Nikema Williams backs ‘Medicare for All’ in bid for Congress

Nikema Williams already had her plate full this election season as chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, which put her at the forefront of uphill efforts to flip the state House, win two U.S. Senate seats and deliver the state’s Electoral College votes to Joe Biden.

Now she has added candidate for Congress, launching a campaign for the 5th District seat after party leaders chose her to replace John Lewis on the ballot after his death last month. Williams told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday that she is prepared to handle it all from her Atlanta home base.

Williams, a state senator, does not plan to campaign in person; she spent three weeks battling COVID-19 in March and said it taught her to take the pandemic seriously. Instead, she hopes to introduce herself to 5th District voters through virtual events, text-a-thons and social media.

“I learned from Mr. Lewis over the years, but I want to be my own person,” she said about following in the civil rights giant’s footsteps.

Williams, who is married and has a son entering kindergarten this year, will face Republican Angela Stanton-King in the general election. The majority of the district’s voters are Democrats, and Williams is the heavy favorite. Still, she says she won’t take the race for granted and plans to campaign hard.

Her platform includes support for “Medicare for All,” and she said she doesn’t just mean “for all who want it.” High-quality health care should not be dependent on who a person works for, she told the AJC, and the loss of a job should not affect someone’s coverage.

Part of that reasoning is informed by a car accident Williams was involved in at the same time as her 2017 campaign for the state Senate. She had resigned from her job and did not have insurance at the time. Williams said she was bruised and bloodied but declined to be transported by ambulance because she was worried she would not be able to afford the final bill.

“That shouldn’t happen in this country,” she said.

Williams also favors rethinking policing in light of national Black Lives Matter protests after the death of George Floyd, among other Black men and women. She said officers too often are asked to respond to situations they aren’t trained for, acting more like social workers.

And Williams expressed support for revising training standards and repealing qualified immunity laws that make it difficult to sue police officers accused of misconduct or abuses while on the job. But she stopped short of endorsing “defunding the police,” saying the phrasing has become polarizing and partisan.

“We need to look at not letting the narrative and the words get in place of what we’re actually trying to do, and that is keeping Black Americans safe,” she said.

Williams timed the official launch of her campaign to Aug. 6, the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act becoming federal law. A new bill that would reinstate voter protections invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court has been renamed after Lewis.

Williams said she expects to win in November, be sworn into Congress on Jan. 3 and forge her own path to leadership in Washington.