(Vote for 1)The Illinois State Senate is the upper chamber of the Illinois General Assembly. It is made up of 59 senators elected from individual legislative districts determined by population.To be eligible to serve as a member of the General Assembly, a person must be a United States citizen, at least 21 years old, and for the two years preceding his election or appointment a resident of the district which he is to represent.As of the 2020 Census, Illinois state senators represented an average of 217,335 residents.Salary: $93,712Source: A Candidates Forum was held on [DATE} Watch the video [LINK}https://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_State_Senate
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I've lived my entire life in the the Chicagoland area, and nearly my entire life in DuPage county. I'm very familiar with district and my family has lived here for generations. I hold bachelor's degrees in finance and economics from Elmhurst University, and my law degree from DePaul University's College of Law.
Before law school I worked as a community organizer. During my time as an organizer I spent my time meeting with the people of the Chicagoland area hearing the problems they face in everyday life and working towards solutions to help them overcome these challenges. I took this approach to law school where I focused on immigration law, civil rights law, and other areas where I felt my education could make a positive impact
There are many committees I'm interested in. In particular, the Energy and Public Utilities, and the Elections comittee.
There has been an explosion on data center proposals in and around our district. I have spoken with several residents who are concerned about how close these proposals are to their homes. If data centers are going to a part of our modern infastructure we need to make sure they not raising energy prices or disrupting our communitities.
In law school I focused my studies on the voting rights act, and have been incredibly concerned about the ways is has been all but repealed by the Supreme Court. We need an Illinois voting rights act to fill the holes that have been made in our voting rights laws by the Supreme Court.
I am absolutely pro-choice, there is no reason for the legislature to get between anyone and their doctor. I believe that humancare is a human right, and that includes reproductive healthcare.
I would like to see us expand access to reproductive healthcare across the state, especially near areas where we share borders with red states. Since the repeal the Roe v. Wade several years ago we have seen a surge in overall abortion procedures, espcially from out of state patients.
The anti-choice laws in many red states have driven doctors out of their communities, as those doctors fear reprecussions from said laws. As these communities become gynecological deserts, we need to make sure that our state can accomodate the influx of patients.
I believe that we need to raise new progressive revenue to fully fund our state's services. For too long we have relied on regressive taxes, like property tax, which unfairly target working class and middle class households. I am supportive of many of the proposals put forth by the Illinois revenue alliance, as well as former Governor Quinn's recent initiative for a millinaires tax to raise funds for education funding and property tax relief.
Unfortunately we live in a world where we can no longer rely on funds being fairly disbursed by our federal government. In response we need to make sure that we can fund as many programs as possible with state funds.
My budget priorities for Illinois are that we fully fund our state's pension obligations so that public sector workers recieve the retirement that they worked for, that we fully fund our state's services including education, and that we raise new progressive revenue to plug any budgetary holes made by the Trump administration's illegal withholding of funds to blue states depsite Congressional approval of said funds.
