Patti is joined in studio by Wendell Robinson, executive director of Restore Justice Illinois, who discussed his journey from Chicago's Lawndale community to serving more than 25 years of a juvenile conviction to becoming an advocate for juvenile justice reform. He highlighted the organization's mission to abolish juvenile life-without-parole sentences, which has been achieved in 26 states, including Illinois. Robinson also emphasized the need for retroactive legislation to apply recent reforms to those previously sentenced and stressed the importance of community support and advocacy in achieving systemic change.

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Patti talks to Janie Macomber Grillo of Midwest Forest Bathing.

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Patti is joined by Sarah Garza Resnick, CEO of Personal PAC.

Personal PAC has been active for over 36 years, endorsing candidates who "support safe, legal and accessible with no government interference," Resnick said. In 2023, over 37,000 people traveled to Illinois for essential reproductive health care. Resnick emphasized the importance of equitable access to these rights and highlighted the impact of recent elections, noting that Personal PAC endorsed 49 candidates in the April 1st election, "and we won 43 of those races," she said. 

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Patti is joined by Anita Pinduir, executive director of Way Back Inn, and Dave Wohl, executive director of the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling, who talk about the Are You Really Winning? Illinois gambling helpline (1-800-GAMBLER).

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Patti talks to Warren Hawk Preis and Peter Sarelas (pictured) of Source Solar, a sponsor of "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez."  

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

And find the "Driving It Home (Full Episodes)" podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

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Patti is joined by Josh Weil, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Florida's 6th District, who discussed his campaign's progress and challenges. He highlighted a significant increase in fundraising since Donald Trump's inauguration, with daily contributions not falling below $100,000 since January 20, and a million-dollar weekend following Trump's disastrous Oval Office meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He also talked about the impact of Trump's chaotic policies on voters, particularly where Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is concerned. 

Weil emphasized the importance of the April 1st special election, which is one of three scheduled to take place in 2025 where Democrats can flip a seat from Republican control. "The three special elections this year will determine which party controls the House, and taking back the House is the number one thing we can do to not just block ensuing legislation for Project 2025 but it gives us back chairmanship of the committees," Weil told WCPT.  

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Patti is joined by Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL), who discussed the challenges of the current political climate and the importance of opposing the Trump administration's destructive actions.

"The first barrier of restraint there has been the courts," Quigley told WCPT, "and there have been some real victories. I think the real test is still to come, because we are in a constitutional crisis, but the crux of that will be when the president decides to disregard the courts. So that's going to be the fundamental issue there, but the courts have stood up in that vein, and that's a big deal."

Quigley also pointed to public opposition as a reason for optimism. "People's voices do matter," he said. "When you look at even Republican polling from the end of the year to now, our newly minted oligarch [Elon Musk], who the president seems to have anointed with extraordinary powers, has dropped in polling 50 percent. So it disturbs me that we have somebody in this position doing these horrible things, but I do see people's voices matter, and it's starting to have an effect on how Republicans act and how they're speaking out about potential cuts to Medicaid."

Quigley talked about his effort to counter Republican lies by doing "outreach into typically more conservative media outlets, because you can't leave those fields alone," and his intention to keep doing constituent town halls. "You go everywhere to hear people because, boy, they sure want a voice right now," Quigley said. 

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Patti is joined by Greg Palast, who discussed his investigative work on vote suppression, highlighting how "the Jim Crow operation in our voting system" helped Donald Trump win 3,565,000 votes in the 2024 election. He detailed how Trump front groups like True the Vote challenged hundreds of thousands of voters, primarily people of color, using false claims, emphasized the importance of re-registration drives, and urged voters to stay informed to protect their voting rights. Republicans, Palast told WCPT, are "already stealing 2026 as these tactics get worse."

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

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Former Illinois Congresswoman Marie Newman talks to Patti's guest co-hosts Elliott Serrano and Ken Mejia-Beal about her new memoir, A Life Made From Scratch: Lessons from a Controversial Congresswoman, Mompreneur, and Unstoppable Political Activist, set for a March 18th release.

Newman shared her experiences as a member of Congress and mother, including dealing with her son's severe bullying and her daughter's transition from male to female. 

She also spoke about the realignment of voters, who, she says, "don't give a darn about party anymore. About 50 to 60 percent of . . . the voting population is what we used to call independent, and now I call them context voters, because folks in [the 2024] election voted based on what they saw in front of them and what was their context. So, many people had the context of, 'Hey, I want things to be more simple again, immigration is making me nervous, and the economy is in the toilet right now.' That was at least their reality. Were all those things all necessarily true? No, but that was their reality. So we have to understand how context voters actually think and work, and we have to stop putting everybody in these buckets."

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Patti is joined by state Senator Diane Hesselbein, a Democrat who serves as minority leader of the Wisconsin Senate. 

Hesselbein talked about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which pits liberal-aligned Judge Susan Crawford against the conservative-aligned Brad Schimel, in an officially nonpartisan contest. The election is April 1st and will determine the ideological balance of the state's highest court; liberals have held a 4-3 advantage since 2023. 

Hesselbein criticized Schimel's record as the state's attorney general (an office he occupied between 2015 and 2019), and expressed concern over Elon Musk's financial support of Schimel. Musk, she said, is "just pouring money into Brad Schimel's campaign in the state of Wisconsin, trying to buy it because he wants that Republican on that Supreme Court so they can continue to take us back hundreds of years." 

At the legislative level, Hesselbein is focused on education funding in the current state budget battle. "We're going to need to take the majority in the next election so that we can put money back into public education," she told WCPT. "We're sitting on a $4 billion surplus right now and the reason we're sitting on that surplus in the state of Wisconsin is because we haven't been funding our public schools like we should have been. There were more referendums for people in the state of Wisconsin in 2024, [where voters] agreed to up their taxes because they want to support their neighborhood schools, than we've ever seen before, and it's because the Republicans refused to fund public education in the state of Wisconsin."

Catch "Driving It Home with Patti Vasquez" weekdays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/driving-it-home).

And find the "Driving It Home (Full Episodes)" podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Amazon.

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