Democrat Ryan
Farrar is scheduled to make an official announcement on Friday, Dec. 20,
that he will run for the open 1st District seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives.
The long-time
incumbent, U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-1st, is not running for re-election.
Farrar is a
lifelong resident of the region whose grandfathers both brought their
families to the Gary area after serving in Europe during World War II to
seek work in the burgeoning steel industry. Farrar’s father also worked for
three decades for U.S. Steel, which Farrar credits with ingraining within
him the values, principles, and importance of labor unions.
“We love to talk
about raising the minimum wage, and we should,” Farrar said. “But
strengthening union rights is the true key to middle-class prosperity. For
starters, I intend to fight for a federal ban on ‘right-to-work’ laws, which
are effectively state sanctioned union busting.”
Farrar ran for
State Senate in 2018, in the heavily Republican 6th District, which includes
the southern half of Lake County. “I’m very proud of what we were able to do
in that campaign,” Farrar said. “We met every goal, other than winning. No
Democrat in the history of the district had ever received as high a
percentage of the vote, and most of our nearly 19,000 votes came from Lake
County. Those results encouraged me to think bigger, and when Visclosky
announced his retirement it felt like fate; as it has always been my dream
to replace Pete in Congress when he retires.”
Farrar plan to
campaign largely on one issue: campaign finance reform. “How can our
Congress ever enact meaningful reform to issues like climate change,
healthcare, or legalizing cannabis when our representatives are receiving
large sums of money from fossil fuels, insurance companies, big pharma, and
for-profit prisons?” he said. “Ultimately representatives represent whoever
is funding them; and most receive much more in campaign donations than they
earn in salary for their work in Washington. Who are they really working
for? You do the math.”