Biss-Wallace Campaign in Libertyville

At the cozy Hansa Coffee Roasters in Libertyville, a group of diverse men and women gathered to hear what progressive candidate for Illinois Lt. Governor, Litesa Wallace, had to say. Sprinkled in with the crowd were candidates for Lake County offices like Holly Kim for Lake County Treasurer, or John Idleburg a candidate for Lake County Sheriff. Around the room were cookies and small bags with chocolate kisses inside of them that said “Biss” on the front. The people in the room were lively and excited; a sort of buzz filled the room. Wallace was late, waiting in Rockford for her babysitter to show up. Unwilling to leave her four-month-old home alone, Wallace drove as fast as she could (legally) from Rockford.
While waiting for Wallace, Anthony Vega from the Sierra Club and Allie McRaith, a field organizer for the Biss-Wallace campaign, led the conversation. Vega, discussing the recent Sierra Club endorsement of the Biss-Wallace campaign, said “with Team Biss, Illinois will be a powerhouse in the next four to eight years.” Here, Allie McRaith stepped in to assure the crowd that the candidate would be there soon. She went on to tout the legislative experience of both Biss and Wallace, and lack of such experience of the other two democratic candidates JB Pritzker and Chris Kennedy saying “[Pritzker] thinks its an auction and it's going to go to the highest bidder, and we keep saying, no this is an election not an auction.”
Soon however, the pair wouldn’t have to keep stalling. Wallace walked through the door to the tune of a cheering crowd. After a short introduction of herself, she expressed hope to have a “face-off with Rauner in November.” Wallace promised to restore what was dilapidated and destroyed, and to build on what was laid as the foundation before the current governor.
Opening up the floor for questions, Wallace successfully and satisfactorily answered a difficult question about what the Biss Team planned to do to help farmers. She promised to invest in rural communities and to help develop clean energy. Wallace discussed hate crimes, and her reintroduced expansion of the Hate Crime Statute.
Wallace next met the inevitable question defining American politics at the moment. When asked about her reaction to the Parkland shooting and her position on gun control, calm and poised, Wallace expressed her pride in the youth leading the movement and called for more collaboration with groups like Black Lives Matter. She commended the Illinois state House for passing a ban on bump stocks and raising the age to legally buy an assault rifle. Wallace also said that “so often individuals fly under the radar, or they come to our attention and people don’t know what to do.” She hoped to expand mental health resources and educate people on how to deal with these types of situations. She called for getting weapons of the streets and strengthening social services.
After a plethora of topics, I soon posed my question on gerrymandering, and Wallace visibly changed. She seemed surprised for a moment, but soon regained her composure and bounced back. She condemned people who take “pens and pencil[s]” to maps, but made sure to make it clear that when drawing maps fairly, they would be careful not to marginalize any group. She avoided committing to completely fair maps, and wouldn’t say that Biss would create those, but she did commit to at least trying.
At the end of the evening, Wallace was asked what she wanted to leave the crowd with, she waited for a moment, gathering her thoughts then gave an impassioned speech that summed up her energy that evening. She expressed a great change coming in Illinois and, indeed, echoing across the country. She spoke of the power of grassroots campaign like the one Daniel Biss had created. Wallace said that they planned to “enact and mobilize real progressive policy”.
Allie McRaith finished the night with a call to action, asking people to volunteer with the primary only days away. She gave hope, even with the polls showing Pritzker in the lead. “You can’t catch a movement in numbers” she said, rounding off an enthusiastic evening for the Biss-Wallace campaign.