Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., on her 'Housing is a Human Right' bill

WASHINGTON | TND — Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., sits down with The National Desk to discuss her new bill that aims to help address the homelessness crisis.

Jayapal represents Washington’s 7th congressional district which covers Seattle, Vashon, Burien, Lake Forest Park, Edmonds and Shoreline.

Nearly three months into the 118th congress, Rep. Jayapal isn’t mincing words when it comes to the ongoing impasse on raising the debt ceiling. It remains at $31 trillion as Congress stares down a possible government shutdown in June.

“This is what the republicans are deciding they want to bargain on? Cutting social security and medicare? It’s untenable and we will fight back. We will raise the debt ceiling in a clean way and hopefully they’ll come to their senses very quickly,” said Jayapal.

Jayapal said the country depends on raising the debt ceiling as does the global economy. She said if we default on our bills it would cause chaos , people would be thrown out of jobs and millions of people would be out of work.

We also asked about the re-introduction of Jayapal’s Housing is a Human Right bill which invests more than $300 billion to fight homelessness nationwide.

She said Seattle is third in the country in terms of homelessness, behind LA and New York. She said investment in more housing and in housing vouchers should be the priority to address that.

“It says let's get people into housing first, but in order to do that and have them stay we also, we need to fund those services that go along with keeping people in housing,” said Jayapal. “It’s really a comprehensive bill. It addresses so much of what we’ve learned from the best models in Seattle. Actually, we’ve led the country in some of these models but we need federal investment.”

Jayapal also introduced a bill this month aimed at reducing corporations' influence over federal agencies' rulemaking process. It’s called the Stop Corporate Capture Act.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize that even after you pass the bill there are lobbyists by the hundreds coming to make sure the regulations get written in a way that benefits them,” said Jayapal. “So, my bill says lets have transparency around that lets stop that revolving door and lets make sure that when regulations are being written they’re being written for the people.”

We also asked about former President Donald Trump facing possible indictment in connection with money paid to an adult film star to allegedly cover up an affair before the 2016 election.

“I think we have to recognize that the law is going to take its course, that people need to be held accountable and I believe that if the DA chooses to indict Donald Trump it will be because there’s an enormous amount of evidence that he should be indicted.”