Editor’s note: Rep. Cori Bush lost her primary race on Tuesday August 6 to county prosecutor Wesley Bell. Per NBC News, Bush had 45% of the vote to Bell’s 51% with almost 97% of districts reporting results. Their race was one of the most expensive primary contests in the history of the House of Representatives, with a super PAC run by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other allied pro-Israel groups spending more than $8 million. The New York Times described Bush as “falling to a campaign by powerful pro-Israel political groups intent on ousting a fierce critic of the nation’s war in Gaza.”
Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, there was just one clinic providing abortion care left in the entire state of Missouri. The St. Louis Planned Parenthood was recognizable by a bright blue, two-story banner that said simply: STILL HERE. On the day of the expected SCOTUS news, hundreds gathered for a rally outside that same Planned Parenthood building in a show of support.
When Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO) was a teenager, she visited this location to secure abortion services after a violent sexual assault. Nearly three decades later, she joined her constituents, clinic staff, and reproductive health advocates, in mourning the ruling when it was announced. Missouri’s Republican attorney general became one of the first in the country to enact the state’s trigger law banning abortion. Bush promised to fill the new chasm of reproductive need with whatever resources she could find.
“My daughter, who is 23 now, has less rights to her own body than I had when I was her age,” Bush tells Teen Vogue. “And I have to fight to make sure she has what she needs and every other person that would need those services.”
“Fighting for something is how we lead,” says Bush. “We lead by showing up. If we really believe in an issue, we put ourselves on the line for that issue. St. Louis means that much to me. I don't want St. Louis and the people across this country harmed. That is the difference between being someone who supports something and someone who will fight for it. I'm fighting to actually see change.”
In Bush’s two terms in Congress, she’s become known for her leadership on reproductive justice and abortion rights. The former activist is one of the most visible, consistent, progressive voices on Capitol Hill, pushing for student debt forgiveness and arguing for the protest rights of young pro-Palestine demonstrators. And that visibility has made her a target.
In a closely contested August 6 primary, she’s facing off against Democratic challenger Wesley Bell, currently the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney. Bell’s campaign is formidable, boasting a long list of endorsements, a flood of campaign money, and a wave of campaign ad funding — primarily funneled through a political action committee run by the controversial electoral heavyweight, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC has strongly criticized Bush for expressing support for Palestinian human rights.
“Pro-peace, anti-war, pro-democracy, pro-diplomacy, pro-humanity is a big part of our work because we're fighting for the people of Gaza,” Bush tells Teen Vogue, leaning on a strong humanistic message, and mentioning the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Haiti, Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon as other places of conflict that deserve attention. “We want them to have their freedom. We want them to be safe and whole.”
AIPAC has been heavily criticized by some on the left for its outsized involvement in elections and lobbying, frequently targeting and undermining progressive Democratic candidates around the country. Bell, who was originally running to oust Missouri’s far-right senator Josh Hawley and abandoned that campaign to challenge Bush, has benefited greatly from the organization’s support. As of Wednesday, July 31, AIPAC’s Super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has spent more than $8 million to oust Bush, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
In the final weeks of the race, Bush and Bell are sparring over their pro-abortion bona fides. Bell told KSDK 5 On Your Side that he would “absolutely” commit to protecting reproductive rights, and he has pledged not to prosecute abortion cases after the Dobbs decision. Still, Bush says her track record is stronger as the only candidate endorsed by Abortion Action Missouri, Planned Parenthood, Reproductive Freedom Missouri, and National Nurses United.
“Showing up to vote and saying that you support abortion access [is] great, but fighting for it is a whole other universe,” says Bush. “Saying, ‘I will support it,’ means that if it arises or if the bill comes up, I will be there. What I'm doing is trying to do the work to prevent loss of rights, and where there are rights, work to protect them.”
At a House of Representatives committee hearing in 2021, Bush was one of three congresswomen to share her abortion story publicly. And after the Dobbs decision, she countered with a steady stream of legislation: the Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act in 2022, the Protecting Access to Medication Abortion Act in 2022 and 2023, cosponsoring the Reproductive Health Travel Fund Act in 2023, the Protect Sexual and Reproductive Health Act in 2022 and 2023, the Stop Comstock Act in 2024, and others.
“The people need to see that we're fighting because they want to be a part of something,” says Bush. “How do we win anything without working for it?”
Many of those fights are risky, especially for a congresswoman still early in her political career. Bush says she’s okay with going against the grain and occasionally ruffling feathers. Opposing legislation and risking backlash is worth the risk if it’s in service of the communities she represents. The challenges she has faced in her personal life including poverty, homelessness, and living paycheck to paycheck — alongside finding her political footing protesting with her fellow St. Louisans during the Ferguson Uprising — have given her a different approach to electoral politics. For example, sleeping on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to pressure President Biden and congressional Democrats into extending the eviction moratorium was unconventional, but it worked. The stakes are always present, so for Bush, the fight for resources, rights, visibility, and access is always on.
“I've never forgotten what it felt like to be hungry, those days when I only fed my kids [and] I didn't eat,” Bush explains. “I've never forgotten what it felt like to be evicted from my home and have to put all of our belongings in trash bags because I couldn't afford boxes….That's how I approach legislation. That's how I approach being an elected official, doing the work for everybody in this district, but starting with those who have the greatest need, starting with those that people don't talk about or they don't see.”
And this is where Bush starts in her own district of St. Louis. Yes, the congresswoman has been homeless before, but her office’s decision to focus on housing was really at the direction of her constituents. Bush says housing remains one of the top issues for the voters who call into her office. This is the backdrop to her protest on the Capitol steps, her commitment to increasing affordable housing, her staff’s consistent support of struggling renters in St. Louis County, and her motivation to increase shelters and programs to better support the city’s unhoused.
Bush says her office’s top priorities include making sure working-class people have the basics: clean water, clean air, shelter, and food. Medicare for All and mental health-care services are high on her list, too. As are complementing St. Louis mayor Tishaura Jones’s local initiatives around mitigating police violence and supporting reparations through bills like the People’s Response Act and the Reparations Now resolution, respectively. The impact of gun violence hits close to home for Bush, too. She mentions that her car has been shot with bullets while parked in front of her house.
“I'm still a part of the community,” she says. “I weep with the community.… I don't want the things that I've gone through myself…I don't want that to be so far for me that I forget,” Bush adds. “I want to still remember what that's like because it helps me to fight harder.”
One risky House vote in particular still hangs over Bush’s campaign and has become a common talking point for critics and unconvinced constituents: her vote against the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Why would anyone vote against money for repairing roads, flood-prone drainage, and other infrastructure improvements that St. Louis so desperately needs? But Bush did vote for what would eventually be called the Infrastructure Bill. The first “yes” vote was cast back when the legislation was called the INVEST in American Act and was full of expanded programs, funding, and social spending. By the time the bill moved through the Senate and back to the House, moderate Senate Democrat leaders had peeled away most of what Bush described as the bill’s most progressive, impactful amendments. Some of them were turned into the Build Back Better Act, but others — like universal paid family leave and free community college — were discarded.
The nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, which Bush is part of, opted for a tactical gamble: They announced they would vote against the standalone Infrastructure Bill if it wasn’t linked to the forward-thinking social programs in the Build Back Better Act. “We weren't voting against the bill, we were voting to hold the leverage,” says Bush. “The President asked us to fight for his agenda because that was his legacy. We told him we would. We wanted the full agenda. When SEIU home-care workers said to me at a town hall with secretary of labor Marty Walsh, ‘Don't forget us. Don't forget about us. They just want to push through one bill. We need both bills. Can you please make sure that both bills move together?’ I made them a promise that I would.”
Despite the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s earlier statement, only Bush and five other Democrats voted against the bill. True to their suspicions, the Build Back Better Act was eventually abandoned months later. Despite the recent campaign attacks, Bush stands by her vote. She promised St. Louisans she would refuse half-measures if they have the chance to secure more, so she did. And she says she plans to keep showing her city how loud she’s willing to be, how much she’s willing to risk, and how hard she’s willing to fight to keep the city’s most vulnerable top of mind.
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