Two Illinois Congressmen held a rare bipartisan community meeting Saturday.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, a Republican, discussed health-care policy with the Ministerial Alliance of Springfield. The meeting came less than a week after Davis was among several Republicans targeted by a gunman at a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia.
Davis says that, in a polarized environment, “politics became [the shooter’s] religion.”
“I would like to help lead the charge to ratchet down this vitriolic rhetoric that’s out in the political debate that we see today — which is on both sides — and those things have to change," he said. Durbin added that Americans need to work at finding bipartisan solutions to problems.
The health-care meeting with ministers was closed to the news media, but both lawmakers spoke with reporters afterwards. Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate say they hope to vote on a repeal of Obamacare within the next two weeks.