples that I’m talking about.

Not only will we free up the American people, businesses benefit from this, the economy benefits from this. People don’t have to suffer. I’ve talked to so many people who’ve lost everything, because most people—unless you are among the ultra-wealthy—are one major health [crisis] away from ruin.

That should not be the reality in a hegemonic nation, and it does not have to be the reality in a hegemonic nation.

On so many issues, there’s a problem and a promise.

The problem of essential workers being on the frontlines, and now, all of a sudden, we see that the grocery store clerk or the pharmacist are frontline workers. The problem is [society never saw them]: the garbage workers, the people who clean the hospitals, the people who clean hotels, you name it.

They’re essential. Now, we all get it. The COVID-19 pandemic helped us to understand that a Wall Street banker ain’t more important than a nurse or than the clerk that’s going to open up the drugstore so you can get your prescription drugs during this pandemic or the sanitation worker that’s picking up your garbage. Got it.

It was that way before, but we got it now. Problem is, no hazard pay. Problem is, a lot of these workers don’t have sick time. Problem is, they can’t just take off from work because they punch a clock. The problem is, they were left out there vulnerable. They couldn’t get the vaccine.

What’s the promise? Hazard pay, increased minimum wage, Medicare for All, unions.

We see the problems, we also see the promise. Problems, promise. We have so many opportunities. We’ve gotta seize ’em.