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American Military News
10-05-2025
- Politics
- American Military News
US Rep. Jan Schakowsky, Illinois congresswoman since 1999, announces she will not seek another term next year
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who represented Chicago's north suburbs in Congress for more than 2 1/2 decades, announced Monday that she will not seek a 15th term next year. 'This is the official — that I'm not going to run again for Congress,' Schakowsky said to a crowd of about 1,000 people attending an Ultimate Women's Power Luncheon event she hosted at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Hotel. 'As much as I love and have loved being in the Congress of the United States, such an incredible, incredible privilege to work with the people of the district, to learn from them, to be an organizer, to be a fighter — well, that will never end. But I have made the decision that I am not going to seek reelection this time.' The move marks the end of an era for a reliably Democratic district that Schakowsky, 80, of Evanston, has represented since 1999 after soundly defeating two opponents, including JB Pritzker, in an open-seat primary. Before her, Sidney Yates held the seat for 24 terms, almost 50 years. Her retirement will undoubtedly set off a series of political maneuvers. Even before Schakowsky's announcement, a social media content creator had declared candidacy for the seat: 26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive critic of the far right who moved to Illinois last year and outraised Schakowsky in the first quarter. Abughazaleh will almost certainly be joined by a field of Democratic hopefuls that could include Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, state Sen. Laura Fine, state Rep. Hoan Huynh and others. Schakowsky declined to say Monday whether she'd support any particular candidate to succeed her. Biss and Fine, who were at the luncheon, both declined to discuss whether they were interested in the seat. 'This is a day to talk about Jan's remarkable legacy,' Biss said. 'I just feel really fortunate to have a leader like her in this role, and I feel excited to think about that and thank her.' Schakowsky's retirement announcement came less than two weeks after U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, also 80, declared that he would not seek another term. Speaking with reporters after the luncheon, Schakowsky said making the decision to retire was 'not as tough as you might think.' 'It's been a long time that I've been in the Congress,' she said. Schakowsky wore a true red suit, as she had throughout her first campaign and when she first declared victory for the seat. The same bright color was reflected in many of the blazers, cardigans and blouses of her supporters at the more than 100 tables in the ballroom. Schakowsky was a state representative when she first ran for Congress on her record as a lawmaker and activist, offering a 'message of equal rights for women, minorities and gays, protection for union workers, and affordable national health care,' the Tribune wrote. She was seen as more progressive than her two Democratic primary opponents, state Sen. Howard Carroll and Pritzker, who finished third. The primary was one of the most expensive in the nation at the time, as Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, spent nearly $1 million of his own money. In his two bids for governor, Pritzker has spent $350 million. When she won in 1998, Schakowsky said voters' desire to have a woman representative may have put her over the edge, as she was elected at a time when all of the state's then 20 members in the House were men. 'Now the men's club delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives will have a woman's voice,' she said then. At the time of her first win, the 9th Congressional District ran along Lake Michigan from Diversey Avenue to Evanston's northern border before shifting west to take in some of the city's Northwest Side, as well as north suburban Skokie, Golf, Morton Grove, Lincolnwood and much of Niles. Today, the district is still heavily Democratic but stretches from the Far North Side of Chicago to include all or part of Buffalo Grove, Tower Lake and Hawthorn Woods as well as other parts of Cook and McHenry counties. Even as her district's borders changed, Schakowsky has not had a serious primary challenger since she was first elected to Congress and has easily defeated Republican opponents in the general election. Over the years, she rose to become a member of the House Democratic leadership team under former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and was an ardent voice for women's rights and increasing the number of women elected to Congress. She twice backed Marie Newman in her challenges to incumbent conservative Democrat U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski, with Newman defeating Lipinski in 2020. Schakowsky has also been a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump, skipping his joint address to Congress this year as she did in 2018. Speaking on Monday, Schakowsky asked her supporters — who had name tags and signs declaring 'I'M A JAN FAN!' — to continue to resist Trump's policies and believe they could win. She told reporters that she planned to continue her activism and support for candidates to elected office. 'You know, I can still be a badass,' she said onstage to raucous applause. Throughout her time in Washington, Schakowsky was an advocate for stricter gun laws, health care reform and the consumer issues that helped buoy her to the national stage. She was an early critic of the Iraq war and a supporter of abortion rights. Schakowsky, who is Jewish and has been a staunch supporter of Israel, more recently was criticized by some on the left who thought she should more forcefully advocate for Palestinians in the ongoing war in Gaza. The daughter of Jewish immigrants, Schakowsky grew up in Chicago and was active in public interest groups before running for the state legislature. Her husband, Robert Creamer, was the founder of one of those groups, Illinois Public Action. Creamer, a political consultant, was sentenced to five months in prison in 2006 for using bad checks to prop up his struggling consumer group and for a tax charge. At the luncheon, Schakowsky's announcement came after speeches from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, former U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Pritzker. 'Jan taught me the first and most important lesson in politics: how to accept defeat when the best woman for the job wins,' Pritzker said. 'Decades of service since, she continues to teach me.' Last week, addressing the potential of a primary field shaping up to replace Durbin, Pritzker recalled the 1997 campaign and encouraged new leadership in the Senate race. 'Remember, I ran for Congress when I was 31 years old, and there were an awful lot of people who said to me that it's not your turn. I ran anyway. I think that in fact we need more young people, we need the new generation,' he said. Schakowsky herself once represented a generational change, as she took over her seat from someone who held it for nearly 50 years. As she announced she would become the first declared candidate for Yates' post in April 1997, Schakowsky traced her career to one of her first and most famous political fights: getting freshness dates on groceries. 'A date on cottage cheese did not change the world, but it's changed my life forever,' she said. 'It convinced me that a few committed individuals could make their world better.' ___ © 2025 Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Otago Daily Times
08-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
A major religious minority
For the Roman Catholic hierarchy visiting Dunedin to celebrate the Jubilee of their training college at Mosgiel everybody has had a kindly feeling. Hopelessly Protestant though we be, no ungracious word has escaped our lips. We have been on our good behaviour, press and public alike. A venerable archbishop and a lengthy retinue of bishops and priests, quaint representatives of the largest communion in Christendom, were impressive. Hierarchy, meaning government by priests, is not to our Protestant liking, name or thing. But the hierarchs themselves were not shy of the word, as their speeches show; and if the people they govern prefer government in that form, who shall say them nay? The Roman Catholics in New Zealand, though the Presbyterians outnumber them by more than two to one, and the Anglicans by perhaps three to one, are not a feeble folk. Look at their schools! They pay taxes like the rest of us, and, in paying taxes, they, like the rest of us, maintain the public schools. Yet in addition they provide and maintain schools of their own. — by 'Civis' Mum's the word A number of years ago Miss Jarvis, of Philadelphia, felt the need of a day specially to remember mother. That her dreams were not mere sentimental bubbles is borne out by the fact that to-day the second Sunday in May is set apart by the Congress of the United States as "mother's day." Throughout the war men in the army were glad to remember this special observance, many letters of cheer being written to mother on the second Sunday in May. This day has now a place of its own the world over, and in Dunedin it will be specially celebrated in the churches, in the Salvation Army and the YMCA. Police give drivers a hand At the meeting of the Otago Motor Club next Tuesday a sergeant and two constables will be present to give a demonstration of the traffic signals given by the police, and also of the signals that they expect motorists to give under varying circumstances. At present motorists do not by their signals give adequate information of the direction in which they wish to proceed, and at times the instructions given by the police may be misconstrued by drivers. Unsuitable reading Embodied in the report of the rector of the Balclutha District High School to the committee was the following paragraph, which is of more than local interest: "The class libraries are now ready, and will be given out next week. In this connection I should be grateful if the committee would ask for the co-operation of the parents in an endeavour to stamp out in this district the reading by the pupils of both departments of a cheap and pernicious form of so-called literature sold, I believe, at fourpence per copy, and even lent round at a penny per book. I undertook the unpleasant task of wading through a few of these books. From a literary point of view they do nothing but harm to the pupils' study of English, while the characters held up as heroes are not of the type that we should like to have our boys and girls become. One member of the committee stated that these books were interfering with the home lessons of the pupils in some cases. It was decided to ask parents to use their influence in the matter with a view to combating the trouble." — ODT , 9.5.1925 (compiled by Peter Dowden)
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Skokie will likely revamp its ‘Welcoming City' ordinance
Village of Skokie officials indicated at last week's Village Board meeting that they will strengthen the village's 'Welcoming City' ordinance. Trustee Khem Khoeun asked Mayor George Van Dusen if the village needed to update its welcoming village ordinance given recent immigration enforcement raids and the anxiety that some people in Skokie's immigrant community are dealing with. 'I know that for a segment of our community, they don't feel safe right now. They are scared,' Khouen said. Hours before the meeting, Fred Tsao, the senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, wrote to village officials on what they could do to strengthen the village's immigration enforcement ordinance, which the village implement in 2017. Recently, Tsao also assisted the city of Evanston improve its Welcoming City Ordinance, which the city enacted a week before President Trump was inaugurated. Corporation Counsel Michael Lorge, a recipient of Tsao's letter, said, 'We will look at the suggestions, but none of them suggest that we're missing anything in terms of concept or intent.' 'It's more language nuance to make sure that nothing is misunderstood,' Lorge added. Van Dusen said Skokie's existing ordinance was established during Trump's first term in office, when the administration attempted enacting a travel ban for seven Muslim majority countries. The ban was ultimately blocked, but the effort apparently impacted Skokie residents. Van Dusen recalled an incident in 2017 when a personal friend of his said her daughter in grade school was concerned she could be deported because she was Muslim, despite being born in the United States. 'No person in this country should have to fear… As far as I'm concerned, the Congress of the United States has an obligation to pass comprehensive immigration reform so that we can establish trust between our government and our citizens,' Van Dusen said. Trustee James Johnson asked if the board could 'repeat or renew' the village's ordinance to publicly reaffirm the village's spirit and policy in having a 'sanctuary ordinance.' 'We'd be happy to redraft for the next meeting and bring it back,' Lorge replied. During the public comment period, residents lauded the trustees' efforts to reinforce the village's ordinance, while also calling for the village to endorse more protections for groups lambasted by the Trump administration. 'I appreciate that you're going to review the commentary from Fred Tsao,' Gail Schechter said. 'We have a federal government today that is intent on rewriting our nation's values away from President Lincoln's, 'malice for none and charity for all.''
Chicago Tribune
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Skokie will likely revamp its ‘Welcoming City' ordinance
Village of Skokie officials indicated at last week's Village Board meeting that they will strengthen the village's 'Welcoming City' ordinance. Trustee Khem Khoeun asked Mayor George Van Dusen if the village needed to update its welcoming village ordinance given recent immigration enforcement raids and the anxiety that some people in Skokie's immigrant community are dealing with. 'I know that for a segment of our community, they don't feel safe right now. They are scared,' Khouen said. Hours before the meeting, Fred Tsao, the senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, wrote to village officials on what they could do to strengthen the village's immigration enforcement ordinance, which the village implement in 2017. Recently, Tsao also assisted the city of Evanston improve its Welcoming City Ordinance, which the city enacted a week before President Trump was inaugurated. Corporation Counsel Michael Lorge, a recipient of Tsao's letter, said, 'We will look at the suggestions, but none of them suggest that we're missing anything in terms of concept or intent.' 'It's more language nuance to make sure that nothing is misunderstood,' Lorge added. Van Dusen said Skokie's existing ordinance was established during Trump's first term in office, when the administration attempted enacting a travel ban for seven Muslim majority countries. The ban was ultimately blocked, but the effort apparently impacted Skokie residents. Van Dusen recalled an incident in 2017 when a personal friend of his said her daughter in grade school was concerned she could be deported because she was Muslim, despite being born in the United States. 'No person in this country should have to fear… As far as I'm concerned, the Congress of the United States has an obligation to pass comprehensive immigration reform so that we can establish trust between our government and our citizens,' Van Dusen said. Trustee James Johnson asked if the board could 'repeat or renew' the village's ordinance to publicly reaffirm the village's spirit and policy in having a 'sanctuary ordinance.' 'We'd be happy to redraft for the next meeting and bring it back,' Lorge replied. During the public comment period, residents lauded the trustees' efforts to reinforce the village's ordinance, while also calling for the village to endorse more protections for groups lambasted by the Trump administration.
