Latest news with #Schakowsky
Politico
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Politico
Democratic Hill staffer is a contestant on next season of ‘Survivor'
One Democrat is literally going into the wilderness — as one of the castaways on the upcoming season of the hit TV show 'Survivor.' Rep. Jan Schakowsky's (D-Ill.) communications director Alex Moore was featured in a promotional video released late on Wednesday, teasing the new cast for the reality competition show's 49th season. 'I work on Capitol Hill and I think that has prepared me for Survivor because one of my favorite pastimes is kissing butt,' Moore said in the promotional video. Moore had been seemingly out of office recently. Schakowsky's office — and Moore — did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent on Thursday. Schakowsky announced earlier this month she was not seeking reelection. For non-reality TV junkies, 'Survivor' throws a group of castaways onto a remote island where they compete in various challenges and get eliminated week by week, leaving a lone victor with a million dollars to take home. Moore wouldn't be the first politico to appear on the show. Most recently, Jon Lovett — a former Obama speechwriter turned podcaster and creator of 'Pod Save America' — appeared on the 47th season and was voted out on the first episode. Other notable 'Survivor' alumni include Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, Kentucky state Rep. Nick Wilson (winner of a 'David vs. Goliath' season) and Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones. Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ultra progressive Mayor Daniel Biss jumps into race to succeed Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky
EVANSTON, Ill. (WGN) — Two-term Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, long-rumored to be eyeing higher office, today launched a bid to replace retiring Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in Illinois' 9th Congressional District. 'We're in a state of emergency right now. Donald Trump is dismantling the things that we care about most,' the 47-year-old Democrat told WGN-TV. 'What we need in Congress now is a fighter who knows how to fight and knows how to win.' An experienced campaigner, Biss has been described as a pragmatic progressive. In Evanston, he signed into law a 'healthy buildings' ordinance and set up a housing reparations plan that aimed to right the wrong of housing practices that discriminated against African Americans. 'What we did is we looked at our history,' said Biss explaining the reparations measure. 'We learned that this was a community that deliberately knowingly discriminated against our Black residents in ways that are being felt today.' Biss's mother is Israeli, and so he says he feels a personal connection to conflict in the Middle East. 'Israel's right to exist and defend itself is something that's important to me, it's something I believe in strongly. I'm also horrified by (Prime Minister) Benjamin Netanyahu's government's conduct in this war.' Biss, a former state House and Senate lawmaker, finished second behind JB Pritzker in the 2018 Democratic primary for governor. Biss found recently himself in the spotlight in the battle over Northwestern University's new stadium. The Patrick G. And Shirley W. Ryan family foot the bill for the stadium but the university asked for the right to stage concerts angering residents. Biss broke a City Council tie to approve the deal. Also in the Democratic primary contest, 26-year-old social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, who announced she was throwing her hat into the ring before Schakowsky decided to retire. The Palestinian American promises a different kind of campaign focused on new media. Abughazaleh quickly raised more than $375,000, using the cash to open a campaign field office in Rogers Park last week. State Senator Laura Fine is also campaigning for the seat, announcing on Wednesday a dozen local endorsements. 'The energy is real, and we're just getting started,' Fine said in a statement. Illinois' 9th Congressional District covers part of Chicago's north side, including Uptown, as well as several north and northwestern suburbs from Evanston to Algonquin. This is the first time the seat will be open since Rep. Schakowsky was first elected in 1998. *WGN Political Producer Jordan Muck contributed reporting to this article. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Chicago Tribune
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Democratic digital creator likely facing field of local politicians to succeed US Rep. Jan Schakowsky
A day after U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky told hundreds of people at a swanky downtown Chicago hotel that she wasn't running for reelection, the first major declared 9th Congressional District candidate sat cross-legged in her new Rogers Park campaign headquarters, painting an image of a lava lamp on the wall. Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old newcomer to the Chicago region who is banking on her blunt messaging and massive online following to earn her a place on Capitol Hill, might have been the first to announce she was running for the congressional seat — even before the 80-year-old Schakowsky said she wouldn't run again. But Abughazaleh won't be the last. One state legislator, state Sen. Laura Fine of Glenview, joined the race within hours of Schakowsky's announcement. Other local politicians are expected to follow soon, setting up a confrontation between candidates employing new media savvy and those relying on grassroots support and old-school organizing. In the heavily Democratic district, which includes parts of Chicago's Far North Side, as well as north and northwest suburbs from Evanston to Algonquin, the Democratic primary will be the key race in determining who will be only the third representative for the district since 1965. Abughazaleh — also known around the internet as 'Kat Abu' — is taking an unconventional approach with her nascent political career. While Abughazaleh has made a name for herself nationally with TikTok videos and on podcasts by blasting veteran Democrats for allegedly sitting on their hands in the face of Donald Trump's presidency, she has thin connections to the district and its voters. She said she's trying to solve that problem by attending rallies with veterans in Algonquin and hosting knitting circles at an Evanston bar while she continues to use social media to snag local followers and build excitement for her campaign — and her brand. 'I have this huge platform that I built with my own hard work, but it's great to have to start a campaign,' Abughazaleh said in a recent interview with the Tribune, adding that her goals are not just to win but to make the process of running for public office more approachable. 'It's so inaccessible for normal people. It feels like it's something reserved for the rich or already well-connected, which is reflected in our Congress.' Less than a day after Schakowsky, of Evanston, announced she wasn't running for a 15th term, Abughazaleh, dressed in overalls, sat on a blue Ikea gym mat and painted on the walls of her office space on Clark Street. She used social media to invite others to stop by, and about half a dozen 20-somethings did during the first couple of hours. Fine, for her part, attended Schakowsky's Ultimate Women's Power Lunch event last week with a couple of other potential competitors, watching the congresswoman make her announcement. Fine has much deeper ties to the district than Abughazaleh. Born in Skokie, she has represented the area since 2013, the last six years as a state senator. 'Washington is failing Illinois families,' Fine says on her campaign site. 'Trump and the Republicans in Congress want to rip away our access to health care. I personally know what that's like. I've expanded families' access to health care, and I'll never stop fighting for our future.' She almost certainly will not be the only local elected official to try to step into Schakowsky's shoes. North Side state Sen. Mike Simmons of Uptown, the Illinois Senate's first openly gay member, and Bushra Amiwala, a board member for Skokie School District 73.5 and one of the first Gen Z elected officials in the U.S., both told the Tribune they are weighing bids. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, state Rep. Hoan Huynh, also of Uptown, and several other state lawmakers and city officials also could join the race. Onstage at Schakowsky's event, Jill Wine-Banks, an attorney and former Watergate prosecutor, didn't use Abughazaleh's name but asked Schakowsky if having a declared competitor motivated her to retire. 'I've always had someone running against me, and I have always beaten that person,' Schakowsky responded to applause. 'I've always had the opportunity to try and lift, especially women, but not always, to run for office, to feel secure to do something brave. And I'll be looking forward to working on campaigns locally and nationally and will continue to do that. But I certainly am not afraid, at all, of anybody who ran against me.' Speaking to reporters after her remarks last week, Schakowsky declined to endorse a successor. Kitty Kurth, a longtime Democratic political strategist, said she anticipates a 'plethora of qualified, homegrown candidates' will join the race and that district voters will be paying attention. 'In this district, politics is not a spectator sport, but hand-to-hand combat,' Kurth said. 'It's a district of a lot of politically savvy, politically active voters. A lot of the Democrats who live in the district spent all last year going to campaign in Wisconsin (against Trump). They understand politics on a granular level, not on a TikTok level. … You can get a lot of people to watch your show on TikTok, but that doesn't move them to the polls.' The area's elected officials also have an organizational advantage over first-time candidates like Abughazaleh, Kurth said. 'It's not so much about an existing machine. It's about knowing how to organize volunteers,' Kurth said. 'You need someone who knows how to recruit volunteers and what to do with volunteers once you get them, and how to run a field operation. I don't know that (Abughazaleh) has worked in a political organization, volunteered on a campaign, or knows what it's like to run a petition drive.' Still, Abughazaleh has shown the ability to raise money nationally for her congressional bid. She brought in more than $350,000 in the first month of her campaign, giving her a leg up — at least for now — on state and local elected officials who can't use their existing campaign accounts to pay for federal races. The Abughazaleh campaign's first test, Kurth said, will be collecting enough signatures to get her name on the ballot. Legally, Democratic candidates in the district need to gather only 1,173 valid signatures between when signature collection begins in August and when nominating petitions are due Nov. 3. But campaigns often collect far more than the minimum to show broad support and ward off challenges from rival camps. Abughazaleh is the latest — and most prominent — young influencer to make a bid for the U.S. House. A pro-gun Texas candidate lost a Republican primary last year, and an Arizona activist is running in a special election in July. 'The difficulty for (Abughazaleh) and all of them is that their fan base online does not translate into the ability to have a base in these districts,' said Erin Covey, an editor who specializes in House races for the Cook Political Report, an elections newsletter based in Washington, D.C. Abughazaleh not being from the district, Covey added, 'will be a significant hindrance.' But Abughazaleh rejects the 'carpetbagger' label some have assigned to her for moving to the area and declaring a run for Congress all in less than a year. 'I mean, there are plenty of districts that would be easier to carpetbag, as I've been accused of online, and like, if that's the case, I'm a very bad carpetbagger,' she said. 'I moved to the wrong district, first off. … I want to live where I want to live and run because it's something I believe.' Abughazaleh said she came to Chicago for personal — not political — reasons. Until last year, she worked in Washington as an analyst and researcher for the liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America. But Abughazaleh was one of a dozen staff members the group laid off after being sued by Elon Musk for a report alleging that corporate advertisers' posts on Musk's social media platform X, formerly Twitter, were being displayed next to pro-Nazi content. The lawsuits are ongoing. Abughazaleh left Washington on 'super short notice' to accompany her partner, Ben Collins, in Chicago after he became CEO of the news satire site The Onion last spring. They landed in a two-bedroom apartment on North Michigan Avenue with a monthly rent of around $4,000. She first publicly acknowledged her relationship with Collins after the Tribune asked her about it. She released a video that Collins also shared in which he appears in one of Abughazaleh's posts about their cat. In an interview, she said her partner has supported her financially as she runs for Congress. Abughazaleh grew up primarily in Texas, where she attended private school, and attended George Washington University, a private school in Washington, D.C. But she said her family hasn't provided financial support to her since she was 20. Abughazaleh said she never intended to stay in the Streeterville apartment, which is outside the 9th District, and is looking to move north, into the district, to Rogers Park or Edgewater, where she enjoys the feel of the neighborhoods and has friends close by. After moving to Chicago, Abughazaleh covered the Democratic National Convention last summer, including unsuccessful efforts by Palestinian Americans to secure a speaking slot on stage to highlight Israel's mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza in the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Abughazaleh's grandfather was a Palestinian immigrant (she says her last name is derived from the Arabic word for 'gazelle'), and she has repeatedly criticized U.S. support for Israel's Gaza campaign. Many of her videos show a kaffiyeh, or Palestinian headscarf, hanging on the wall behind her desk. Abughazaleh's position on the war in Gaza will be one she'll have to answer for in a district that has elected only two people to Congress — both Jewish — since 1965. Before Schakowsky, who is Jewish, the 9th Congressional District was represented by Sidney Yates, one of six children of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, who represented the district for 24 terms, a five-decade run interrupted by only one term in the 1960s. Abughazaleh's grandfather, who died in 2017, lived in Chicago for a time, she said, but her father rarely mentioned the family living here. After Trump returned to office this year, Abughazaleh said, she became dismayed with how little Democrats in Washington were doing to stop or slow his actions. She soon jumped into the congressional race with a slick video and a memorable message: 'Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling our country piece by piece, and so many Democrats seem content to just sit back and let them. So I say it's time to drop the excuses and grow a (expletive) spine.' Abughazaleh mentioned Illinois only once in the two-minute video, when specifying for which U.S. House seat she was running. In pitching her candidacy, she advocated for free child care and expanding Social Security. And she promised her campaign would be different, coordinating mutual aid efforts and swearing off 'spammy guilt-trip texts' and 'grifty consultants.' Abughazaleh's campaign actually sent out fundraising texts. But after getting some blowback accusing her of not keeping her word, she said her campaign has stopped sending out cold texts and now allows people who donate to opt out of further texts. The timing of her campaign launch proved auspicious. As she hammered Trump barely two months into his term and Democrats for being weak, Abughazaleh looked ahead of the game when top Senate Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, voted to advance a Republican spending bill to avoid a government shutdown. Abughazaleh, who rejects the 'influencer' label, was already well-known to many politically active voters. She had amassed hundreds of thousands of followers over the last few years on TikTok and Bluesky by sharing, dissecting and commenting on conservative media. Her internet celebrity helped her land profiles in The Washington Post, The Guardian, GQ, Rolling Stone and Germany's Die Zeit, plus friendly interviews on podcasts like The Bulwark's 'FYPod,' even as she remains largely unknown in the district she's hoping to represent. Abughazaleh says her experiences fighting with right-wing media figures and rallying people against them would serve her well in Washington. 'I want to give voters another option, and I think that my expertise can be used in Congress. I want to bring it there so you can effectively fight back against Trump,' she said. But Abughazaleh also chafed at the idea that her campaign is solely focused on her online audience. 'People think that this campaign is really online, because that's what my background is,' she said, speaking at a corner table at Sketchbook Brewing in Evanston. 'But this is about our ground game. It's been about our office hours. It's been about the knitting circle that we held right in that corner over there. We got little campaign embroidery kits, and I'm going to be teaching a class. … I taught (my women's club) how to embroider, and we want to do that at places around the district, so that way we can foster community in a way that's not just on Zoom. I know that might sound idealistic, but I don't care.' Fine, the state senator, is taking a more traditional approach in the initial days of her campaign. Her announcement came as a news release touting the endorsements of other elected officials. She also shared a 24-second video on Facebook and Instagram asking for donations to her campaign. Fine is leaning into her experience as a legislator who has led efforts to make health insurance work better for consumers. Her husband, Michael, lost one of his arms in a near-fatal car crash in 2010 when a driver in a truck hit his car on his way to work, she said in an interview. She traces her desire to get into politics to the ensuing struggle with insurance companies. 'I made taking on big insurance my life's work, and I feel like I didn't let them ruin my family, and I was not going to let them ruin any others,' she said. Since then, her legislative victories include protecting care for preexisting conditions in the event the Affordable Care Act is overturned. Last year, she also sponsored part of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker's health insurance reform package to ban short-term 'junk' plans. She is chair of the Senate committee covering mental health and serves on other committees covering health and insurance. 'We need guys like him to start paying their fair share,' Fine said of Trump. Fine declined to provide specifics on how she would fight the Trump administration, a contrast to Abughazaleh's promises to 'gum up the works' of the Republican president's initiatives such as standing 'arm in arm' to block Musk's team from the Department of Government Efficiency from entering the offices of the U.S. Treasury and accessing taxpayers' personal information. Fine, who is Jewish and co-chair of the Legislative Jewish Caucus, first had her candidacy reported in the publication Jewish Insider, which described her as a 'pro-Israel favorite' in the race. The legislator declined to share any opinion about Abughazaleh's past criticisms of Israel, saying she had not looked into Abughazaleh's views. Abughazaleh said she welcomes other candidates like Fine joining the race. 'I know there are probably a lot of local names that'll throw their hats in the ring and, frankly, I wish that they would do it sooner,' she said. 'We have this culture where you can't cut in line, you've got to wait in line until it's your turn. Why?' 'Look,' she added, 'if you're the best candidate, you shouldn't be afraid of competition.'
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.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Rep. Jan Schakowsky won't seek reelection after 14 terms in Illinois
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky announced Monday that she won't seek reelection next year after 14 terms, making her the latest longtime Illinois Democrat to announce a retirement from Congress. 'For the remainder of my term, and beyond, I vow to continue taking every opportunity possible to fight for my community and my country,' Schakowsky, 80, said in a statement. 'I will do everything in my power to secure equal rights for all, an economy that works for everyone, not just the rich, universal health care, reproductive rights, environmental protections and climate security, and so much more.' Her announcement comes less than two weeks after Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, announced he won't seek a sixth term in 2026. Schakowsky announced the news Monday during an annual luncheon she hosts in Chicago. Attendees included Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who lost a Democratic congressional primary to Schakowsky in 1998. A former Illinois state legislator and onetime public school teacher, Schakowsky became a congresswoman in 1999. She has been easily reelected in contests since then, including in November when she defeated Republican Seth Allen Cohen, who served in the U.S. Marines. In recent years, Schakowsky has focused on health care, immigration and issues affecting senior citizens. She sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. She's also been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and skipped both of his inaugurations. Schakowsky said Monday that she's most proud of her work to help draft the Affordable Care Act, consumer protections and legislation to help senior citizens. Her term ends in January 2027. The heavily Democratic 9th District includes Chicago neighborhoods along Lake Michigan and a mix of wealthy and middle-class suburbs north and northwest of the city. Before Schakowsky's announcement, one person had already declared a 2026 run. Kat Abughazaleh, 26, is a progressive political influencer and journalist who raised more money than Schakowsky in the quarter that ended in March, bringing in $379,000 to Schakowsky's roughly $213,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings. However, Schakowsky still has more than double the cash on hand with $877,000. Other potential candidates are Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, a former state lawmaker, and two state legislators, Rep. Kelly Cassidy and Sen. Laura Fine. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF -
