IPO questions to candidates applying for appointment to the Illinois Senate (20th District)

At the bottom of this are the questions being asked by the IPOs of candidates seeking appointment to the Illinois Senate.



Background: Sen. Cristina Pacione-Zayas is getting appointed to Mayor (of Chicago) Brandon Johnson's administration. Under Illinois law the committee persons of the incumbent's party (Democratic) get to appoint the replacement using a weighted voted system.

Those committee persons are:

The weighted vote of Gardiner is minor and Gonzalez, Rosenfeld, Villegas and Villivalam are minuscule.

The legitimacy of the weighting is dubious in that the ward maps have changed since redistricting, but that's not what this blog entry is about.

A group of IPOs (Chicago lexicon: independent political organizations) is conducting their own candidate screening. The IPOs fancy themselves as the challenge to the regular Democrats (machine Democrats). The sponsoring IPOs are:

Below are the questions the IPOs want candidates to answer. Of course, it starts with candidate contact information.

Bio/qualifications

Please write a brief candidate statement/bio including what makes you qualified for the State Senate seat, your leadership experience, issue campaigns you’ve worked on and your involvement in those campaigns, and how you’ve worked with community organizations in the 20th district.

The best

Briefly, why do you feel that you are the best candidate to represent the 20th district as State Senator? How will you advance the progressive agenda in this role?

Membership

Are you a member of an IPO? If so, which one(s)? For how long? If not, why not?

How work with us?

How do you envision your relationship with our IPOs once in this seat?

Top priority/rest of legislative session

What will be your top priority as state Senator, and what do you hope to accomplish in the remainder of this legislative session?

Voter trust

Historically the appointment process for a vacant state Senate seat has happened without input from voters. What will you do to build trust with your constituents, given that you are gaining your seat through an appointment?

Ongoing transparency/accountability

What is your plan to remain transparent and accountable to your constituents and the community organizations in your district? How will you continually be listening to and engaging with the community? 

Progressive Caucus

Will you commit to joining the Progressive Caucus in Springfield?

Eschew bad campaign contributions

Will you commit to not taking corporate campaign donations such as from real estate developers, fossil fuel companies, utility companies, private healthcare industry, etc.? 

Who did you support for Mayor?

In the 2023 municipal election cycle, which mayoral and aldermanic candidates did you publicly support? In what ways were you involved in these campaigns? 

The candidate questionnaire seems straightforward and well done to me. The list of bad contributions seems noteworthy that education reform advocates, privatizers, union busters and police adjacent businesses/security firms didn't make the list. However, "et cetera" might privately include some or all of those and the IPOs didn't want to scare off Martinez (closely linked to education reform), Cardona, Gardiner, Gonzalez & Reboyras (pro-cop) and Rosenfeld (a lobbyist).

 


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