Candidate Profile: Andres Jinte For NJ-12 Congressional District

PRINCETON, NJ — Andres Jinte, a candidate in New Jersey's 12th Congressional District, describes himself as a union member, community organizer, management student and aspiring children's librarian.

He serves on the steering committee of the Green Party's Latinx Caucus, according to his introduction. He is also part of the Central Jersey Tenant Union, where he said he led a union drive at the largest apartment complex in his town. He said he and other tenants got code violations addressed.

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Jinte said he helped Bound Brook business owners collect signatures and bring their concerns to the council after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement disrupted their livelihoods. He also said he worked with organizers, nonprofits and religious institutions to build and expand Rapid Response, an effort to support families across Central Jersey.

As living costs rose in his hometown, he said he carpooled with seniors to the food bank and raised money to cover back rent.

Jinte said he wants to take the concerns of Central Jersey residents to Washington and "fight against a corrupt two-party establishment" to improve life for everyday families in the area.

Here is his Q&A with Patch:

Name: Andres Jinete
Party: Green Party
Office sought: U.S. House, New Jersey's 12th Congressional District
Age (as of Election Day): 29
Hometown or town of residence: Bound Brook
Occupation: Library Assistant

1. Why are you running for Congress, and what in your background shows you can do this job?
I am running to organize working families in Central Jersey and build a national movement to fight for rent control, free healthcare, student debt relief, $25 min wage, and to stop war and ICE violence. For the past 10 years, I've worked at different libraries in the district developing programs for seniors and families. As a member of Central Jersey Tenant Union, I lead a union drive in the largest apartment complex of my hometown of Bound Brook. I helped collect rent money and provide rides to the food bank for seniors struggling with the cost of living. We fought code violations together and addressed shared issues. When ICE started profiling our communities, I helped built Rapid Response networks across the state. I brought the concerns of local businesses affected by ICE to Bound Brook Council and helped them collect signatures. Our momentum brought about resolutions prohibiting resource sharing with ICE and investment in the local economy.

As a community organizer, I have experience getting people together to achieve meaningful change. This involves raising awareness of an issue and consolidating public support, making demands of key targets, filling council chambers, escalating to direct action, and finally adopting a new policy by a governing body. I will not compromise with a corrupt and unresponsive establishment in Washington D.C., but rather use the power of the office to build national movements that can drive popular issues like social housing, universal healthcare and student debt forgiveness to the finish line, holding the electoral base and keeping party bosses on the defensive and making concessions.

2. What are the biggest differences between you and the other candidates on the ballot?
I am an everyday working American, not an elite surrounded by money and power. I come from a gentrified food-desert overrun with ICE. My priorities lie with our families and small business, with working people and students. I am the only candidate in the race with a dedicated housing policy that includes rent control for residential and commercial properties, and an advocate a $25 minimum wage, along with other cost-of-living policies.

3. Taxes and electric bills are among the top concerns for New Jersey voters. What can a member of Congress realistically do to lower them?
We believe in shifting the tax burden from middle-class New Jerseyans to the top one percent of income earners that rake in $3 trillion in income annually; just taxing a few percentage points off the top of the top can generate billions of dollars for our local communities that can be spent on infrastructure, education, healthcare, housing, and social programs.

The reason our energy bills are going up is because of a data center building frenzy within an AI-driven economic bubble. We've had data centers for decades as part of the Internet Age, but now we are building hyper-scale super data centers that are driving up the cost of electricity for families across the United States. We need to enact a full-on ban on all new data centers to stop this speculative bubble created by Big Tech and billionaires. This is not progress but profits off the backs of working families and the health of their communities.

4. A large data center is being built in South Brunswick, and residents have raised concerns about air pollution, water use, and electric costs. Should Congress pause, ban, or regulate data centers? What would you do?
The planned data center in South Brunswick puts at risk not only SB residents but all surrounding communities in the Raritan River Valley. Congress has the moral responsibility of banning all new data center developments. Hyperscale data centers pollute waterways and the environment to an unprecedented rate, and take away jobs while leaving people sick. Enough is enough. China's AI investments operate at a fraction of the cost and energy usage. AI must exist within the sustainable limits of the current infrastructure and not drain away a community's health and natural resources.

5. After recent federal changes to Medicaid funding, what is your plan for health care costs?
We need to rebuild the Force The Vote movement from the COVID years that sought to bring Medicare For All to a floor vote in Congress. Free, universal healthcare is an overwhelmingly popular issue in any district, across the political spectrum. We need not fight for small Obamacare concessions. Instead, we can revive a powerful national movement with a fight-back strategy that challenges Democratic and Republican leadership and forces them to respond to their constituents' needs or risk losing their seat. That is how we pass Medicare For All.

6. Many young families say they can't afford to buy or rent in Central Jersey. If elected, what would you do to help people in their 20s and 30s stay in the district, and where do you stand on building more housing?
We are the only campaign in NJ-12 with a dedicated housing policy. We seek to establish national rent control and prohibit rent increases that displace families, and outright ban school-year and winter evictions. In addition, we advocate for the Vienna housing model in which the majority of units in the market are supplied either directly by the government or by non-profits such as Community Land Trusts and operated at cost. We also promote a Housing First approach that seeks to rapidly house homeless families and individuals in order to provide shelter and stability without prerequisites. After all, housing is a human right.

7. Confidence in elections is a national issue, with NJ being in the news for a voter registration blunder. What would you do to instill voters' trust in the results?
The current administration is using the old tactic of instilling fear and creating boogeymen in an attempt to maintain itself in power. They know they left working people behind and funded wars and ICE instead of addressing the basic economic needs of the American people. The threat is not in the results. As the Greens like to say, Republicans steal after the elections and the Democrats steal before the elections, limiting who gets in the ballot. The public needs to focus on their options to break away from both corporate-controlled parties and their billionaire donors. On November 3rd, we are The People's Option.

8. How is your campaign funded, and what would you change about money in politics?
We are funded by real human beings, not corporate donations. We do not have PACs that spend over a million dollars on our behalf like other candidates in this district. We believe in campaign finance reform that includes public funding of elections as a means to combat money in politics.

9. Prices at the grocery store, the gas pump and the utility meter are still a worry for many families. What would you do in Congress to bring them down, and what is your position on tariffs?
Because of corporate consolidation, there are fewer companies today involved in the production, processing, and selling of food and household items. Companies use the advantage of weak competition in a market to overcharge American consumers, whose wages have been kept low for decades due to corporate greed. We need to substantially raise the federal minimum wage from 7 and a quarter to $25 in order to increase the purchasing power of working families, and use the power of the office to pressure government agencies that rubber stamp these mergers and acquisitions. In addition, Congress needs to stop funding our unprovoked war with Iran to open up the Straight of Hormuz and stabilize gas prices. Tariff Wars are not productive and disrupt markets; it is very hard to predict who really will end up winning or losing once they start. I generally oppose Tariffs unless we can determine through a comprehensive analysis that they can safeguard U.S. production and save jobs in a specific sector.

10. What is the one local infrastructure or quality-of-life problem in your district that a member of Congress could help fix, such as transit, flood protection or roads?
We need to increase funding to Housing Authorities across District 12 in order to buy and renovate dilapidated housing in urban centers and offer it to low-income families. We believe in a Housing First program to rapidly house homeless families and individuals and provide shelter and stability without prerequisites. This would eradicate homelessness in Central Jersey (which is now reaching California levels) and decrease crime and poverty.

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