A flurry of endorsements came down Monday as early voting began in Illinois and the candidates gear up for the March 15 primary.
Here's a rundown of some of the most recent endorsements that were announced in the races for the 8th and 10th congressional districts, 7th and 26th state House seats, and the controversial Cook County State's Attorney and Circuit Court Clerk posts.
Elected officials, low-wage workers and others are ramping up the pressure on Republicans in Congress to support a federal minimum wage hike.
The national “Give America A Raise” bus tour, which backs President Barack Obama’s call to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, made its way to Illinois Monday. The effort piggybacks on Obama's call during his 2014 State of the Union address for Congress to "give America a raise." Obama has pressed Congress to take action after he announced an Executive Order to have federal contractors pay their employees $10.10 an hour.
The 11-state bus tour, spearheaded by Americans United for Change, stopped in Chicago Monday morning and saw support from Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and workers' right activists in the state, including members of the statewide coalition Raise Illinois as well as Citizen Action-Illinois.
“If you work 40 hours a week and you do a good job, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty, and that’s what raising the minimum wage is all about,” said Quinn, who first called for bumping the state's current $8.25 minimum wage to at least $10 an hour during his 2013 State of the State address.
Community activist Jhatayn 'Jay' Travis formally announced her candidacy in Illinois' 26th district race, going up against incumbent Democrat Christian Mitchell.
Unions have been crucial in helping women get rights, better pay and
benefits in the workplace, panelists at a forum in Waukegan stressed
Wednesday evening.
With a backdrop of teacher strikes in Chicago
and Lake Forest, this forum focused not on endorsing candidates for
office, but on dispelling "ignorance" too often associated with unions,
according to an organizer with the pro-union group Industrial Workers of
the World.
“We are in the fight for our life,” said Helen
Ramirez-Odell, a panelist at the forum who worked nearly 44 years as a
Chicago Public Schools nurse and is now a CTU district supervisor. “It’s
taken a lot to get teachers to this point.”
In response to more than 170 impending layoffs at Sensata Technologies, a Bain Capital-owned plant slated to be outsourced, a collection of community,
religious, and labor leaders have promised to ban together and fight
back to save the Freeport jobs.
“When I found out that my
job was going to be shipped overseas to China ... at first I was angry, now
just five or six months away from unemployment, I’m scared,” said
Cheryl Randecker, a Sensata employee who has worked at the plant for 33
years. “As a single mother, I don’t just worry about myself, I actually
worry about my daughter."
Both Gov. Pat Quinn and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias earned the endorsements of Citizen Action/Illinois,
one of the state's largest public interest organizations. The group's
state PAC also voted to support Robin Kelly for state treasurer and
David Miller for state comptroller. Their full state slate is available
here.
Illinois health care activists came together yesterday evening to thank Sen. Dick Durbin for his leadership in Washington and to celebrate the passage of the Democratic reform package.
A
recent Illinois Supreme Court ruling did away with a 2005 bill
establishing caps on malpractice
damages. But it also voided some crucial insurance reforms as well.
Will legislators manage to reintstate the latter protections this year?
A flurry of endorsements came down Monday as 
Elected officials, low-wage workers and others are ramping up the pressure on Republicans in Congress to support a federal minimum wage hike.
Unions have been crucial in helping women get rights, better pay and
benefits in the workplace, panelists at a forum in Waukegan stressed
Wednesday evening.
In response to more than 170 impending layoffs at 
