U. S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who represented Chicago’s northern cities in Congress for more than 2 1/2 years, announced Monday that she will not get a 15th word next month.
“This is the standard — that I’m not going to work again for Congress, ” Schakowsky said to a group of about 1,000 people attending an Ultimate Women’s Power Luncheon occasion she hosted at the Sheraton Grand Chicago Hotel. “As many as I love and have loved being in the Congress of the United States, for an amazing, extraordinary privilege to work with the people of the city, to learn from them, to be an organizer, to be a warrior — well, that will never stop. But I have made the decision that I am not going to get election this day. ”
The shift marks the end of an era for a effectively Democratic city that Schakowsky, 80, of Evanston, has represented since 1999 after deeply defeating two critics, including JB Pritzker, in an open-seat key. Before her, Sidney Yates held the chair for 24 terms, nearly 50 years.
Her pensions will truly set off a series of political tactics. Even before Schakowsky’s statement, a social media content father had declared election for the chair: 26-year-old Kat Abughazaleh, a liberal critique of the far right who moved to Illinois last year and outraised Schakowsky in the first third.
Abughazaleh will almost certainly been joined by a discipline of Democratic candidates that may contain Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, state Sen. Laura Fine, position Rep. Hoan Huynh and people.
Schakowsky declined to say Monday whether she’d help any special candidate to succeed her.
Biss and Fine, who were at the dinner, both declined to discuss whether they were interested in the seat.
“This is a time to talk about Jan’s remarkable reputation, ” Biss said. “ I really feel really lucky to have a head like her in this position, and I feel excited to think about that and bless her. ”
Schakowsky’s pension announcement came less than two days after U. S. Sen. Dick Durbin, even 80, declared that he would not get another word.
Speaking with investigators after the dinner, Schakowsky said making the decision to leave was “not as hard as you might consider. ”
“It’s been a long time that I’ve been in the Congress, ” she said.
Schakowsky wore a real red coat, as she had throughout her first promotion and when she first declared win for the seat. The same vivid coloring was reflected in many of the jackets, cardigans and skirts of her followers at the more than 100 tables in the room.
Schakowsky was a express agent when she first ran for Congress on her history as a lawmaker and advocate, offering a “message of equal rights for women, minorities and homosexuals, shelter for union workers, and affordable national health care, ” the Tribune wrote.
She was seen as more liberal than her two Democratic main detractors, state Sen. Howard Carroll and Pritzker, who finished fourth. 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 proposals for governor, Pritzker has spent $ 350 million.
When she won in 1998, Schakowsky said voters ’ desire to have a female member perhaps have put her over the edge, as she was elected at a time when all of the state’s next 20 people 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. ”
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