Beau Yarbrough profiles Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) at SCNG:
“He’s terrific to work with, very easy-going,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Manhattan Beach, who was part of the same Congressional freshman class that year. “He’s the same guy as he is back home. He doesn’t change when he’s in Congress.” And that includes Aguilar’s willingness to collaborate with others he might disagree with on many issues. “I think a lot of the Republicans that we’ve worked with in the past, we have disagreements on the size and scope of programs, but fundamentally, we know the role that government plays in people’s lives,” Aguilar said, a member of the moderate New Democrat Coalition.
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“I love this job. I love the possibility of this job — even on its worst day — and the possibility to affect people’s lives and to change things,” he said. The public service component of his job still drives Aguilar. “It isn’t just the big pieces of legislation. The work that the team is doing (in his San Bernardino office) answering people’s phone calls, helping thousands of Inland Empire residents resolve what might be small issues — Social Security issues, Medicare issues, things like getting money returned back to them from the IRS — those are big things in people’s lives,” he said. “And so we deal in these big policy things, but it’s always fun when I see the report of the work that (staff) do each week, each month to just take stock of the basic things,” he added. “Because usually, when people reach out to our office, they’ve exhausted every 1-800 number, and they don’t know where to turn.”
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