Two-term Rep. Eric Sorensen, Democrat of Illinois, made his name as a meteorologist in the western part of the state for over two decades, so it’s ironic, really, that he’s kept a relatively low profile in Congress, especially compared to the TV personalities Donald Trump has stocked his second administration with.
Sorensen is no Road Rules warrior (see Sean Duffy, the reality TV star and fellow Midwesterner now leading the Department of Transportation and a fixture on Fox News).
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Sorensen is less interested in promoting himself than he is in the interests of his constituents in Rockford, Moline, and Peoria, small towns in America’s heartland where he grew up learning the values of hard work, kindness, and “loving thy neighbor as thyself.”
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The affable, out congressman took time from his busy schedule to talk about the political division Trump is sowing and to share some commonsense solutions to the problems his constituents and the country are facing. He spoke from his home in Moline.
LGBTQ Nation: You were born and raised in America’s heartland, and your parents met and started their family in Peoria, known since vaudeville days as a barometer for what plays with American audiences. It’s part of your congressional district now. How is President Trump playing in Peoria today?
Rep. Eric Sorensen: Look, I mean, this politics of division is not what Middle America likes and not what they signed up for. This part of Middle America, it’s not that it’s even bipartisan: it’s non-partisan. It’s like, people just hate politics on both sides, and they’re just looking for who is going to do the work to help them. That was one of the reasons why I was elected.
You know, in Western Illinois, a lot of people said, “Oh, there’s no way that the gay climate guy is ever going to win that seat.” And I’m like, I was the weatherman on TV. People knew who I was. They knew my family looked different. They didn’t care. They just wanted somebody that was going to speak truth to them, somebody who has already earned the trust.
And what they’re seeing today is this president is not trustworthy because of what he’s not doing for farmers, what he’s not doing for the working class, and what he’s not doing for veterans.
You were elected in 2022 by a four-point margin and increased it to almost 10 points in 2024, but that still leaves a lot of Republicans among your constituency. What are the values that Trump possesses which appeal to his voters, and what are the values your voters associate with you? And is there any crossover?
Look, the reason why I doubled my margin, even with the headwind of Donald Trump, was because I’ve never been afraid to go to small town Middle America — the towns where the population sign is less than 5000 — and talk with people about what they want to talk about, not what I want to talk about. I’m not going into these small towns saying, “Hey, I got the answers.” It’s listening to people, it’s caring for them, and then it’s doing right by them.
And those are the things that we need to understand how to do in order to not just win elections, but to get rid of MAGA, to get rid of the hate that is really flaring up. You know, we can’t just sit idly by while the hate fuels up in the towns where we don’t live.
The Trump administration unleashed a shock and awe campaign of executive orders starting on January 20. A lot of them were performative and don’t have the force of law without Congress actually enacting laws to make them happen. From your seat in Congress, how united are Republicans behind Trump’s agenda, and what can Democrats in Congress do to block it?
Look, I just sat down and had lunch with a couple of Republican mayors in my district. What’s amazing is they’re talking about the same things that I’m talking about. It’s about lowering the cost of food at the grocery store. It’s about opening up opportunities. It’s about making sure that people are attached to good healthcare. These are unifying things.
But let’s be honest. Whenever Donald Trump and the far-right start bringing up trans issues, let’s understand what that is: it’s a trap, a shiny object, and it is solely put out there to get our attention, to get people riled up, especially in the far-right.
And then what happens is we don’t focus on how they’re whittling away at the foundation of democracy. They bring up these shiny objects basically to get us to look away from what they’re doing. All the while, they’re stealing us blind because they’re stealing away from the poor and the middle class and giving money to millionaires and billionaires.
You were appointed to the House Armed Services Committee for the 119th Congress. Have you interacted with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and what’s your impression of him?
He’s not qualified for the job, but I wasn’t in the Senate to be able to vote “no”. I’m in the House, and being on Armed Services, I’m hopeful that we will see him come to committee.
You know, I want to figure out how war plans went through a group chat. I have heard the stories of trans service members and trans veterans, and also I hear from service members today that say, “I don’t care who’s fighting next to me, as long as they’re capable and ready to defend,” right?
When politics enters into the official work, I keep everything separated. The politics is on one part — I have a giant brick wall — and then the official business is on the other side.
The problem that we have today, and especially with Pete Hegseth and with Donald Trump, is they’re playing politics with everything. It not only is clouded morals and no ethics, but now we’re starting to see where some of the executive orders that are coming through are unlawful. And so we need to push back in the courts, and we need to push back in Congress.
The 2024 election revealed some fissures among Democrats over trans rights. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, for one, is questioning the fairness of allowing trans girls to participate in girls’ sports. What’s been your evolution on this question, and where do you stand on it now?
I haven’t evolved. I am the first LGBTQ person that Illinois has ever sent to Washington. And I’ve heard from people saying, “I’m fine with gay people,” and here’s the reason why, and I think we have to be very clear at communicating this: when my partner Shawn and I go out to dinner, the people in my community see a gay couple sitting down for dinner. We’re present. The thing is, when we go out to dinner with our trans couple friends, okay, they look like straight people. There are trans people all around us all the time. And you know what? People don’t know, and that’s, I think, one of the issues here.
There are trans people in every one of our communities, and most people on the right, they just don’t know it. And so we have to make sure that our diversity is our strength, and that’s what I hear from my constituents. And it may sound like a shock, but in the Midwest and in Western Illinois, you know what? Our diversity is our family value.
You’ve made your history as a TV meteorologist part of your brand. From that perspective, how do you feel about Trump stocking his administration with TV personalities like Dr. Oz at Medicare and Medicaid, Real World cast member Sean Duffy leading the Transportation Department, Dr. Phil accompanying ICE agents on raids in Chicago, and a Fox and Friends host as Secretary of Defense?
Okay, these people just don’t have the requirements if you look at their resumes. Just because you’re on television doesn’t mean that you’re going to be good at that job. Now, having said that, I was on television. However, I was the meteorologist, communicating complex issues in a way that people would understand. I wasn’t just telling them when something was happening, but why, and that’s the reason why I was elected to Congress.
We need more of those people that come with a scientific background, that come with the communication skills to be able to do these jobs, and communicate what works and what doesn’t work, as opposed to this administration, which will appoint anyone who’s just going to be a “yes man.”
Straight out of college at 22, you headed to South Texas for your first job as a TV meteorologist, and you were fired. What happened?
Yeah, actually, my contract wasn’t renewed. I was told that because of the morals clause in my contract, they didn’t want a gay meteorologist on television in Tyler, Texas. And so that forced me to figure out what was my next move. My next move was going from getting paid $42,000 in Texas to moving to Rockford, Illinois, my hometown, and getting paid $30,000.
But I’ll tell you what: my experience of living in East Texas made me a better person, feeling and understanding that adversity. Moving back to my hometown, where now I get to serve in Congress, made me a better person. And so that was one of the things back in the day in 2003 that I couldn’t see the value in, the experience that I was having to go through. But now I do. And that is the key quality that all of us have, that LGBTQ people have, that a lot of other people don’t: we know how to beat it.
You have decades of experience reporting on the climate and describe yourself as a “climate geek”. What’s the single most important thing the world should do to address the climate crisis?
We have to cut CO2. That’s first and foremost in everything that we do, whether that’s in the automotive sector or transportation. For instance, one of the things that I’m working on with our farmers in Western Illinois is creating the pipeline for us — forgive the pun — to be able to produce sustainable aviation fuel. We’re going to grow the aviation fuel that’s going to be put on the airliners and the jets that we fly on. It’s technology that is going to better the next generation. But it also means that the young kids that are growing up in 4H and the Future Farmers of America will have a future on their farm, on their family farm.
Would you support national mandatory service for young people in the military, or some other form of public service of their choosing, like the Peace Corps or Teach for America?
My idea is to connect student loan forgiveness to service. For instance, if somebody wants to go into medicine, they work at the VA. If they want to work in Community Healthcare, you put in five years of concurrent service in our rural healthcare, where we can’t get people to go. Those are the things that I would support to help people.
In 2022, you posted to social, “Thank you to all members of Congress who voted to enshrine my ability to be married to the partner I love,” after President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act. And you’ve been very public about sharing your home with your partner Shawn, along with your two pups, Oliver and Petey. But I couldn’t find the words “married” or “husband” in any of my research for this interview. Have you put a ring on it, and if not, what are you waiting for?
(Laughing) So I will tell you, we joke in our home, “We’ve only been together 17 years.” But it’s one of those things where we will be there when we need to be, if we feel that this administration or anyone is going to come after our rights. And I know we’re not going to be alone. If the adversity is going to come home to us, we’re going to be there standing on the steps of the courthouse, and we know there’s going to be dozens, if not hundreds, of our friends doing the same thing.
What’s the best thing about representing the constituents of Illinois District 17 in Congress?
I tell you what: it’s really being who I am, right? The people that got to know me over the years, they come up to me and they welcome me. They say, “Hey, Eric!” in the parking lot of the grocery store. That’s a far cry from when I was 14 and I was in high school, and I was being bullied for who I was, and I was getting knocked down.
And I’ll tell you what, there is something about being able to serve your hometown in Congress, because guess what? All of those bullies that I had in high school, they have one member of the House of Representatives, and now I get to be that person.
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