What’s New

In January, U.S. Representative Bobby Rush announced his retirement, and for the first time in 30 years, the seat for Illinois’s First Congressional District is wide open.

A whopping 17 Democratic candidates (and four Republicans) are vying to represent this south-side/south-suburban district. Among them are an alderperson, a state senator, a son of Reverend Jesse Jackson, and several activists, business leaders, educators, and pastors.

“This is literally unpredictable,” said Pete Giangreco, a Democratic consultant who has campaigned for Rush, Barack Obama, and Representative Mike Quigley. “Anybody with a little bit of [political] base, a little bit of money, and a little bit of shoe leather could win this thing.”

We spoke to political insiders to break down this key race. The election will take place on June 28, 2022, and early voting is now available.

The past

Though its shape has changed over time—it now stretches farther into the suburbs, from Bronzeville on Chicago’s south side all the way to Bourbonnais in Kankakee County— the First Congressional District has been a bastion of Black political power for nearly a century. During the Great Migration, more than 500,000 Black people moved to Chicago to escape the segregated south, but due to discriminatory housing practices, were confined to overcrowded living conditions in certain south-side neighborhoods.

As a result, the majority of the First District’s residents were Black people, and in 1929, they voted for Oscar De Priest, a vocal desegregationist who was the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century. Since De Priest’s historic win, Black men have continued to represent the district. William Dawson, who served from 1943 to 1971, built the city’s first Black political machine through shrewd politicking and his close ties to Mayor Richard J. Daley and President John F. Kennedy. Harold Washington represented the district for one term before becoming Mayor of Chicago and played a key role in extending the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In 1992, 2nd Ward alderperson Bobby Rush successfully challenged the incumbent congressman, Charles Hayes, who was implicated in an ethics scandal days before the primary. A co-founder of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party alongside Fred Hampton, Rush ran for Congress as an insurgent candidate advocating for economic and anti-violence reforms.

In his 30 years in office, Rush, now 75, has advocated for gun control—a resolve strengthened after his own son was murdered in 1999—and introduced historic legislation such as the Emmett Till Antilynching Act that was signed into law in March. In 2012, Rush was kicked out of a session of Congress for wearing a hoodie in protest of Trayvon Martin’s murder.

His civil rights record has earned respect from a constituency that elected him 15 times (U.S. representatives serve two-year terms). But in recent years, he’s garnered criticism from people who feel he’s out of touch with residents and the modern Black liberation movement. He’s also come under fire for his low attendance record in Congress.

Jacky Grimshaw, who ran Harold Washington’s congressional campaign and worked for him until he died in 1987, referred to Rush as a “backbencher” and “do-nothing congressman” who wasn’t responsive to community needs until people started running against him.

In 2000, Rush defeated little-known primary opponent Barack Obama—the first and only time Obama lost a race. “Barack is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it,” Rush told the Reader at the time.

In 2020, three activists challenged him from the left; Rush kept his seat easily, winning 71.5 percent of the vote.

On January 2, Rush announced he was retiring to spend more time with his family and ministry. “I don’t want my grandchildren . . . to know me from a television news clip or something they read in a newspaper,” Rush told the Sun-Times. “I want them to know me on an intimate level, know something about me, and I want to know something about them. I don’t want to be a historical figure to my grandchildren.”

The present

Currently, there are 17 Democratic candidates in the race; four Republicans are also running in the June 28 primary. Since Rush was elected, Republicans running to represent the First District have never received more than 30 percent during the general election.

Why is this race so crowded? “People have been waiting for this opportunity,” said Grimshaw, who has endorsed Jacqueline Collins in the race. “All the folks who had ambitions to go to Congress, they’ve been stymied for 30 years. When he finally gets out, the dam opens and you have a flood of candidates.”

Stephanie Skora referred to the race more irreverently, calling it a “clown car.”

“Every time you think you’re done looking at all the candidates, there’s one more that comes jumping out the door,” said Skora, writer of the progressive voter guide “Girl, I Guess,” which also endorsed Collins.

The race offers a wide-ranging mix of conservative, moderate, progressive, and radical Democrats—some with decades of experience in politics or organizing, and some with major name recognition among Black voters in Chicago. For many candidates, such as Jahmal Cole, who began his campaign a year before Rush announced his retirement, this is their first time running for public office.

For others, it is another attempt: Ameena Matthews is running again after garnering 7.8 percent in 2020, and Alderperson Pat Dowell decided to run one day after Rush’s retirement announcement, dropping her bid for Secretary of State. Karin Norington-Reaves ran for 6th Ward alderperson in 2007, but gained only 14.1 percent of the vote.

Democratic candidates raised a total of $2.74 million as of June 8, according to the watchdog website Open Secrets. At the time, Swain had raised the most with $535,632, followed by Dowell with $531,812, Norington-Reaves with $456,802, Jonathan Jackson with $374,303, and Jacqueline Collins with $159,426. Jahmal Cole has raised $153,622.

Progressives have rallied around multiple candidates in the race, with no clear coalition. A week after announcing his retirement, Rush endorsed Norington-Reaves, former CEO of the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, who was also recently endorsed by the Tribune. Dowell was endorsed by SEIU Locals 1 and 73 and several alderpeople.

Jackson was endorsed by Representative Chuy Garcia, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Amalgamated Transit Union, and, amazingly, Judge Mathis of television fame. Collins was endorsed by state senate colleagues, including Don Harmon, Robert Peters, and State Senator emeritus John J. Cullerton as well as Dr. Cornell West and Father Michael Pfleger of Saint Sabina.

This crowded field calls into question the value of Bobby Rush’s endorsement. In many Chicago-area races, the incumbent has heavily influenced who will succeed their term, but those in the First District seem undeterred by Rush’s anointment of a successor. Delmarie Cobb, who ran Rush’s first campaign in 1992, said, “I don’t know that he has coattails in terms of turning out votes”—Rush’s son, Flynn, lost an open statehouse race in 2018 to Curtis Tarver—“but he may have coattails in terms of helping [Norington-Reaves] raise money and get endorsements.”

Jerry Morrison, who worked on Rush’s campaign against Obama in 2000, and whose employer, SEIU Local 1, has endorsed Dowell, was also skeptical of how much it would sway voters. “An incumbent congressman endorsing someone in a field of unknown candidates is significant, [but] in a field of very well-known candidates, it’s probably not as important,” he said.

“It’s not the Lipinski seat,” political consultant Giangreco quipped, referring to the Third Congressional District, where Bill Lipinski and his son, Dan, presided for more than 25 years before Marie Newman won the seat in 2020.

Instead, Giangreco compared this race to Illinois’s Fifth District. In 2009, Rahm Emanuel vacated his congressional seat to become White House chief of staff, and a special primary was held. Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley did not have the money or endorsements that his rivals had, but low voter turnout, a 12-candidate field, and reform-minded messaging allowed him to clinch the Democratic nomination with only 22 percent of the vote, according to Giangreco, who worked on his campaign.

“I think this is very much the same story, just on the south side,” he continued. “There is going to be a spirited battle and the person who wins may only get 20 or 25 percent of the vote.”

Jonathan Jackson is perhaps the best-known candidate in the race. Jackson is the national spokesperson for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which his father Jesse Jackson Sr. founded, and the owner of a Bronzeville-based construction contracting company. He touts his international advocacy—going on trips with his father—and his connection to Martin Luther King Jr., his godfather. Multiple sources expressed skepticism at his influence, compared to his father and brother, Jesse Jackson Jr., who represented the Second District in Congress for 17 years and resigned in 2012 amid health issues and a probe into campaign fraud.

A progressive organizer on the south side, who asked for anonymity because of their employer, said they think Jackson is an OK candidate, but added, “As a city, I think a lot of people are sick of the Jackson name. . . . Not saying that Jesse Jackson [or his son] didn’t do a lot of good work, but this is Chicago, and we don’t have a monarchy.”

Cobb, who is not in the race, has worked for both Jesse Jackson Sr. and Jr., and says the aphorism “familiarity breeds disrespect” applies when discussing the Jackson legacy. “What I see is that, when people are close to people, and see them every day and take them for granted, there’s not that same level of esteem and respect,” she said. “Whereas from afar, people think about the Jacksons very differently.” She thinks there may be hesitation because of the manner in which Jackson Jr. stepped down, but “if you’re looking for people who are willing to take on the establishment, who are willing to speak truth to power . . . Jonathan would be one of them.”

In such a crowded race, the outcome may come down to influence. “Does the Rush endorsement mean more than the Jackson name? That’s the great unknown here,” said Giangreco.

For the most part, no candidates have gone negative on each other. At one point during a May 23 candidate forum hosted by Indivisible Chicago-South Side and UChicago Democrats, Norington-Reaves lambasted “a certain candidate” for receiving an endorsement from an organization that advocates for defunding police. Called for comment, Norington-Reaves said she was referring to Our Revolution’s endorsement of Jackson. Her campaign also sent out an email that attempted to paint Jackson as supportive of defunding police based on the endorsement.

The sources I spoke to generally agreed the frontrunners in the race were Collins, Dowell, Jackson, Norington-Reaves, and Swain, based on fundraising, endorsements, name recognition, campaign infrastructure, and professional record. A May 17 poll released by Collins’s campaign projected Jackson capturing 19 percent of the vote, Collins with 14 percent, Dowell with 14 percent, Norington-Reaves with 5 percent, and Swain with 3 percent.

But so much is still up in the air—even Collins’s poll told her that 42 percent of voters were undecided.

The future

The Illinois primary election will take place on June 28. Early voting is open now to Illinois residents. Democrats and Republicans who win their primary elections will face off in the general election on November 8, 2022.

Typically the primary election takes place in March, but last year, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a package of election reforms that shifted the 2022 primary forward by two months. Morrison, who has worked on many political races, said the delayed primary date, the proximity to Independence Day weekend, and the fact that this is a midterm election (no U.S. president on the ballot) could lead to low voter turnout. “People in Illinois aren’t accustomed to voting that late in the season.”

Depending on the outcome, the person elected to represent the First District could have a long-term effect on national policy. “These seats don’t come up very often,” Giangreco said. “It’s a safe Democratic seat. . . . Once you win them, you tend to have a long career in them.”

Cobb says people should be doing as much research on these candidates as they would if buying a car. “All these people have a record, whether you were in the private sector or the public sector. If you’re a progressive, where have you been on the big issues? Why didn’t I see you? Those are the questions people need to ask themselves. Don’t let somebody tell you who they are.”

Whoever wins the primary will have large shoes to fill.

“This has always been an activist seat,” Cobb said. “When you look at the types of people—larger-than-life personalities and activists—that have held this seat, there’s a legacy that follows. Those are the kinds of people [First District residents] want representing them—somebody who’s going to fight, somebody who’s going to make sure they have a voice in Congress and bring resources back to the district.”

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Precious Brady-Davis, who works as the Sierra Club’s regional communications director, is campaigning to be one of the nine commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which manages stormwater mitigation and wastewater treatment for Cook County. Brady-Davis, who grew up in public housing in Nebraska and was the first openly transgender contestant on the reality show Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, published a memoir, I Have Always Been Me, in 2021. The Reader interviewed her by phone recently. Brady-Davis fielded questions while caring for her two-year-old daughter Zayn, who she and her transmasculine husband Myles Brady Davis are raising together in their Hyde Park home. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Katie Prout: Could you start by talking a bit about your background?

Brady-Davis: Absolutely. For over 15 years, I’ve worked in nonprofit management. I started working at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, where I was the youth outreach coordinator for several years. After that, I went to work at Columbia College, where I oversaw national diversity recruitment.

After 2016, with the election of Donald John Trump, I felt that I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines of history as we watched Trump take action to remove all of these environmental protections. I knew this was just the beginning, that more environmental rights and environmental regulations would be slashed. And so, I went to work at the Sierra Club, on a campaign called Beyond Coal that works to retire coal plants.

Working at the Center on Halsted, I led a $1.6 million CDC HIV prevention grant. The MWRD is protecting the water for the citizens of Cook County, so it’s still an extension of protecting public health.

What does the MWRD do?

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is the agency that manages stormwater and wastewater. What the MWRD does is they take the water that leaves our home, they clean that water, and then they push it back out into [Lake Michigan]. That’s the essence of what the MWRD does: they protect the source of our drinking water.

They’re also the second-largest landowner in Cook County, so they manage public land. There’s a myriad of uses for that public land. They often lease much of it so that the taxpayers benefit from the revenue of those leases.

The nine commissioners are the folks who run the agency. They run the district, they oversee the budget, they create policy.

Nonprofit management is not new to me. I come to nonprofit management with a great deal of diversity, equity, and inclusion experience. I come to this work with a great gaze of creativity. What would it look like to see installations across Chicago, collaborating with artists to collect rainwater to ease the burden on our sewers? We could fund artists, and we could also educate the public about climate change. What would it look like to have decorative barrels across Chicago that store rain?

When and how did you first learn about the MWRD? What compelled you to try and join it?

I came to know about the MWRD because of Deb Shore. Deb Shore was a commissioner who served at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District for 15 years. She was recently appointed by President Biden to be the Region Five EPA Administrator. She was also the first out lesbian, outside of a judge, who was elected in Cook County. I’ve long followed Deb’s career and have been inspired by her.

When I am elected, I will be the first Black trans woman elected in Chicago history. I’m also an environmentalist. I talk about having this history of diversity, equity, and inclusion: I see environmental justice as another diversity issue.

Why is diverse representation in public bodies important?

Far too often, I think the population being served isn’t actually reflected in the government, and often their needs don’t get met— particularly poor people, particularly people of color, people who are most impacted, you know, from climate change. I believe in inspiring the future, and particularly LGBTQ youth. We deserve to be in every sector of society, not just one. We have the right to sit in positions of power. We are qualified, we are our leaders. And I think [our election] helps change the stigma and the perception that LGBTQ folks, and trans people in particular, have faced.

How does MWRD interact with residents’ daily lives?

So let’s say that Lake Michigan is flooding, and it’s flooding your basement. The MWRD is responsible for that, but nothing that has to do with your water bill, and nothing to do with the water department: that is local and on the city. The flooding is on the county. If you’re having issues with stormwater around your home, the MWRD is responsible for that. You would reach out to one of the nine commissioners who are elected countywide.

How can folks learn more about the MWRD?

The MWRD has two in-person board meetings [a month]. They’re also online: folks can watch them virtually. Those meetings are open to the public, [but] I’d like to increase access to them as a commissioner. Currently, they happen at 10:30 AM. That’s not really accessible for the general public, for working-class people. So I think it’d be great to have more meetings at night.

The MWRD is also on social media. Every day, they do a historical photo of the agency [on Instagram]. There’s lots of cool details. I follow it, it’s very informative.

Is the MWRD an agency that can launch political careers in Cook County?

I think in Cook County, there’s a myriad of offices that you could say that about. I know that in this race in particular, there are folks who are standing behind certain candidates in this race, because they’ve circulated petitions for them. They actually don’t have qualified experience. I find that troubling and disheartening, and I don’t think it serves the residents of Cook County.

I think we need folks who understand the need to protect Lake Michigan and to protect the residents of our city. This is about public health. I mean, we’re seeing people across Cook County having to boil their water, like in Dixmoor. There are actual issues with the water. We need to actually advocate for people of color. When people of color make insurance claims on flooding, they often don’t become resolved. We need actual folks who are committed, solid public servants, and not people who just want to get a jumpstart to their political careers.

How is water quality a public health issue?

[Recreationally,] folks across Cook County want to enjoy the water. Folks want to enjoy the Little Calumet River, folks want to enjoy the Chicago River without getting contaminated.

If contaminants got into our water, it would make the water unsafe to drink. We absolutely saw, catastrophically, what happens when we don’t have solid leadership in positions of folks who care for our water. We saw what happened in Flint. The same thing could happen if we didn’t have solid leadership at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, and didn’t continue to have that leadership.

What are your top, hit-the- ground-running initiatives you’d be championing at the MWRD?

First, I want to prioritize environmental justice projects that advance community resilience. How can we support local communities? That would be one idea, creating a rain barrel project in a place like Englewood. Second, how do we increase and advance green infra- structure across Chicago? Third, engaging the stakeholders and increasing diversity in terms of people who are engaged in the work.

So [my priorities are] advancing community projects and community resilience, centering environmental justice, increasing green infrastructure, and then advancing community outreach, in particular to young people in marginalized communities. I think the MWRD can do violence prevention. They can engage young people in programs about the water reclamation district, and serve as an incubator to the trades, educating folks through community programs and community conversations.

How could MWRD work on violence prevention?

What would it be like to take marginalized young people from the south and west sides on a tour of one of the plants? What would it look like to have environmental programming for young people specifically? There’s a myriad of green spaces around Chicago, you know. We’d love to immerse young people in nature, in and outside of their communities across our great cities. I think that there’s more work that we can do, that I would champion as a commissioner. I would champion creating a task force to engage on environmental issues, and violence prevention should be one of those tenants.

The commissioners, the mayor, and the City Council should come together. Nothing in this conversation [about violence prevention] has come up about green space. There’s this current conversation in Chicago about where young people should be, and around public safety. And I think that nature should be in that equation.

Nature is a place where so many people find refuge, where they find relaxation, where they can experience centering. There’s more room for that, like community gardens where young people can help plant green infrastructure in their communities. If we want to actually create impact in communities, and we want to broaden the awareness of what the Metropolitan Water Reclamation does, then we need to do innovative things that actually tangibly affect people’s lives. That’s work that I’m interested in doing.

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Kina Collins grew up on the west side in Austin, and began organizing around gun violence while she was a student at Rufus M. Hitch Elementary and Von Steuben High School. In 2015, she began organizing with the protest movement that coalesced around the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by then-Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. Collins also worked with the Center for American Progress and Physicians for a National Health Program. In 2020, she challenged U.S. representative Danny K. Davis, who has represented the Illinois Seventh District since 1997, and garnered 14 percent of the vote in a four-way race that Davis won handily. Collins is running again, with gun violence prevention, health-care access, and criminal justice reform central to her campaign. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jim Daley: What have you been working on since the 2020 race?

Kina Collins: I became the executive director for one of the largest gun-violence prevention nonprofits in the state. It was formerly known as the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, and is now One Aim Illinois. It has a statewide grassroots coalition, and we were pushing for things like removing firearms from the homes of domestic abusers and the gun dealer certification and licensing program here in Illinois. Because of that work, I was tapped by the Biden-Harris administration to serve as a stakeholder for the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.

The pandemic exposed a lot of the issues that progressives have been fighting for around wage equity, access to health care, and listening to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. So a lot of my time since the last primary has been doing mutual aid across the district, checking in with folks to see if there’s any way we can plug them into resources.

Why do you think we’re in a new moment for gun-violence survivors and advocates from Chicago to be elected to Congress?

Nationally, Chicago has consistently been used as a political punching bag around this issue, but we’re not talking about the root causes. We deal with everyday gun violence here in the city of Chicago. And the root cause of everyday gun violence is poverty. Until we begin to address structural violence, which includes public school shutdowns, lead in our piping, abandoned buildings, vacant lots, food deserts, and a lack of jobs in these areas, we can’t strike at the heart of the root cause of what we’re experiencing here in Chicago.

I think that it’s time for Chicago’s congressional delegation to push back on conservative talking points that say Chicago is just an epicenter of violence. We don’t have a single gun store or a shooting range in the city. Chicago is not spreading gun violence across the country. However, red states are spreading gun violence to the city of Chicago. Sixty percent of the guns recovered in crimes in Chicago can be linked back to other states, primarily Indiana, Wisconsin, and Mississippi. The other 40 percent of guns can be linked back to gun shops in the suburbs of Illinois.

My stance is very clear: I support the Second Amendment and the right to legally obtain and own guns. However, my job as a gun-violence prevention advocate is to keep guns out of the hands of people who can harm themselves and harm the public. One of the ways that we’ve been able to do that is through red flag laws, and there’s overwhelming public support for universal background checks. So the messaging is the same.

Why are gun violence, access to health care, and criminal justice reform all part of your platform?

We don’t live single-issue lives—a lot of this stuff is interconnected. I think that our district serves as a microcosm of the United States. We have the Gold Coast and we have the west side of Chicago; we have the western suburbs and the south side. When we look at the disparate impacts and outcomes that happen across the district, we have the wealthiest of the wealthy and some of the most working-class communities in our district. All of them are interconnected.

In Chicago, practically all of our mental health services have been eviscerated. When mass shootings happen and the talking point is that the shooter had a mental health issue, I take umbrage with that, because people who suffer from mental illness are stigmatized around the issue of violence, when actually those who suffer from mental illness experience more violence than they commit. And if that is the case, and that’s your talking point, why do we not have universal health care as a preventative measure for that?

The more brushes with the law that you have, the more likely you are to become a homicide victim. In a district where we see places like Austin, and $100 million being spent by our government to incarcerate adults for mostly nonviolent offenses, we know that poverty is a policy choice that’s being made. That $100 million should be invested in true prevention, and that prevention looks like housing, education, and a fortified and strong local economy.

What are some issues that resonate with a wealthy white Gold Coast voter as much as a young Black man in Austin?

From Westchester all the way to West Englewood, everybody is concerned about public safety and crime. They’re concerned about gun violence. And they’re concerned about very urgent crises, like climate change, a livable wage, and student loan debt.

But people want to know, can we elect a representative who is not going to take corporate PAC money from companies like BP, Exxon Mobil, and Amazon, which are not geared towards the upliftment and the betterment of our district? And the answer is yes. We’ve been able to out-fundraise the incumbent without taking a dime of corporate PAC money. And that makes it easy for me to walk into Congress with a clear moral authority to hold major corporations to account.

How is this race different from 2020?

The pandemic changed a lot of things. Last time, I put a very strong focus on Medicare for All and health care, and it just so happened that our primary was the week before the entire globe basically shut down. And after that happened, I heard from constituents from all across the district who said, “Kina, you were talking about this, you were talking about full access to health care,” and how these issues play a role. So I think that the pandemic really validated me and a lot of voters’ eyes.

Also, we’ve been able to consolidate the progressive space here in the district and on the national level. And I think that we really make the case not just to progressives, but to everyday people across this district that failed status-quo leadership and the same things that we’ve been doing are not going to cut it. We have two options: we can vote for the district as it currently stands, or we can fight for the district that we should have. And I think we’re gonna prevail on June 28.

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The heated race for Cook County Assessor is a case study on Chicago-style politics. Fritz Kaegi, the reform-minded incumbent who was left with a mess to clean up by his predecessor, is facing a challenge by Kari Steele, a politically connected commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which manages wastewater treatment and floodwater mitigation. (Steele’s campaign did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.)

The assessor’s job is not one most people dream of, unless you get a kick out of determining the value of close to two million parcels of land in Cook County. Add to that all the repairs needed to fix a broken system left behind by Joe Berrios who hired his relatives to work for the board, accepted excessive donations from property-tax appeals lawyers, and disproportionately taxed homeowners in poor communities over rich and politically connected developers.

That’s the system Kaegi says he inherited back in 2018 after Berrios’s ouster. He sat down with the Reader to talk about what changes he’s made since and to explain why Cook County voters should give him another chance.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Kelly Garcia: What does the Cook County assessor do?

Fritz Kaegi: It provides the way that we’ve split up the bill for the cost of government around here. In Chicago, there’s about somewhere between $7.25 and $7.5 billion of property taxes that have to be collected every year.

We figure out how we split that bill amongst all the people who own property in Cook County. So it’s really an office that’s about equity. How we split that bill is driven by our estimates of the market value of each person’s property. And the key is that the biggest building owners are like the person at a dinner who ordered a 40-ounce steak and a lot of sides, and we compare them with the person who just ordered an appetizer or a side salad. How are you splitting up the bill amongst them?

The key to evaluating how an assessor is doing is making sure that you’re estimating the market value of all of those properties fairly and accurately, without bias or favoritism, so that you’re not moving the burden from one group to another. That’s the most important thing that this office does.

Residents from Pilsen and Little Village often tell me they’re facing a burden of higher property taxes, which is pricing them out of the community. How are you addressing this?

I think the greatest inequity in the system is that under my predecessor and for years before that, big buildings were undervalued, so that people who lived in Pilsen and Little Village were picking up the tab for them.

The gold standard in our industry looked at commercial transactions that happened in 2018, [which was] the year before we came into office. It found countywide that commercial properties were 40 percent undervalued, and in Chicago, it was 50 percent, and that undervaluation got bigger the bigger the building got. So basically, small commercial properties in places like Pilsen and Little Village tended to be valued more closely to the mark, and the biggest properties were hugely undervalued. So those little commercial properties were picking up the tab for the big buildings downtown, just like homeowners were in Pilsen and Little Village.

Now, I think there’s another part that I have less control over that people might want to blame me for, which is when gentrification drives up the values of properties. And eventually the assessment system catches up if we’re doing our job, because you don’t want to systematically undervalue some properties because then you’d be passing on the tab to others, to people who live in neighborhoods where prices have not been going up.

But we’re not an engine of gentrification, we just catch up to the gentrification that’s already happened. What we can do to mitigate that is make sure everyone gets their [property tax] exemption. We’ve really made a big push for seniors who are over 65 whose income is under $65,000 a year. They can get the senior freeze, which basically locks your assessment in place.

The omnibus affordable-housing bill is going into place this year, and it’s going to be incentivizing the renovation and construction of affordable housing that’s tied to people’s incomes, rather than market rents. Because gentrification really puts a lot of pressure on renters.

What have you accomplished in your first term?

Last year was the first time in close to a decade that the average homeowner in Chicago saw their property tax bill fall. Last year it was a 1 percent reduction in homeowners’ share of the burden, and now we’re talking about 9 percent with this reassessment. [Editor’s note: one-third of properties in Cook County have their taxes reassessed each year; in 2021, properties in Chicago were that third.]

We’re also proud of the fact that county-wide, homeowners’ property taxes were up just 1 percent each of the last two years, which really throttled back much greater growth than had been seen over the previous two decades.

In the first year our assessments were sent out, the gold standard in our field found they were within industry standards for accuracy and equity for the first time ever in the history of our office.

We also replaced the 40-year-old computer program that was the backbone to our system. In 2020, we put in place an online appeals system and online exemptions system. In 2021, we replaced the backbone of the system; that has allowed other gains such as automatic renewal of the exemption for seniors.

We are winning awards for this stuff. This office did not win awards before. We won awards from the International Association of Assessing Officers for our public outreach during the pandemic. We won awards from the National Association of Counties for the digital tools that we created.

For the longest time, this office was a source of mistrust and inequality and corruption, because it was used as a platform for favoritism, for nepotism, and for punishments for political enemies. On day one, I put in place an ethics order that forbids conflict of interest and requires extensive disclosures by our employees. It makes me the first assessor in the history of this office not to take donations from property tax appeals lawyers and appraisers who practice before us.

Why are you running for reelection?

The work that we’re doing is going to be keeping more resources in the neighborhoods with average people, and we can continue to make progress on that. Keeping money in the neighborhoods where it never should have been leaving is so important to not only the health of our neighborhoods, but also for people’s livelihoods and for their incomes.

That’s why it’s meaningful, and we cannot go back to the way it was. This [2021] reassessment in Chicago is on track to be keeping more than $600 million a year in our neighborhoods. But that could all be reversed if you bring back favoritism to this office. The enemies of the reforms that I’ve been putting into place are backing my opponent—the club of big-building owners, the tax lawyers, people who worked for Joe Berrios, those folks, they want this office broken again, and we cannot go back to that. There’s too much at stake.

The work that we’ve done has only been made possible by the public mandate. They were the ones who made it possible. That mandate that brought me into this office, and I’ve been carrying forward that message. And that is how we’re bringing about change: we go to every room, we talk to everybody, even the people who might not have been with us to carry this forward, and we’re winning people over. And with the public’s backing, we’ll be able to do that again for four more years.

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Between Drake’s sleepy Honestly, Nevermind and Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul,” a lot of people have something to say about house music lately. (And while I can’t say I have thoroughly read every discourse posting, I’ve seen almost no instances of anyone mentioning the fact that several music sites reported rumors of Beyoncé working with house veteran and Chicago native Honey Dijon earlier this year.) Since house music was born in Chicago, and since the Reader has had plenty to say about this homegrown cultural legacy over the years, we’ve rounded up some of our house coverage for you here. Whether you want to wade into the discourse, or want to get a better grasp of a definitive Chicago sound, we hope this gives you a little more insight:

This is just a small sample of the house stories you can find in the Reader archives. For a shortcut to more pieces, you can begin by scrolling through the “house music” tag.

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If it’s the first Friday of the month, you’re going to see a line snaking out of Berlin that extends past the entrance to the Belmont CTA station and sometimes around the block. It’s populated by people in leather miniskirts and mesh crop tops, disco bambis and alien centaurs, club mystics with lashes so long you can bounce fantasies off them, and other creatures of the night. They’re on a pilgrimage to experience Strapped, the gender-inclusive dyke night founded by drag queens Siichele and Irregular Girl, a performance artist who will grace the Steppenwolf stage later this summer. 

“I really believe in the power of nightlife as a place where people who are marginalized—who aren’t of the status quo—are able to meet and celebrate one another and live out fantasies turned realities,” she explains.

That Shit’s Trans: Live!
Wed 7/20, 8 PM, Steppenwolf 1700 Theater, 1700 N. Halsted, 312-335-1650, steppenwolf.org, $15

Irregular Girl is the Live Laugh Latina of clubland, and her body of work highlights her range of irregularities as assets while refusing to hide how remarkably ordinary she is. When she’s not onstage welcoming the city’s hungriest children like a hot witch in a gingerbread house, she enjoys spending time with her husband and parents. She tans at the beach and bops to Britney Spears, plays video games and watches Real Housewives. Wait, I thought we were describing an irregular girl. What’s so irregular about this one? And once we know, how do we let that information shape our behavior?

Since cis womanhood is the cultural default of womanhood, one of the things that makes Irregular Girl “irregular” is being trans; thus, much of her persona is built on embracing what makes transness and especially trans womanhood unique and beautiful. Her drag is one example of this, but another is her talk show, That Shit’s Trans!, where she connects with local trans artists to discuss their work as well as popular media that’s shaped their trans experience—for instance, Sailor Moon finding a compact that completely transforms her. After filming a pilot episode for OTV last year, she performed a live version at the Logan Theatre in November. Now she’ll be joined by dancer and choreographer Darling Shear for a live show at Steppenwolf on July 20 (part of the theater’s ongoing LookOut series).

By touching on “regular” media, she allows audiences into her and her friends’ worlds without letting onlookers decide the terms of discussion. But why should that bother anyone? Would you interrupt the coolest girl in the room after she’s invited you to eavesdrop on conversations with some of Chicago’s most groundbreaking artists? (And if so, uh, do you have something against cool people? Wait, are you saying Irregular Girl is TOO exceptional for your tastes—that she’s not, dare I say, regular enough? It’s in the name, people: She is IRREGULAR!!)

Irregular Girl—or Regina Rodriguez, as she’s known when the makeup comes off—moved with her family from Peru to Chicago when she was seven. Raised mostly in Edgewater, she attended an arts high school where she concentrated on sculpture, then continued her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she focused mainly on fibers and performance art. As her arts education evolved, so did the questions she was asking herself about her gender, what it was, and how she was manifesting it in both her work and her everyday life. If gender is a performance, how do we define sincerity? What separates art and artifice? In what ways can and do these ideas live in harmony? What’s fun about the discord?

Meanwhile, she was drawing inspiration from people such as Ana Mendieta, Tania Bruguera, Carolee Schneemann, and Billie Zangewa. She was exhibiting and performing in places like the Art Institute of Chicago, MCA, and Queens Museum in New York as well as a slate of local galleries, including Mana Contemporary and Zhou B. She’s had an assortment of fellowships and artist residencies, including as a project curator for the A.I.R. Gallery in New York. It was there, in 2016, that she started doing drag.

“I’d just turned 21 and had just started going out,” she says, laughing, “and I noticed the drag queens always getting free drinks. I was like, ‘OK, I want free drinks.’ That’s literally why I started doing drag. Just broke in New York. But I was able to express my gender more outwardly there because I wasn’t around my parents or anybody I knew. I was able to experiment and experience my gender by myself and for the first time figure out what I liked just for me.”

Her initial drag persona was Mason Jar. But when she decided she wanted to undergo medical transition in 2018, she adopted the name Irregular Girl.

“As Irregular Girl, I don’t perform positivity as much as hope,” she says. “It’s really, really heavy to live as a person of color. And with all of this anti-trans legislation, it’s really, really difficult to wake up every day and feel the reality of living in a country that doesn’t value you, see you, respect you for what you know is your truth. It’s heavy and hard, but I’m trying my best to share the parts of myself that I hid for so long in hopes that other people will want to share that of themselves, too. . . . It’s heavy and a lot of work, but it’s what keeps that hope alive inside of me to continue to free myself and other people’s minds of what they think they know. And to give people an example—or even just a friend. Just being a friend to others is really important to me.”

To experience Irregular Girl is to revel in someone exceptional who’s exceptionally down to earth: the perfect micro-celebrity for the diffuse communities who emerge at night. 

A fan named pb tells me on Twitter: “One of the most compelling things about Irregular Girl is the way she talks about the divine light that trans people possess—how we are conduits of change. She truly embodies it, and it makes her merch feel like a rallying cry or a badge of solidarity that we are able to transform anything about ourselves and the world around us until we reach the utopia shining out over the horizon.”

Local rising techno DJ Miss Twink USA, who was one of the guests on the pilot episode of That Shit’s Trans!, describes working with Irregular Girl: “Years ago, I met Regina back in the clubs. She was doing these insane club-kid looks, and the impression she left on me was purely impeccable. Fast-forward to 2022, Regina is a household name, and her magic and craft are growing stronger and stronger. I went to Strapped in April where she pulled out a sword while performing to a new Florence & the Machine track. It made me feel possessed! Struck and transfixed by her every move and glorious storytelling. The way she invites us into the world she sees for herself is fascinating, and it makes me want to be a better artist each day. Irregular Girl is one of the most talented and powerful artists here in Chicago.”

Drag performer Sangria Whine writes: “Irregular Girl’s show Mom Jeans was my first ever show in Chicago, so to say she’s important to me is an understatement. She’s not only a talented performer but such a humble and caring individual. She always makes me feel welcomed and like I have a space in the scene. I look up to her so much, and I truly hope one day I can be at her caliber of talent.”

“At art school, I learned a lot about image-making and holding attention,” Irregular Girl says. “The performance art that I was doing at SAIC was very, very image based. There’s such an immediacy to performance art, like your body is right there, almost like there’s no metaphor. I mean, it’s all a metaphor, but you have the physicality of yourself, right there. I think that’s where my energy comes from in my performances now, because, as a trans person, I’ve had to learn to grow love and rejoice my in truth. I really value the freedom that my life gives me and the freedom that I feel when I’m onstage. I have to be 100 percent there and take my audience with me.”

Irregular Girl as Joan of Arc. Dylan Bragassa

But she doesn’t hide the ways she’s vulnerable on her path. Last summer, she was one of five Chicago trans women who shared stories with Them.about experiences sporting bulges at the beach. Recently, she appeared in Cook County Research’s PSA for a campaign called PrEPárate: PrEP for You & Me. Latinx nightlife luminaries like herself and Bimbocita share how PrEP, an HIV prevention medication, creates more opportunity for safety and comfort while enjoying nightlife. Any of these stories sound like you? Try PrEP! In 2014, a study by Kaiser Family Foundation found that gay and bisexual men accounted for 2 percent of the population but 66 percent of new HIV transmissions. Latinx people of all genders are four times as likely to get HIV as white people. On paper, it feels like numbers, but the weight of the myriad ways HIV complicates life as a queer trans Latinx person is very real—and it’s especially palpable in the community right now.

On June 7, Berlin celebrated the life of Simon Sin Miedo, a trans Latinx staple of industrial goth nightlife and BDSM scenes in both Chicago and Minneapolis. Earlier this year, they’d been diagnosed with HIV and spent months raising money on GoFundMe to cover relocation and treatment costs to manage it. When Sin Miedo passed, they were publicly drowning in needs created by a lack of social safety nets exacerbated by their HIV diagnosis, a disease whose systemic denial has caused gay genocide. Why do we tolerate a system that encourages these outcomes, especially for some people and not others? Why is that so normal? Maybe it’s a badge of honor to be irregular in a world that normalizes such cruelty.

“The goal of my drag and creativity is to uplift and inspire others to claim their own narrative,” says Irregular Girl. “The world around us is really unaccepting and hateful of trans people and people of color, and my focus is to give hope. There’s so much uncertainty about the future, and we’re living through some really fucked-up times. That is what we need right now: to recognize each other’s truths and have each other’s backs.”

But her level of visibility doesn’t come without its challenges—for instance, living up to people’s ideals of her while enduring the everyday state violence and interpersonal cruelties that come with being trans. Irregular Girl feels grounded most by her strong relationship with her family and especially her husband Oliver, who she’s been with for four years. People in the community call him “world-famous wife guy” for his widely known and wildly flawless commitment to the bit of a man completely enamored with his partner—a partner who shares many qualities with this particular man’s favorite diva, Mariah Carey. If you were married to your teen fantasy, how would you show up for her? That’s the trans narrative Oliver manifests daily.

“As someone who’s a quote-unquote public figure,” says Irregular Girl, “there’s a huge amount of stress and pressure that comes from other people. None of it is ill-intentioned, but a lot of us suffer from these neuroses where we have to be perfect and always on. My husband and family all remind me that I’m just a person, like anybody else who’s just trying their best and sharing their art. 

“Oliver has been nothing but supportive of my career. My relationship with him helped me discover more of myself. I started taking hormones around the time that I met Oliver because it was something that I was really struggling with. Oliver never pushed me or urged me. He just said, ‘If it’s something that you’re thinking about, try it.’ And that’s what he’s always reminding me: I’m really just another girl out here trying it. That’s all any of us can do.”

It’s a common story amongst trans people: if you’re curious, just try it. Try being a sculptor, a performance artist, a diva—or all three! Want to know what kinds of doors open on hormone replacement therapy or other aspects of medical transition? Try it. There’s a lot of freedom to being irregular.

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Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky riffs on the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty, and interviews politicians, activists, journalists and other political know-it-alls. Presented by the Chicago Reader, the show is available by 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays at chicagoreader.com/joravsky—or wherever you get your podcasts. Don’t miss Oh, What a Week!–the Friday feature in which Ben & producer Dennis (aka, Dr. D.) review the week’s top stories. Also, bonus interviews drop on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. 

Chicago Reader podcasts are recorded on Shure microphones. Learn more at Shure.com.

Chicago Reader senior writer Ben Joravsky discusses the day’s stories with his celebrated humor, insight, and honesty on The Ben Joravsky Show.

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Precious Brady-Davis, who works as the Sierra Club’s regional communications director, is campaigning to be one of the nine commissioners of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, which manages stormwater mitigation and wastewater treatment for Cook County. Brady-Davis, who grew up in public housing in Nebraska and was the first openly transgender contestant on the reality show Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta, published a memoir, I Have Always Been Me, in 2021. The Reader interviewed her by phone recently. Brady-Davis fielded questions while caring for her two-year-old daughter Zayn, who she and her transmasculine husband Myles Brady Davis are raising together in their Hyde Park home. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Katie Prout: Could you start by talking a bit about your background?

Brady-Davis: Absolutely. For over 15 years, I’ve worked in nonprofit management. I started working at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, where I was the youth outreach coordinator for several years. After that, I went to work at Columbia College, where I oversaw national diversity recruitment.

After 2016, with the election of Donald John Trump, I felt that I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines of history as we watched Trump take action to remove all of these environmental protections. I knew this was just the beginning, that more environmental rights and environmental regulations would be slashed. And so, I went to work at the Sierra Club, on a campaign called Beyond Coal that works to retire coal plants.

Working at the Center on Halsted, I led a $1.6 million CDC HIV prevention grant. The MWRD is protecting the water for the citizens of Cook County, so it’s still an extension of protecting public health.

What does the MWRD do?

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is the agency that manages stormwater and wastewater. What the MWRD does is they take the water that leaves our home, they clean that water, and then they push it back out into [Lake Michigan]. That’s the essence of what the MWRD does: they protect the source of our drinking water.

They’re also the second-largest landowner in Cook County, so they manage public land. There’s a myriad of uses for that public land. They often lease much of it so that the taxpayers benefit from the revenue of those leases.

The nine commissioners are the folks who run the agency. They run the district, they oversee the budget, they create policy.

Nonprofit management is not new to me. I come to nonprofit management with a great deal of diversity, equity, and inclusion experience. I come to this work with a great gaze of creativity. What would it look like to see installations across Chicago, collaborating with artists to collect rainwater to ease the burden on our sewers? We could fund artists, and we could also educate the public about climate change. What would it look like to have decorative barrels across Chicago that store rain?

When and how did you first learn about the MWRD? What compelled you to try and join it?

I came to know about the MWRD because of Deb Shore. Deb Shore was a commissioner who served at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District for 15 years. She was recently appointed by President Biden to be the Region Five EPA Administrator. She was also the first out lesbian, outside of a judge, who was elected in Cook County. I’ve long followed Deb’s career and have been inspired by her.

When I am elected, I will be the first Black trans woman elected in Chicago history. I’m also an environmentalist. I talk about having this history of diversity, equity, and inclusion: I see environmental justice as another diversity issue.

Why is diverse representation in public bodies important?

Far too often, I think the population being served isn’t actually reflected in the government, and often their needs don’t get met— particularly poor people, particularly people of color, people who are most impacted, you know, from climate change. I believe in inspiring the future, and particularly LGBTQ youth. We deserve to be in every sector of society, not just one. We have the right to sit in positions of power. We are qualified, we are our leaders. And I think [our election] helps change the stigma and the perception that LGBTQ folks, and trans people in particular, have faced.

How does MWRD interact with residents’ daily lives?

So let’s say that Lake Michigan is flooding, and it’s flooding your basement. The MWRD is responsible for that, but nothing that has to do with your water bill, and nothing to do with the water department: that is local and on the city. The flooding is on the county. If you’re having issues with stormwater around your home, the MWRD is responsible for that. You would reach out to one of the nine commissioners who are elected countywide.

How can folks learn more about the MWRD?

The MWRD has two in-person board meetings [a month]. They’re also online: folks can watch them virtually. Those meetings are open to the public, [but] I’d like to increase access to them as a commissioner. Currently, they happen at 10:30 AM. That’s not really accessible for the general public, for working-class people. So I think it’d be great to have more meetings at night.

The MWRD is also on social media. Every day, they do a historical photo of the agency [on Instagram]. There’s lots of cool details. I follow it, it’s very informative.

Is the MWRD an agency that can launch political careers in Cook County?

I think in Cook County, there’s a myriad of offices that you could say that about. I know that in this race in particular, there are folks who are standing behind certain candidates in this race, because they’ve circulated petitions for them. They actually don’t have qualified experience. I find that troubling and disheartening, and I don’t think it serves the residents of Cook County.

I think we need folks who understand the need to protect Lake Michigan and to protect the residents of our city. This is about public health. I mean, we’re seeing people across Cook County having to boil their water, like in Dixmoor. There are actual issues with the water. We need to actually advocate for people of color. When people of color make insurance claims on flooding, they often don’t become resolved. We need actual folks who are committed, solid public servants, and not people who just want to get a jumpstart to their political careers.

How is water quality a public health issue?

[Recreationally,] folks across Cook County want to enjoy the water. Folks want to enjoy the Little Calumet River, folks want to enjoy the Chicago River without getting contaminated.

If contaminants got into our water, it would make the water unsafe to drink. We absolutely saw, catastrophically, what happens when we don’t have solid leadership in positions of folks who care for our water. We saw what happened in Flint. The same thing could happen if we didn’t have solid leadership at the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, and didn’t continue to have that leadership.

What are your top, hit-the- ground-running initiatives you’d be championing at the MWRD?

First, I want to prioritize environmental justice projects that advance community resilience. How can we support local communities? That would be one idea, creating a rain barrel project in a place like Englewood. Second, how do we increase and advance green infra- structure across Chicago? Third, engaging the stakeholders and increasing diversity in terms of people who are engaged in the work.

So [my priorities are] advancing community projects and community resilience, centering environmental justice, increasing green infrastructure, and then advancing community outreach, in particular to young people in marginalized communities. I think the MWRD can do violence prevention. They can engage young people in programs about the water reclamation district, and serve as an incubator to the trades, educating folks through community programs and community conversations.

How could MWRD work on violence prevention?

What would it be like to take marginalized young people from the south and west sides on a tour of one of the plants? What would it look like to have environmental programming for young people specifically? There’s a myriad of green spaces around Chicago, you know. We’d love to immerse young people in nature, in and outside of their communities across our great cities. I think that there’s more work that we can do, that I would champion as a commissioner. I would champion creating a task force to engage on environmental issues, and violence prevention should be one of those tenants.

The commissioners, the mayor, and the City Council should come together. Nothing in this conversation [about violence prevention] has come up about green space. There’s this current conversation in Chicago about where young people should be, and around public safety. And I think that nature should be in that equation.

Nature is a place where so many people find refuge, where they find relaxation, where they can experience centering. There’s more room for that, like community gardens where young people can help plant green infrastructure in their communities. If we want to actually create impact in communities, and we want to broaden the awareness of what the Metropolitan Water Reclamation does, then we need to do innovative things that actually tangibly affect people’s lives. That’s work that I’m interested in doing.

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Junaid Ahmed, a 45-year-old Indian American candidate for Illinois’s Eighth Congressional District, is posing a stiff primary challenge to incumbent Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat who has held the seat for five years. This is Ahmed’s first electoral run.

Ahmed was born in Hyderabad, India, and his family moved to the U.S. when he was still a child, about 30 years ago. He has since lived in Chicago, spending most of his foundational years in Rogers Park. A few years ago, Ahmed moved to the Eighth District, where he lives with his wife and four children.

In an interview with the Reader, Ahmed shared vivid details about his first few years in America and talked about his working-class upbringing.

“My childhood has been quite, quite interesting. As a new kid on the block my dad used to have two jobs, sometimes a third job; same job, two shifts,” he said, recounting his early years in Chicago. “Growing up you either became a doctor, or an engineer, otherwise you’re no good,” he said, lightheartedly emphasizing all the American dreams his parents had for him. In 2000, Ahmed got a degree in computer science from DePaul University, and from there went to corporate America to work at Accenture for seven years. In 2009, Ahmed earned an MBA from the University of Chicago, and then started his own technology consulting firm, SAKStech, in 2013.

Ahmed said that “politics was never on the plate for him,” but he was inspired to get into public service by his parents, who always taught him to share and give back to the community.

In 2015, Ahmed volunteered for Krishnamoorthi’s first campaign for Congress.

“To be very honest, I was excited,” he said. “And I was excited to see [Krishnamoorthi]…. And maybe he was a great guy back then, a fellow Brown brother running.”

Since then, Ahmed’s politics have continued to evolve. He is a staunch supporter of raising the minimum wage and enacting Medicare for All. “In the wealthiest nation on the planet, everyone should be able to thrive,” he said.

In 2020, Ahmed was organizing rallies in support of universal healthcare and urging representatives such as Krishnamoorthi to stop taking money from the for-profit healthcare industry when he met Elisa Devlin, now his deputy campaign manager. Devlin said that she was moved by Bernie Sanders’s campaign, and when that ended she wanted to continue being involved in politics. She started an organization called Schaumburg Area Progressives, a platform that she runs to this day. It was during her involvement with SAP that Devlin crossed paths with Ahmed.

“I saw the same qualities [in Ahmed] that really drew me to Bernie. That authenticity,” Devlin said.

According to Ahmed, Devlin had a huge role to play in pushing him to run for office. “Basically Elisa said, ‘Junaid, if you’re not the candidate, we think that there is no candidate in 2022,’” he said.

Both Krishnamoorthi and Ahmed are Indian Americans, but vary starkly in their views of religious politics in India. Ahmed is a practicing Muslim, while Krishnamoorthi identifies as Hindu, and has expressed support for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right- wing paramilitary organization in India.

The RSS is a Hindu nationalist organization that promotes the creation of a homogenous Hindu homeland in India, and espouses the Hindutva ideology—a right-wing ideology that casts out and discriminates against non-Hindus as “foreign.” Current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a former member of the RSS, and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, which draws its core political values from RSS, as an RSS organizer in 1985.

Modi was elected prime minister in 2014. During his administration, India has fallen on the religious freedom, press freedom, and hunger index, and has seen a rise in violence against Muslims.

In 2005, the U.S. government revoked Modi’s diplomatic visa for failing to control anti-Muslim riots in 2002 in Gujarat, the Indian state he was head of at the time. In 2014, Modi’s government passed a Citizenship Amendment Act that was widely derided as anti-Muslim, and has passed several other laws since then that have been similarly criticized. In January, Gregory Stanton, the founder and director of Genocide Watch, called the current systemic discrimination of minorities in India as an “impending genocide.”

During the 2019 Howdy Modi event—a grand reception for Modi in Houston—Krishnamoorthi delightedly shared the stage with Modi. He was the only elected Indian American politician who attended the event.

“Unfortunately, Raja chose to look the other way when a call for genocide is happening in India,” Ahmed said. “He chooses to still keep associating with these people who have openly enabled this genocide. He’s not even ashamed of it.”

According to Pieter Friedrich, a freelance journalist who does independent research on Hindutva and its associated links with American politicians, Krishnamoorthi extends his support to right-wing politics in India because of financial interests. Friedrich called Krishnamoorthi “the RSS’s man” in Congress.

In the runup to the 2016 race, Krishnamoorthi’s campaign accrued the highest funds among all House races across America. The Hindu American Political Action Committee (HAPAC) contributed $35,000 to his campaign in 2015.

The HAPAC’s stated mission is to ensure that the religious freedom and human rights of Hindus all over the world are preserved. It is linked to the Hindu American Foundation, which underpins the Modi government’s nationalist, allegedly anti-Muslim agenda.

“Breaking in is getting your foot in the door the first time,” Friedrich said. “That’s always the hardest. That’s the biggest hurdle. And so that initial financing from the earliest days, that’s particularly what [Krishnamoorthi] gained,” Friedrich said.

With more than $9 million in his campaign bank, Krishnamoorthi doesn’t necessarily need the financing, but he does need to avoid alienating his earliest and most influential supporters—the people who were crucial to helping him get into Congress in the first place, Friedrich added.

Ahmed has raised just over $800,000 via a combination of individual and grassroots donations. In a debate last month, Ahmed promised to “never take a dime of corporate money” and vowed to expand campaign finance reform if elected.

Krishnamoorthi’s frequent donors include Bharat Barai, member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America, the overseas branch of the VHP India, which in a way is a subset of the RSS. The RSS and VHP are part of the Sangh Parivar, a conglomerate of over a dozen Hindu nationalist organizations. In May, Barai was seen talking about a chapter he wrote about Indo-U.S. relations and Prime Minister Modi’s inspirational guidance to the diaspora in the book Modi @ 20, in which experts recount and praise Modi’s 20 years as an Indian statesman.

In 2018, the World Hindu Congress was held in Chicago. The event was organized by the VHPA. The same year, the CIA labeled the VHP as a “religious militant organization.”

In addition, the VHPA is known to be taking active steps to “saffronize,” that is, “Hinduize” South Asian history. When the VHPA received approximately $171,000 of U.S. federal COVID relief funds, many human rights activists criticized the grant, saying the organization had “Hindu supremacist” sentiments. An Al Jazeera reporter who pursued the story about the disbursement of COVID funds to right-wing Hindu organizations faced a subsequent lawsuit and death threats for his reportage.

The U.S. Department of State’s 2021 Country Reports of Human Rights lists a slew of violent acts committed against Muslims in India—including one by a member of the VHP, who was arrested for making an attempt to lynch a Muslim cattle trader who later died in police custody.

“I think that as far as that issue [fascism in India] goes, having an Indian American Muslim candidate challenge is crucial to exposing those fault lines in [Krishnamoorthi’s] character and in the ethics of his campaigns and and really holding his feet to the fire on this issue,” Friedrich said.

Editor’s note 6/23/2022: An earlier version of this article misstated the amount of COVID relief funds the VHPA received; we regret the error.

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In January, U.S. Representative Bobby Rush announced his retirement, and for the first time in 30 years, the seat for Illinois’s First Congressional District is wide open.

A whopping 17 Democratic candidates (and four Republicans) are vying to represent this south-side/south-suburban district. Among them are an alderperson, a state senator, a son of Reverend Jesse Jackson, and several activists, business leaders, educators, and pastors.

“This is literally unpredictable,” said Pete Giangreco, a Democratic consultant who has campaigned for Rush, Barack Obama, and Representative Mike Quigley. “Anybody with a little bit of [political] base, a little bit of money, and a little bit of shoe leather could win this thing.”

We spoke to political insiders to break down this key race. The election will take place on June 28, 2022, and early voting is now available.

The past

Though its shape has changed over time—it now stretches farther into the suburbs, from Bronzeville on Chicago’s south side all the way to Bourbonnais in Kankakee County— the First Congressional District has been a bastion of Black political power for nearly a century. During the Great Migration, more than 500,000 Black people moved to Chicago to escape the segregated south, but due to discriminatory housing practices, were confined to overcrowded living conditions in certain south-side neighborhoods.

As a result, the majority of the First District’s residents were Black people, and in 1929, they voted for Oscar De Priest, a vocal desegregationist who was the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century. Since De Priest’s historic win, Black men have continued to represent the district. William Dawson, who served from 1943 to 1971, built the city’s first Black political machine through shrewd politicking and his close ties to Mayor Richard J. Daley and President John F. Kennedy. Harold Washington represented the district for one term before becoming Mayor of Chicago and played a key role in extending the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In 1992, 2nd Ward alderperson Bobby Rush successfully challenged the incumbent congressman, Charles Hayes, who was implicated in an ethics scandal days before the primary. A co-founder of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party alongside Fred Hampton, Rush ran for Congress as an insurgent candidate advocating for economic and anti-violence reforms.

In his 30 years in office, Rush, now 75, has advocated for gun control—a resolve strengthened after his own son was murdered in 1999—and introduced historic legislation such as the Emmett Till Antilynching Act that was signed into law in March. In 2012, Rush was kicked out of a session of Congress for wearing a hoodie in protest of Trayvon Martin’s murder.

His civil rights record has earned respect from a constituency that elected him 15 times (U.S. representatives serve two-year terms). But in recent years, he’s garnered criticism from people who feel he’s out of touch with residents and the modern Black liberation movement. He’s also come under fire for his low attendance record in Congress.

Jacky Grimshaw, who ran Harold Washington’s congressional campaign and worked for him until he died in 1987, referred to Rush as a “backbencher” and “do-nothing congressman” who wasn’t responsive to community needs until people started running against him.

In 2000, Rush defeated little-known primary opponent Barack Obama—the first and only time Obama lost a race. “Barack is a person who read about the civil-rights protests and thinks he knows all about it,” Rush told the Reader at the time.

In 2020, three activists challenged him from the left; Rush kept his seat easily, winning 71.5 percent of the vote.

On January 2, Rush announced he was retiring to spend more time with his family and ministry. “I don’t want my grandchildren . . . to know me from a television news clip or something they read in a newspaper,” Rush told the Sun-Times. “I want them to know me on an intimate level, know something about me, and I want to know something about them. I don’t want to be a historical figure to my grandchildren.”

The present

Currently, there are 17 Democratic candidates in the race; four Republicans are also running in the June 28 primary. Since Rush was elected, Republicans running to represent the First District have never received more than 30 percent during the general election.

Why is this race so crowded? “People have been waiting for this opportunity,” said Grimshaw, who has endorsed Jacqueline Collins in the race. “All the folks who had ambitions to go to Congress, they’ve been stymied for 30 years. When he finally gets out, the dam opens and you have a flood of candidates.”

Stephanie Skora referred to the race more irreverently, calling it a “clown car.”

“Every time you think you’re done looking at all the candidates, there’s one more that comes jumping out the door,” said Skora, writer of the progressive voter guide “Girl, I Guess,” which also endorsed Collins.

The race offers a wide-ranging mix of conservative, moderate, progressive, and radical Democrats—some with decades of experience in politics or organizing, and some with major name recognition among Black voters in Chicago. For many candidates, such as Jahmal Cole, who began his campaign a year before Rush announced his retirement, this is their first time running for public office.

For others, it is another attempt: Ameena Matthews is running again after garnering 7.8 percent in 2020, and Alderperson Pat Dowell decided to run one day after Rush’s retirement announcement, dropping her bid for Secretary of State. Karin Norington-Reaves ran for 6th Ward alderperson in 2007, but gained only 14.1 percent of the vote.

Democratic candidates raised a total of $2.74 million as of June 8, according to the watchdog website Open Secrets. At the time, Swain had raised the most with $535,632, followed by Dowell with $531,812, Norington-Reaves with $456,802, Jonathan Jackson with $374,303, and Jacqueline Collins with $159,426. Jahmal Cole has raised $153,622.

Progressives have rallied around multiple candidates in the race, with no clear coalition. A week after announcing his retirement, Rush endorsed Norington-Reaves, former CEO of the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership, who was also recently endorsed by the Tribune. Dowell was endorsed by SEIU Locals 1 and 73 and several alderpeople.

Jackson was endorsed by Representative Chuy Garcia, Senator Bernie Sanders, the Chicago Teachers Union, the Amalgamated Transit Union, and, amazingly, Judge Mathis of television fame. Collins was endorsed by state senate colleagues, including Don Harmon, Robert Peters, and State Senator emeritus John J. Cullerton as well as Dr. Cornell West and Father Michael Pfleger of Saint Sabina.

This crowded field calls into question the value of Bobby Rush’s endorsement. In many Chicago-area races, the incumbent has heavily influenced who will succeed their term, but those in the First District seem undeterred by Rush’s anointment of a successor. Delmarie Cobb, who ran Rush’s first campaign in 1992, said, “I don’t know that he has coattails in terms of turning out votes”—Rush’s son, Flynn, lost an open statehouse race in 2018 to Curtis Tarver—“but he may have coattails in terms of helping [Norington-Reaves] raise money and get endorsements.”

Jerry Morrison, who worked on Rush’s campaign against Obama in 2000, and whose employer, SEIU Local 1, has endorsed Dowell, was also skeptical of how much it would sway voters. “An incumbent congressman endorsing someone in a field of unknown candidates is significant, [but] in a field of very well-known candidates, it’s probably not as important,” he said.

“It’s not the Lipinski seat,” political consultant Giangreco quipped, referring to the Third Congressional District, where Bill Lipinski and his son, Dan, presided for more than 25 years before Marie Newman won the seat in 2020.

Instead, Giangreco compared this race to Illinois’s Fifth District. In 2009, Rahm Emanuel vacated his congressional seat to become White House chief of staff, and a special primary was held. Cook County Commissioner Mike Quigley did not have the money or endorsements that his rivals had, but low voter turnout, a 12-candidate field, and reform-minded messaging allowed him to clinch the Democratic nomination with only 22 percent of the vote, according to Giangreco, who worked on his campaign.

“I think this is very much the same story, just on the south side,” he continued. “There is going to be a spirited battle and the person who wins may only get 20 or 25 percent of the vote.”

Jonathan Jackson is perhaps the best-known candidate in the race. Jackson is the national spokesperson for the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which his father Jesse Jackson Sr. founded, and the owner of a Bronzeville-based construction contracting company. He touts his international advocacy—going on trips with his father—and his connection to Martin Luther King Jr., his godfather. Multiple sources expressed skepticism at his influence, compared to his father and brother, Jesse Jackson Jr., who represented the Second District in Congress for 17 years and resigned in 2012 amid health issues and a probe into campaign fraud.

A progressive organizer on the south side, who asked for anonymity because of their employer, said they think Jackson is an OK candidate, but added, “As a city, I think a lot of people are sick of the Jackson name. . . . Not saying that Jesse Jackson [or his son] didn’t do a lot of good work, but this is Chicago, and we don’t have a monarchy.”

Cobb, who is not in the race, has worked for both Jesse Jackson Sr. and Jr., and says the aphorism “familiarity breeds disrespect” applies when discussing the Jackson legacy. “What I see is that, when people are close to people, and see them every day and take them for granted, there’s not that same level of esteem and respect,” she said. “Whereas from afar, people think about the Jacksons very differently.” She thinks there may be hesitation because of the manner in which Jackson Jr. stepped down, but “if you’re looking for people who are willing to take on the establishment, who are willing to speak truth to power . . . Jonathan would be one of them.”

In such a crowded race, the outcome may come down to influence. “Does the Rush endorsement mean more than the Jackson name? That’s the great unknown here,” said Giangreco.

For the most part, no candidates have gone negative on each other. At one point during a May 23 candidate forum hosted by Indivisible Chicago-South Side and UChicago Democrats, Norington-Reaves lambasted “a certain candidate” for receiving an endorsement from an organization that advocates for defunding police. Called for comment, Norington-Reaves said she was referring to Our Revolution’s endorsement of Jackson. Her campaign also sent out an email that attempted to paint Jackson as supportive of defunding police based on the endorsement.

The sources I spoke to generally agreed the frontrunners in the race were Collins, Dowell, Jackson, Norington-Reaves, and Swain, based on fundraising, endorsements, name recognition, campaign infrastructure, and professional record. A May 17 poll released by Collins’s campaign projected Jackson capturing 19 percent of the vote, Collins with 14 percent, Dowell with 14 percent, Norington-Reaves with 5 percent, and Swain with 3 percent.

But so much is still up in the air—even Collins’s poll told her that 42 percent of voters were undecided.

The future

The Illinois primary election will take place on June 28. Early voting is open now to Illinois residents. Democrats and Republicans who win their primary elections will face off in the general election on November 8, 2022.

Typically the primary election takes place in March, but last year, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a package of election reforms that shifted the 2022 primary forward by two months. Morrison, who has worked on many political races, said the delayed primary date, the proximity to Independence Day weekend, and the fact that this is a midterm election (no U.S. president on the ballot) could lead to low voter turnout. “People in Illinois aren’t accustomed to voting that late in the season.”

Depending on the outcome, the person elected to represent the First District could have a long-term effect on national policy. “These seats don’t come up very often,” Giangreco said. “It’s a safe Democratic seat. . . . Once you win them, you tend to have a long career in them.”

Cobb says people should be doing as much research on these candidates as they would if buying a car. “All these people have a record, whether you were in the private sector or the public sector. If you’re a progressive, where have you been on the big issues? Why didn’t I see you? Those are the questions people need to ask themselves. Don’t let somebody tell you who they are.”

Whoever wins the primary will have large shoes to fill.

“This has always been an activist seat,” Cobb said. “When you look at the types of people—larger-than-life personalities and activists—that have held this seat, there’s a legacy that follows. Those are the kinds of people [First District residents] want representing them—somebody who’s going to fight, somebody who’s going to make sure they have a voice in Congress and bring resources back to the district.”

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