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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. No, we are not going to start with a membership drive break, but I just want to thank David Furst and Ilya Marritz for the great job that they've been doing over the last few hours and say we are in the home stretch of this million-dollar challenge. It closes up at noon and we have about $200,000 to go to get the $250,000 from the Kaplan Brothers Fund. If you've been meaning to donate to WNYC, do it now folks, get us there. Last word is the phone number and the web address, wnyc.org, right from the homepage or 888-376-WNYC. 888-376-9692. Thank you so much for considering it.

New Jersey Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman is back with us. You may remember that the last time she was on the show, the Congresswoman had just gotten COVID from hiding out in the Capitol during the January 6th insurrection with Republicans who refused to wear masks. Now she's deciding whether to vote for the new version of the COVID Relief Bill that is back in the House today after getting a little watered down in the Senate over the weekend, and while the COVID Relief Bill isn't getting any Republican support, Bonnie Watson Coleman is an example of how bipartisanship is not dead.

She has a bill to address disparities and mental health coverage that is sorely needed in the shadow of the pandemic and it's being co-sponsored by Republican John Katko of Syracuse. New Jersey's 12th congressional district runs from Princeton and Trenton in the South, up closer to New York City, up to around Fanwood and Scotch Plains, so it's parts of Union, Mercer, Somerset, and Middlesex counties. Congresswoman, great to have you on the show again. Welcome back to WNYC.

Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman: Thank you for having me. It's good to be here.

Brian: First of all, we're just past two months since the country's insurrection, I don't have to tell you, and your infection. I'm sure listeners would like to know how your recovery is going. How are you?

Congresswoman Coleman: I'm very well, thank you. I am waiting for eligibility for my second vaccine which was delayed because I got the infection. In terms of symptoms, I'm pretty much okay. A little fatigued every now and then, but nothing that I want to complain about.

Brian: Did anyone ever apologize to you or have more House Republicans began to wear masks when they're around other human beings?

Congresswoman Coleman: Well, I have not voted in person in Washington since I got the infection and it's my intention to vote there after I get my second shot. I don't know if they're being more considerate of others and wearing their masks.

Brian: The COVID Relief Bill is back in the House today after the Senate over the weekend shrunk the extra unemployment benefit for jobless people from $400 to $300 a week at the behest of West Virginia Democrat, Joe Manchin, and the $15 minimum wage provision was knocked out under the rules by the Senate parliamentarian. From what I've seen, some progressive House Democrats like yourself have said you might not vote for what is supposed to be the final version of this bill. Are you ready to declare one way or another?

Congresswoman Coleman: Well, I'm going to tell you, here's my concern. More than that which you just spoke on happened in this bill. There was also a lower ceiling put on income eligibility in order to get the $1,400 check. Now if you're a family making $160,000 and you've got six kids, you get nothing. I think that that's very unfair. I think that it negatively impacts about 400,000 people in the state of New Jersey, which is a very expensive state in which to live and to put food on the table and shelter.

There are many good things in this bill, and I am telling you up until this day, I have been praying very hard and also trying to overcome my anger, that when we pass $1.9 trillion worth of tax breaks for billionaires and millionaires, we could never think of there being too much for them, but when it came to those in greatest need, those at the lowest income spectrum, those who've lost their jobs, those who had to work two or three jobs in order to keep shelter over their heads and food on the table, we're nickel and diming them. It's never too low, it seems to me, for them, as far as our Republican colleagues have been concerned.

Even that issue has not upset me as much as the fact that we had to negotiate with members of our own party on the Senate side to reduce the impact of some of this [unintelligible 00:05:31] I think that that's a very dangerous precedent. We need to be very careful because people voted for Joe Biden, and people voted for these majorities in both the house and the Senate, hoping that we would do the kinds of major legislation that's going to make life better for them.

Looking forward, we've got things like the Voting Rights Act is going to go through. We sent over H.R.1 already. We're going to do the PRO Act which speaks to the right to unionize. We're sending [unintelligible 00:06:02] over there. We're going to send guns and legislation over there. We're going to need these bills to be passed by the Senate and signed into law by a president who's already expressed his willingness to do so.

When it comes to this COVID bill, I have been praying very hard on this, and Brian, you're the first person that's going to know this, but I decided this morning that there's too much in there on behalf of people who are in greatest need, whether it's communities of color and other poor communities that need greater access to the vaccine and to the testing. The states and the local municipalities need to be compensated for what they've lost during the COVID and what they had to spend during this pandemic, as well as access to healthcare and the unemployment insurance.

I'm not happy that we took $100 a week away, or that the Senate took $100 a week away, but it did extend it at least until September. I haven't really thought this through. I'm going to ask my constituents to understand that it's with a heavy heart that I have lost the fight for their $2,000 checks to everyone up to the original income eligibility, and that we lost the amount going to weekly unemployment insurance, but because there's so much in this bill that is good, I'm going to vote for it.

Brian: I'm glad you announced it here and I'm sure this comes as a great relief to President Biden, to Speaker Pelosi, and probably to a lot of people in your district, because I know there was some question about whether you were going to vote for it, and whether some of your colleagues who had the same concerns that you just articulated would vote for it, and with the bare four-vote margin by which it passed the House the first time, people were hanging on that answer that you just gave. This bill's going to go through if you're speaking for your colleagues as well, or think you probably are, who had the same concerns that you did.

Congresswoman Coleman: Well, I can't speak for my colleagues. Everybody has to come to their own decision, but mine was difficult to come to. I came to mine recognizing the concerns that I had with both process, with both disappointment in members of our own party, as well as a reduction of some of the survival resources that are going to go to our communities. Having said that, there are a lot of very important resources that are going to be made available to families, including the child tax credit, which is going to be very helpful to families.

We never get a perfect bill. We never get everything we want, but the question is, are we getting more that people need right now and what would be the alternative, and the alternative of nothing is not acceptable.

Brian: There you go. Just to clarify that issue that you raised before about the theoretical family making $160,000 a year with six kids who won't get a stimulus check now. What that change was so people understand it, tell me if I'm explaining this right, the change that was made in the Senate. Instead of an $80,000 threshold for who gets a stimulus check before it's phased out to zero, it's now $75,000 per person, per earner. Do I have that right?

Congresswoman Coleman: That's right. For the individual and it would decline up at the point that you reached $199,000 as a couple [inaudible 00:10:08] it's at $150,000.

Brian: Right, so that's what came down.

Congresswoman Coleman: Yes, and the maximum income eligibility which has been lowered.

Brian: Let me ask you about things in this bill that are not explicitly COVID relief, and I want to play two clips. Republicans say this bill is a liberal wish list of items not related to COVID relief per se. Here is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for seven seconds.

Mitch McConnell: All kinds of liberal wishlist items that would do nothing to help American families put COVID behind them.

Brian: Here's White House press secretary Jen Psaki yesterday. How different is this?

Jen Psaki: One of the most consequential and most progressive pieces of legislation in American history.

Brian: Are they both right? Are they saying the same thing in different ways about items in this bill that are not explicitly COVID relief?

Congresswoman Coleman: I think that we need to be talking about the values. When Jen was speaking about it, she was talking about our being bold in helping those families in greatest need, and those individuals, those single parents, those dual parents, those people that work two or three jobs, and still don't make enough to put food on the table and shelter.

I think he is talking about the fact that in his mind, there's never a floor. There's never a floor when it comes to supporting those in greatest need. He knows about combining bills and combining issues to get the things that they needed and wanted and did get for the very, very wealthy in this country, whose income increased increasingly during this pandemic, while those who are working families and those who are families that lost their jobs, who want to work, they are suffering, and we need to get relief to them as soon as possible. I think that what you heard was a contrast in the value statements.

Brian: Do you think this is the beginning of a more structural reckoning with the long-term economic inequality that's been more clearly revealed to more people because of the pandemic? You mentioned the child allowance that's in here, the monthly payment of $250 or $300 per child, for many Americans up to a certain income threshold that's in this bill. That's a structural thing that people have wanted. There is an Obamacare expansion of subsidies, so it covers some more people who make over $50,000 a year. Do you think this is the beginning of a more structural reckoning?

Congresswoman Coleman: Well, I think that those are illustrations of structural reckoning. I believe that we're in a space right now, where people understand the impact of issues that have been systemic in nature, that have had a disproportionate impact on those who are poor, and particularly those who are poor and minority. If we can't talk about those things now, I guess we'll never be able to talk about them.

So yes, I know that the House of Representatives, the House that I so proudly belong to, is willing to have those discussions and is advancing legislation that deals with, addresses, considers, talks about, and hopefully redresses those systemic issues that have been so institutionalized and so problematic to increasing the wealth gap, keeping people in poverty, and keeping people ineligible for access to the kind of health care that should be your right.

Brian: This brings us to your bipartisan mental health reform bill that you introduced with Republican Congressman Katko of Upstate New York, to address what you call growing disparities in mental health care. Can you describe the disparities you're seeing and how your bipartisan bill would address it?

Congresswoman Coleman: Yes. We convened a special task force, an emergency task force in response to information that we were seeing that said that there was a disparity in suicide attempts and successes and self-reporting, as it related to minority youth. Very young. I mean five years old, nine years old. Incredible that they would think that that was a response to a problem or to what was happening in their lives.

We held a number of hearings, we had a working group of experts, we did a lot of research. We found where there are gaps in services, where there are stigmas associated with getting help, where there's a lack of education on the part of administrators and teachers who in some regards are first responders who can see these issues coming up, particularly in young people.

Now we realize that even in this pandemic, the issue has even gotten worse, with teachers not being able to see their students in the classroom but dealing with them in the virtual world, as well as the fact that we see that even adults. This is an issue right now for this country to grapple with and we need to make sure that mental health services are there for everyone.

We need to invest in mental health services for everyone, but we also don't need to take our eye off the fact that people in minority communities have had a disparate impact here, and that these communities for so long have not had access to culturally competent providers, not enough access to providers in general, and have in some instances been socially encouraged or discouraged from acknowledging that they do have mental health issues that need to be addressed.

Brian: Even the Prince Harry and Meghan Markel interview included what you just said, right? Meghan describing suicidal thoughts while pregnant and the royal family discouraging her from seeking treatment or talking about it, presumably because of the stigma. But some of the follow-up stories yesterday were about how her openness about all that might help other struggling people with their mental health to get help. Do you think that's just tabloid talk, or could that be true?

Congresswoman Coleman: I thought that was a very revealing interview, and you could see the pain on her face when she spoke about her challenges. I do believe that if people can see that the duchess, the princess, the actress, this beautiful woman could have these issues then, "Hey, I'm alright too if I have these issues, and I need to get them addressed." The fact that no one came to her rescue is shameful. Hopefully, her and her husband being in the United States of America, find it an easier life for them and the child that they have on the way and the child that they already have.

Brian: You know what? That profound thought is going to be the last word for today with New Jersey Democratic Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, from the 12th District, stretching from Princeton and Trenton in the south, up closer to the city. Thank you as always for coming on with us. We really appreciate it. I'm glad you're feeling better and I'm glad you announced your COVID relief bill vote here.

Congresswoman Coleman: Thank you, Brian, and thank you for having me. Have a good day.

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