In a primary season full of new faces challenging incumbents, Illinois’ 9th district is a rare open seat election. However, this does not save the race from a significant challenge arising in many Democratic campaigns: oAIPAC and Trump donors.
Daniel Biss, current mayor of Evanston, Illinois, understands this first hand. In his sit-down with Jen, Mayor Biss reveals that his campaign is AIPAC’s latest target. He also differentiates himself from the other candidates, highlighting his governing experience and organizing background.
The two discuss Iran, where Biss outlines how he would utilize his position in Congress to support the War Powers Resolution and rally colleagues to do not “what is politically safe at the moment, but do what you think is right.”
Daniel Biss is the mayor of Evanston and currently running for Illinois' 9th Congressional District. Biss was the Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Chicago. He is a former member of both the Illinois House of Representatives and Illinois Senate. Learn more about Biss’ campaign by clicking here.
Jen Rubin
I am delighted to welcome the mayor of Evanston, Illinois, Daniel Bisque. He is running for the 9th Congressional District in Illinois, which is one of a handful of districts that are going to have open seats, so it’s pretty exciting. Welcome, Mayor, it’s nice to see you.
Daniel Biss: It’s so good to see you, Jen. Thanks for having me.
Jen Rubin
My pleasure, my pleasure. So, what do you think distinguishes you from a very, very crowded primary field?
Daniel Biss
Well, you’re right, Jen, there are 15 candidates in the field, and so different things differentiate me from different ones of them, but I would say, at a core, here’s what sets me apart from the whole field. we need, in my opinion, two things, and I think they’re both non-negotiable. One is someone who knows how to fight and win inside of government, who knows how to use the tools and levers of government to make change in the face of powerful opposition when it requires political courage and coalition-building skills to do so, and I’ve done that throughout my 5 years almost as mayor of Evanston and 8 years as a state legislator. you know, there are people who don’t agree with everything I’ve done, but no one would say, hey, that’s someone who didn’t make a mark on the government bodies where he served. The thing is, though, that by itself isn’t enough, because we are living in a time of a unique authoritarian threat, and you don’t overturn that just with government officials doing the right things in government buildings alone. It’s clear from history that you need a movement of people rising up in the streets to demand something different and better. And therefore, we also need someone who comes from movement organizing, is prepared to put their own body on the line, and knows how to lift up a real resistance movement of people demanding something different and better, and that also is not only what I’ve been doing recently as Donald Trump is the president, my own community has been under attack from ICE and CBP, but throughout my time. In fact, my transition from being a math professor to this, whatever I now am, was through organizing, through being an organizer, moving people onto the street to knock on doors and make change, and I just think we need that in this moment. And so. Though there are some people in this race who are the first of those two things, you know, have done some work in government, whether or not I necessarily would agree with everything that they’ve done in government, and there are some Other people in this race who are the second of those two things, organizers, activists, putting their body on the line, nobody else is both, and we need both.
Jen Rubin
Exactly. The president, for reasons that may confuse people, because he keeps changing, took the country to war on Saturday morning without authorization from Congress. What is your view, first of all, of the legality of the war, and secondly, of the wisdom of going to war under these circumstances?
Daniel Biss
Well, I appreciate you asking both of those questions, because they’re distinct and both critical questions. I think it’s very obviously illegal. I think this is a point on which almost all Democrats are united, and a great many Republicans are conspicuously silent, because there isn’t really much of a case on the other side of that argument. I also think it’s unwise, though, and I think that we are… too many people in this country are allowing themselves to be confused by a very real and critical fact, which is that the Iranian regime has been brutal and horrendous, that Iran is a threat across the region and even across the globe. That’s all true, and it’s a very serious problem that needs to be addressed, but none of that suggests that this military action is going to make things better. In fact, the history of military actions like this is unfortunately the precise opposite, and so I think it is reckless and dangerous. It is not, as you indicated in the way you framed the question, not exactly clear what Donald Trump is trying to achieve. Certainly not clear how he’s trying to achieve it, and I think that should give us all tremendous pause. By the way. U.S. service members are already dead as a result of this. Many civilians are dead. The human toll of this war will undoubtedly be enormous. And that’s in a situation where I think the strategic objectives are confused, and the very likely outcome is to move us a step backward and potentially be embroiled in a highly, highly complex, multi-country armed conflict. What a nightmare.
Jen Rubin
If you were in Congress right now, what votes would you be taking? What would you be saying to the administration and to your constituents?
Daniel Biss
Well, first of all, the simple part regarding the legality is that it’s critical, and this will happen shortly, that there’ll be a war powers resolution that must pass, of course. I would be supporting that. At this time, I would be opposed to authorizing the military action itself, and I would be talking with colleagues in Congress about the story that brought me into politics, actually. I was, you know, very happy as a mathematics professor in the early 2000s, and I watched the country dragged toward a war. A war against an appalling tyrant in the Middle East, but based on a dishonest justification, and without a clear plan. And I saw a lot of people who maybe secretly knew that, who were scared to acknowledge it, who even took votes they didn’t really believe in to authorize the war, because they were scared of the political blowback, and not 10 years later, everyone was wishing they had been on the right side of that from day one. I think that… that story is really important for people to remember, rather than cravenly doing what they think is politically safe in the moment, I think it’s much wiser to do what you think is right, do it in a prudent, responsible, thoughtful way, you don’t need to be a, you know, unhinged about it, but do what you think is right. History will judge you well, and when history judges you well, that probably will help you politically, too.
Jen Rubin
The president is spending billions on this war. We don’t know how much, and we don’t know how much will be spent by the time this ends, because we don’t really know what the end purpose is. And he has also dumped billions, tens of billions into Department of Homeland Security. What’s your view in terms of funding and trying to claw back some of that money from DHS? Do you agree with refusing to put any more money in the kitties so long as they are really unhinged, acting in the unlawful ways that we’ve seen in Chicago and elsewhere?
Daniel Biss
I do, I do, and I think it’s important to say, and… I understand, Jen, that we’ve all seen these horrifying pictures on our screens. It’s… it’s hard to explain, and I’m sort of feeling myself get emotional even as I start this sentence, it’s hard to explain the feeling of having them marauding around our community, doing things that, when I say what they did, it sounds like it must be hyperbole, right? Helicopters flying low over our town of Evanston, trying to spot which lawns have landscape workers so they can radio down to the ground, and then have the SUV roll up. And the masked-armed man jumps out of the SUV and tackles the person and takes him away, because He has been committing the crime of landscaping while brown. You know, Jen, on Halloween, Evanston’s a town of 75,000 people, so it’s not a big city, but it’s a… it’s a town of some… some substance, so there’s thousands and thousands of kids in our public school district. On Halloween, every school child in Evanston had indoor recess because it was not safe to go outside and play on a beautiful fall Chicago area day because our government was here. Because the federal government was here with their guns. And so, the extent to which these outrageous, unhinged, unlawful behaviors have been destabilizing to the well-being of communities, and of course, violation of the core principles of our country, as well as the Constitution. It just can’t be overstated, and in a situation like that, a situation that is that kind of emergency, that is not a difference of opinion about values or policies, but is a fundamental question about who are we as a country, and do the rights that we talk about actually mean something. the Congress needs to be aggressive. It needs to use the tools at its disposal, and not issue strongly worded letters, but continue to fund the occupations of our cities. So yes, I think it’s critical, particularly in an environment like this, where A the… conduct is so egregious, and B, the levers held by Democrats in Congress are so few, they gotta pull all of them. Use it all, do what you can, stand for something, stop the madness.
Jen Rubin
Let me ask you about the spending in your race. Yeah. APEC dumped tens of millions, or at least millions, I don’t know if tens of millions is right, into a New Jersey race. They’re dropping a lot of money into your race. They don’t identify who they are, they come up with very benign names, women for Chicago, and lots of other things. What do you say about, first of all, them not really feeling who they are, and the role they’ve come to play, where it seems, at least from the outside, that they equate being pro-Israel with endorsing whatever the current government of Israel is doing.
Daniel Biss
Yeah, that’s exactly right, and I’m gonna do my best to be efficient here, but I want to kind of spool all this out, because it’s important, I think, to enumerate the facts. And let me just start by saying… starting where you ended, which is so important, you know, I’m Jewish. My mother’s Israeli. My grandparents found a safe haven in Israel in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust. Most of my extended family on my mom’s side is still there, and I grew up visiting there every summer. So Israel… means something to me, and its right to exist as a Jewish democratic state and to defend itself, also means something to me. This is not some box I checked on a questionnaire just to make somebody happy, this is personal. However, the conduct of this Israeli government is appalling, in my opinion, and I think that the attitude of the U.S. has almost entirely had when the Netanyahu government violates international law, U.S. law, US policy, of, hey, we wish you wouldn’t, but also when you do, there will be no consequences. has not worked, cannot work, will not work. And the line that AIPAC has drawn in the sand is, will you commit to oppose any conditions on military aid to Israel whatsoever? A position which, by the way, is absurd for anyone to take relative to any country. Take Israel and Palestine out of the equation. So I’m not willing to say that. They were pretty clear, actually. They would have been happy to support me had I just fudged my position a little bit, but I’m not prepared to go to Congress by lying about who I am or what I believe, and so I turned down that offer. And so they are now spending millions. They first raised you know, I don’t know, let’s say a million and a half-ish, directly for my, opponents. She traveled around the country, went to APAC fundraisers. Almost all the money was from out of state. Actually, she raised so much money from Trump donors that she raised more money from Donald Trump donors than.
Jen Rubin
From…
Daniel Biss
our own district. Right? You’re running in a Democratic primary, more from Trump donors than constituents. And then when that money was spent, the super PAC that APAC set up, but that they set up with, as you put it, a benign name, elect Chicago Women, that… allows them to, you know, though everyone knows they’re not officially disclosing who’s behind the money, they have now spent millions, I think they’re past the $3 million mark, and it’s going up on a daily basis. Right now, they’re spending over $600,000 a week boosting their preferred candidate, and then another over $600,000 a week attacking me. the Jewish candidate with an Israeli mom. And so, so there’s a few things to say. So, to simplify this. Number one, they’re raising this massive amount of money from right-wing sources in support of a specific unwise policy agenda that is toxic in this district. It’s anathema in the district. Then they’re… because the policy agenda’s anathema, they’re hiding where the money came from with this shell-sleevey organization, and then they’re using that shell-free organization to run millions of dollars of ads, none of which say a word about their actual policy agenda, or anything about Israel, or Palestine, or foreign policy at all. All. So it’s a very, very troubling commentary on the state of our politics if they’re successful. Now, I think they won’t be. I think the Democrats in this district are not going to allow out-of-state Republicans to buy this election. But in order to make sure that doesn’t happen, we have to spend a tremendous amount of effort making sure people know where the money’s coming from. And by the way, the APAC attacks against me are very personal. They’re very, kind of, character-based. Daniel can’t be trusted, stuff like that. My responses are very fact-based. Here’s where the money comes from, here’s who’s giving it, here’s why, here’s what that might tell us about who this person would answer to if elected. You make your own choice.
Jen Rubin
Let me close with this. Your district has been represented by Jan Schakowsky for a long time. She’s very beloved in the district. What’s your relationship with her? What’s your view of how she’s represented the district? Are you more aligned with her, or more aligned with other members of Congress? How would you describe your relationship to her?
Daniel Biss
I consider her a friend, a mentor, and a role model. I admire her deeply, as do most people in our district, and frankly, my entry into politics was part watching her example and saying, hey, wait, this is somebody who’s maintained her integrity and had real backbone and stood up for the things that mattered, and become beloved doing so. Maybe there’s… maybe… maybe politics is worth trying out. I’m really honored to have her endorsement in this race, and by the way. kind of to the whole topic of this conversation, she didn’t really plan on endorsing early on. Her initial intent was to just watch as the race played out, and she watched for many months, and as we got closer to Election Day, she… came to the conclusion that if her values were to be carried forward, if her legacy would be carried forward, it was necessary for me to win, and so she’s been not only an endorser, but we’re campaigning together, we’re spending time together, and it’s really… Extraordinarily moving to me personally, and I know it means a lot to the voters in our district, because they see her as someone they can really trust in this time when it’s hard to know who to trust.
Jen Rubin
Well, Daniel, thank you very much for joining us. People want to find out more about you and your campaign. Where do they go?
Daniel Biss
DanielBiss.com is a website with probably far too much information. I’m a former academic, after all, and pretty much any social platform, either Daniel Biss or Bis for Congress would be the handle, and by the way, if you’re spelling it for the first time, I’m flattered that you want to call it Bliss with an L, but that’ll get you to the wrong place. It’s B-I-S-S with no L.
Jen Rubin
I’ve made that mistake a couple times myself, folks. And remember, for you in Illinois, it’s gonna be a date that you probably remember. March 17. I know that sounds familiar. It is St. Paddy’s Day, but it’s also the day for your election. So, remember to vote and then celebrate, rather than celebrate, then vote. So thank you so much. We’ll be watching the race very carefully. I think, folks, this is a absolute decisive inflection point, and this race in particular, for Jan Schakowsky to get off the sidelines shows how Democrats, I think, need to respond to this intervention and need to put an end to what APAC is doing. So thank you so much, Daniel, and we look forward to speaking to you soon.
Daniel Biss
Thank you so much, Jen. Talk to you soon.
