Chambana Sun

A far-left Downstate Democratic candidate vying for Republican Congressman Rodney Davis’ (R-Taylorville) 13th District seat in November is speaking out about the lack of accountability in government, injustice and immigration policies, among other things.

Stefanie Smith (D-Urbana) hashed it out on various social issues at the recent Champaign County Democratic Primary Forum with Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (D-Springfield), who is also hoping to fill the seat she narrowly missed taking from Davis in 2018. Smith lashed out at the local Democratic Party, citing "censorship from the local county Democrats" and the League of Women Voters, expressing her disappointment that the forum was not live-streamed.

"They stripped everyone’s website links because of my anti-imperialist stance," Smith said in a Facebook post. "We aren’t going to meaningfully oppose tyranny by avoiding accountability. It’s undemocratic. It’s an act of suppression and an abuse of power that undermines trust."

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Taylorville)

Notably, Smith refused to endorse Londrigan should she lose the primary.

“Why would that be your business?" Smith said, according to Capitol Fax. "That’s not an appropriate question to ask somebody who they vote for. That’s private.”

Smith provided a statement on social issues in another Facebook post following the forum.

“This is not a message for those of you fighting for your lives in this broken system,” she wrote. “This is a message for the complicit: You don’t get to abuse us without a reckoning. I’m exercising my ‘No, I do not consent to this violence.'”

One of the issues Smith raised is that of violence and its various forms.

“You are Blue No Matter Who-ing people to literal death sentences at the hands of the state,” she posted. “Negligence IS violence, poverty IS violence, and state-sanctioned rape, torture and murder are still rape, torture and murder.”

When it came to immigration, Smith called out local organizations that profess to be helping those in need of justice but taking measures to harm them.

“Local organizations that claim to be fighting for justice for immigrants choose to spend thousands of dollars investing in a pro-ICE candidate,” she wrote. “Are these people cowards, hypocrites or fellow victims of a corrupt and coercive capitalist system that forces us to abandon the welfare of others for a small shred of false security?”

She went on to say that members of one of “these organizations” carried out an “all-out attack” on the transgender community and likened it to the time before the Holocaust.

“I can no longer afford to give people the benefit of the doubt on these matters," she posted. "This is complicity, in a time when we need bold commitments to justice,” she wrote, adding that the federal government has lost its credibility when it comes to “checks and balances.

“This is an authoritarian regime and we have a moral obligation to overthrow a dictator," she continued. "Stop legitimizing white supremacy in the name of civility and respectability. When you do this, you prove yourself incompetent at governing us. You create and validate oppression. The boldest act of resistance you can offer is simple – step aside.”