Last Halloween was among the most traumatic days our community has experienced. Federal agents (mostly from U.S. Customs and Border Protection) spent hours in Evanston during so-called “Operation Midway Blitz.” After wreaking havoc in multiple locations, they caused a car crash near Oakton and Asbury, beat and pepper-sprayed peaceful bystanders, pointed guns at residents, and detained people for hours.

The purpose of this message is to explain what’s been done so far and what the next steps are in seeking accountability for this mayhem. This is a hard problem, because the Trump Administration makes all of the “normal” ways of going about this unworkable. At a minimum, the action of the agents was surely a violation of DHS use of force policies - but Trump’s DHS would never do anything about that. Similarly, the idea that Trump’s DOJ would bring any criminal prosecution is absurd.

The state-level criminal justice system is the last option to hold the agents accountable. The Evanston Police Department opened an investigation almost immediately, but the FBI then opened its own investigation with the intent of using EPD’s case materials. Again, it is inconceivable that the FBI was acting in good faith.

In late October, Governor Pritzker signed an executive order creating the Illinois Accountability Commission, charged with investigating the conduct of federal agents during “Operation Midway Blitz” and considering policy recommendations in reaction to the harm they caused.

On April 30, 2026, the Accountability Commission released its final report, which analyzed the Evanston events and described the actions of federal agents Timothy Donahue, Thomas Parsons, and Edward Maxa as a “brutal attack... without apparent justification” and alleged these agents used “excessive force.”The report concluded that “[b]ased on the information it has gathered, the Commission has determined that there is reasonable cause to believe that federal agents should be formally investigated for possible violations of agency policy, state and federal criminal laws, and individuals’ constitutional rights.”

Here’s the challenge: the Evanston Police can formally investigate this - they have. But embedded in that investigation lies a thorny legal question: what happens when conduct that would ordinarily constitute a prosecutable assault is perpetrated by a federal agent purportedly carrying out a law enforcement function?

Local police departments are simply not set up to answer this question: in fact, according to our city manager and police chief, “[t]his expertise is outside of the jurisdiction of the Evanston Police Department.”

I am committed to seeing this handled through a rigorous, lawful investigation that can withstand scrutiny and actually deliver accountability.

After months of investigation and communication with the Illinois Accountability Commission, the Office of the Attorney General, the Illinois State Police, and the Governor’s Office, Chief Stewart has determined that LERU is the avenue most appropriate to provide a path forward, and has turned over video and other evidence to the LERU.

My expectation is simple: that these agents be held fully accountable for their actions. Prosecutors in other jurisdictions have proven that federal agents are not above the law, and I am hopeful we can prove the same here in Cook County. If you have evidence, whether in the form of photos, recordings, or testimony, that you’d like to share with LERU, please do so here.

I know this process has been frustratingly slow. From the beginning, I have pushed law enforcement and every stakeholder involved to act with urgency and pursue justice without delay. I will keep pushing until they do.

Sincerely,

Daniel Biss

That said, I strongly support their decision to accept the application of the Evanston for a Free Palestine marching unit. In my view, doing anything else would have been a violation of and an insult to the very ideals we gather to celebrate on the Fourth of July.

I understand the intensity of local sentiment surrounding Israel and Palestine, and the concern that public events touching on the Middle East can generate. My approach has been consistent: it would be inappropriate for the government to censor opinions that are peacefully voiced. That principle has held regardless of the viewpoint being expressed, from the encampments at Northwestern University to the recent local visit by a member of the Israel Defense Forces.

Beyond that fundamental principle, I believe this is an important moment to reemphasize the distinction between criticism of the Israeli government, support for the Palestinian people, and antisemitism. Criticism of the Israeli government — like criticism of the American government or any other — is a legitimate form of political expression. Solidarity with the Palestinian people, the overwhelming majority of whom are civilians enduring immense suffering, is an expression of humanitarian concern. Neither is antisemitism, nor were the messages that I have seen shared by the Evanston for a Free Palestine parade participants. At the same time, antisemitism is real, it is rising, and it has no place in Evanston. We can and must hold both truths at once: protecting free expression while standing firmly against hatred directed at any of our neighbors.

That is what the Fourth of July asks of us. The freedoms we celebrate matter most when they are tested. They are not reserved only for popular opinions or comfortable moments. A parade that welcomes the full range of our community’s voices, even those that spark disagreement, is a reminder of why we celebrate Independence Day in the first place.

Once again, I’m here to put out a call for support for a member of our community who has been targeted by ICE.

TLDR: An Evanston family needs help. Click here to give to their GoFundMe, or here to support their Amazon Gift List.

The Evanston Roundtable this week reported on the story of Francisca and Francisco Jasso, a couple who came to Evanston from Mexico in 2006. Francisco owns a landscaping business in town, F. Jasso Landscaping. Francisca is very ill from advanced Parkinson’s, a brutal disease that has left her dependent on a wheelchair and requiring extensive daily care.

Now, enter ICE.

As the Roundtable reports:

“Francisco Jasso is also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, though he is in the process of obtaining a work permit. The last year has created the most strain on the family thus far with the threat of federal immigration enforcement raids in the area and losing their insurance coverage, he said.

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were taking residents into custody nearly weekly in October last year, he could not go to work for days, and at one point as long as two weeks. He recalled hiding in a customer’s garage for hours after hearing that agents were patrolling the city.

Despite still having fears of being taken by agents, Francisco Jasso has returned to work, since the business is the main source of income for the family.”

Given these conditions, the Jassos are understandably struggling.

Community organizer Jacqueline Mendoza has put out a call to action, urging us to consider doing what we can to support the Jassos.

Their Amazon Wishlist page can be found here. Amazingly, already, our community has stepped up to purchase many of the items, but there are still some things left that you can help with.

A GoFundMe page to support the Jassos is here, and we still have a ways to go to fulfill their needs, so if you can chip in, please do.

When the federal government fails us—or worse–turns against us, we have to come together to support each other and get through it as we fight back. I’m always proud of how our community lifts up neighbors when they’re in need. Now is one of those moments. You know what to do.

In solidarity,

Daniel

To all the dads out there teaching the next generation what it looks like to lead with love, Happy Father’s Day!

Here are some facts about the program:

• It offers Black residents and their descendants up to $25,000 to attempt to address specific policies of race-based housing discrimination in Evanston from the early 20th Century.

• The program was approved in 2021, and has been celebrated as a model for the nation.

• Already, more than 200 claims have been filed through the program.

When we’ve done harm, it’s our responsibility to try to repair it. That’s what our reparations program is all about. It was created thoughtfully and intentionally, and we’re proud that it’s helping to make right what was wrong. We’ll keep standing up for the program in the face of Trump’s attacks.

Watch my interview with CNN about this wrongheaded lawsuit here.

Read more:

• Evanston Now: Biss defends reparations amid DOJ challenge

• The Guardian: Trump administration seeks to halt first US reparations program for Black people

• New York Times: Trump Officials Challenge Reparations Program in Chicago Suburb

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It’s a clear-cut example of a prosecutor weaponizing the justice system to go after political opponents. And while it was an enormous waste of resources and it monumentally disrupted people’s lives, the effort ultimately failed—and that gives me hope. 

Last September, six people — the "Broadview 6" — were among a large group protesting outside an ICE processing center in Broadview, a western suburb, as part of the response to the Trump administration's "Operation Midway Blitz" mass deportation campaign.

On the day in question, and on other occasions, I was at Broadview, supporting our community and exercising my First Amendment rights. The sheer violence protestors received from ICE agents was like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I watched protestors pushed, thrown to the ground, tear gassed and generally brutalized in the name of “keeping order.” I watched as an ICE vehicle, seemingly intentionally, drove directly into the crowd of protesters. 

Federal prosecutors went after these six protesters with a felony conspiracy charge, alleging they conspired to "interrupt, hinder, and impede" a federal immigration agent. This was an attempt to criminalize dissent — to take high-profile protesters, and make an example of them. The message the Department of Justice was trying to send was clear: speaking out against the Trump administration is a risk not worth taking.

Fortunately, our justice system is set up in such a way that it’s difficult to go around jailing your political opponents. In order to even get an indictment, a grand jury, a group of ordinary citizens, must decide whether there's enough evidence to formally charge someone with a crime. 

Grand juries are meant to be a check on government power — in this case, a buffer between an overzealous partisan prosecutor and ordinary citizens exercising their rights. The prosecutor presents evidence, but the grand jurors are supposed to deliberate independently, free from pressure, and decide on their own whether charges are warranted. 

The first time prosecutors presented this evidence, a grand jury refused to indict the protesters. In fact, Chicago grand juries declined to indict at least four other immigration protesters last fall. Citizens, looking at the evidence, kept saying no.

So what did the government do? When the lead prosecutor presented the case a second time, she excused grand jurors who disagreed with the government's case, including one who referred to the case as a “crock of shit.” She asked grand jurors who didn't support the government's case not to come back, and reportedly had improper contact with jurors outside the grand jury room. 

Then, on the morning of the third attempt to indict, U.S. Attorney Boutros himself appeared before the grand jury. He gave a threatening speech, asking jurors to raise their hands if they were “struggling with a certain type of cases, such as the immigration cases” explaining that jurors unable to “receive evidence impartially without fear or favor, setting aside personal biases, views, and passions, are a threat to the rule of law” and “extraordinary measures may be required to restore the rule of law.” 

Ultimately, because of this egregious misconduct, the case collapsed and charges were dropped. And rightfully so. When a prosecutor keeps re-running a case until they get the answer they want — kicking out the citizens who say no until only "yes" votes remain — that's not justice. It is exactly the kind of thing that happens in authoritarian countries.

This is why I have called for U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros to resign. I'm not alone. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have jointly called for his resignation, as well as members of the Illinois congressional delegation including Jan Schakowsky, Delia Ramirez, Mike Quigley, and Chuy Garcia, as well as former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

Look at what actually happened here. The government tried to criminalize dissent. They tried to make examples out of people for the crime of protesting. And it backfired. The case fell apart. The misconduct got exposed. Elected leaders are now demanding resignations.

Across the Trump administration, we are watching this pattern repeat. They are spending their time managing scandals, firing people, and walking back overreach — giving them less time to devote to separating families and ratcheting up the cruelty. That is what it looks like when public pressure is working. That is what it looks like when ordinary people refuse to look away.

When this administration is constantly breaking the law, it can grow difficult to call it out in specific detail each time it occurs. But it’s enormously important for elected leaders to say loudly: this person is unfit to serve in government because they are bending and breaking our laws. So here's my ask: don't let this one slide past. Talk about this case at dinner. Forward this to a friend and tell them what happened in Broadview. Say the words out loud: the DOJ tried to rig a grand jury to jail protesters, and they didn’t get away with it.

That's how the pressure stays on. That's how it keeps working.

– Daniel 

2004 was my on-ramp. I was a math teacher, peripherally following politics but not directly involved myself. That May, after John Kerry had wrapped up the nomination, I opened my paper copy of The New Yorker and I read an investigative piece by Seymour Hersh about the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. As I read about what our own government was doing in our name, something in me shifted. I wanted to do something, but had no idea where to start.

So I did the thing people did back then: I went to meetup.com to find a way to volunteer.

There’d been a monthly “Kerry for President” meetup chugging along for a year with a handful of people attending, but that spring after he had become the nominee, engagement started to grow. The first event I attended at Goose Island was an absolute madhouse.

To organize all this newfound enthusiasm, the leaders created stations, each table detailing the ways you could get involved. One was about how to give money. One was about throwing a house party to raise money. They were all, basically, about fundraising — and I stood there thinking, this is not for me.

And then there was one station that basically said: here’s how to get on a bus and go knock on doors in a swing state.

That was for me.

By the end of the summer I was helping to lead the operation. Eventually it was thousands of people heading to Wisconsin to knock on doors and make an impact in our neighboring swing states. On the way home, I’d stand in the aisle of the moving bus with my clipboard and give motivational speeches on why this effort mattered. Most importantly, I learned that the next step after having that radicalizing moment where you think, “this is not the country I want to live in,” is to DO something. It’s to act. Not to opine or hand-wring, but jump in, and stay in.

That was the summer I fell in love with organizing. It changed my life, and I watched in real time as it changed other people’s. I went, quickly, from a guy with opinions who figured nothing anyone did made a difference, to being part of a group of people working together to make change. That transformation is the whole reason I’m in this, and it’s why I’m still here.

Today, everything has changed and nothing has changed. We need people organizing. We need people who understand that you cannot look away from the thing you hate and retreat into nihilism. You have to join arms with others and figure out how to raise your voice.

When I watch the response that people are mounting against ICE right now, I recognize it. It’s the same thing. Ordinary people coming together to build power — in solidarity, in community, refusing to be bystanders.

I know the obvious objection, because I feel it too. We lost in 2004, just like we did in 2024. Not only did we lose, but sometimes we start to question if we actually made progress. If we’re standing in roughly the same place we stood in 2004, did any of it work? Some might say we’re still fighting the exact same fights.

The point was never to win the fight forever. That was never an achievable outcome. When I think about this I’m reminded of a quote by Coretta Scott King, “Freedom is never really won forever. You earn it and win it in every generation. That is what we have not taught young people, or older ones for that matter. You do not finally win a state of freedom that is protected forever. It doesn’t work that way.”

There’s a huge gap between two lies — “nothing matters” on one side, and “this one thing will fix everything” on the other. The truth lives in the uncomfortable middle: we are going to keep fighting, forever. Because the moment we win and decide we’re done and move on — that’s when we lose. It’s a generational promise and a generational duty to keep going.

Yes, it is genuinely infuriating that we’re back here. But that’s not a sign that nothing matters. It’s the opposite. If people in 2004 hadn’t stood up and said that’s wrong, we’d be somewhere far worse.

When we lost in 2004, I was devastated. It’s demoralizing to put your all into something, to believe that you’re on the right side of history and that the opposition is dangerous, corrupt and war-hungry. To spend every free moment making the argument and drawing the distinction to every swing voter who will listen — and then to lose.

But then came 2006, and Democrats won, and we won big. We picked up 6 seats in the Senate and 31 seats in the House. We finally had real power to stop the Republican agenda and contain the damage they were doing to this country at home and abroad. Two years later was 2008 and the biggest shift in sentiment towards our political system in decades. Gay marriage was legalized, we passed the Affordable Care Act and other legislation that truly made people’s lives better.

During that time of incredible progress, the people on the other side didn’t stop fighting either — so some of that progress got clawed back. That’s awful, but it’s not a failure that undermines the legitimacy of the good work that came before. That’s the reality of our system.

Society is a long series of hard decisions about how we organize ourselves — about dignity and justice, always and forever. We win sometimes and we lose sometimes. The fact that we’re in hard fights, even some of the same hard fights, doesn’t mean we haven’t won a lot. It means the work is permanent.

So: don’t look away. Don’t retreat into nihilism. Find your station, get on the bus, and keep working.

Join us at operationswingstate.com.

– Daniel

What’s something people don’t tell you about 20 years of marriage?

Karin: No one told me anything! Seriously — everyone was just like, “thank God, he’s nice, good, go, you’re done. Not telling you a thing!” This is like my sister who told me when I was having our first kid, “you’re going to give birth? Don’t read about what happens, don’t look, you’ll be fine.”

Daniel: Here’s what actually happened with us: we met on April 1st, 2005, and by the end of May we had a wedding date booked. And everyone was like “they’re insane, this is a disaster. We’re not going to talk to them about it.”

Karin: Exactly.

Daniel: But they were wrong!

What were your first impressions of each other?

Karin tried to skip this one, because well…

Daniel: Well — I was instantly in love.

Karin: He was instantly in love, and I was wanting to make sure…

What’s a tradition that was accidentally created?

Daniel: I think Christmas at the beach was an accident, wasn’t it?

Karin: One hundred percent. Yes.

Daniel: It started Christmas of 2008. Arya was a baby, I was a depressed guy who’d just lost an election, and Karin was basically dealing with two infants. We were alone over Christmas — I don’t even fully remember why — we had gone to see my parents over Thanksgiving and so we just went to the beach on Christmas. That was 2018.

Karin: That was actually 2008.

Daniel: Wow, good point, 2008. And since then, every single Christmas Day we go to the beach. Often here, sometimes not — and even when we’re somewhere that doesn’t exactly have a beach, we manufacture a beach-adjacent —

Karin: A waterfront opportunity.

Daniel: It’s a really great tradition. I love it.

Karin: It’s a great tradition. Highly recommend it. Please steal it.

What advice would you give people whose partners are in a demanding season of life?

Karin: Lean on your friends.

Daniel: That’s great advice

Karin: Lean on your friends. And — everyone says that when you’re in a demanding season it’s impossible to ask for help. But for sure, if you’re able to, actually ask for help.

Is there a phase of life that brought you closer together?

Daniel: Yeah, and it’s a very mechanical answer, but I think it’s true. The period of time between when I was in the state legislature and, more recently, becoming a congressional candidate — we were just physically together. A lot less remote parenting, a lot less remote relationship. And it mattered a lot for us. Really a lot.

Tell me about one ordinary moment that ended up meaning a lot.

Daniel: I’m going to give an extremely sentimental answer — unsurprisingly. There was a moment in the summer of 2005, in Bucharest. You were spending the summer in Turkey, I came to visit you, and then we went to Romania — because really, what new couple doesn’t take a romantic trip to Romania? We kissed under this tree, and it somehow felt to me like I’d figured out that our lives together were going to be great. We didn’t talk about it. But then you surreptitiously collected a leaf from that tree, framed it, and gave it to me much later. And it was this message that we were able to see the important moments the same way without even needing to say it out loud. I carry that with me — always. Literally always.

Here’s to the next twenty. — Daniel & Karin

Below are some of the questions I’ve been hearing lately, here and on other channels.

How do we keep ICE in focus after Operation Midway Blitz and what’s the update on Ricardo and his mother?

First, thank you for the response to the post and video we did about the Navarrete family. For those who missed it: Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete and his mother Liliana were detained by ICE nearly ten weeks ago when they reported for what they thought was an immigration check-in. Cruelly, it turned out to be a trap. They were arrested, shipped between states and unconstitutionally detained. Ricardo eventually ended up in a Kentucky county prison that houses people convicted of violent crimes. A child, thrown in prison for nothing more than showing up where the government told him to be.

Ricardo missed the end of his soccer season. He missed the end of his senior year. But last week, after a judicial decision affirming that holding innocent people in detention is unconstitutional, Liliana came home. Ricardo was released a few days later. Yesterday, he graduated. This morning, his photo was on the cover of the Chicago Tribune.

Photo Credit: Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune

Community is the antidote to authoritarianism.

No top-down magic wand brought the Navarretes home. Their community did it. People who rallied around them, secured legal representation, told their story week after week after week, raised money, and eventually drove hundreds of miles to pick them up and return them to where they belonged, just in time for graduation.

That’s the model. That’s what works. The speed and brutality of ICE operations is designed to demoralize — to move faster than our attention spans, to make this feel normal. We can’t let it.

So start with who’s closest to you. Distribute Hands Off Chicago signs to your neighbors. Host a community training. Make sure the vulnerable people on your block know where to find support and legal resources. We need to use the levers of government AND the power of advocacy to push back against this authoritarian regime. And we need to do it in a way that’s antithetical to their top-down violence. We have a movement that is inclusive, kind, communal and also likelier to win.

What can the Illinois congressional delegation do to educate voters about the human rights violations ICE is committing — and will anyone be criminally liable?

We talk a lot about holding this administration accountable and I think it’s important to define what that entails.

In a functional Congress, high-level accountability runs through hearings. Committees subpoena documents and witnesses. Officials testify under oath. A factual record is built in public, indexed forever and that record becomes the basis for legislation, for civil action, for impeachment, and yes, where warranted, for criminal referral.

We don’t have that Congress right now. Republicans control the House and they refuse to investigate this administration. Which is exactly why flipping the House matters so much, and also why even as we do everything we can to win seats, Democrats have to prepare to be ready immediately should we take the majority. Will the people responsible for planning and ordering the atrocities committed by ICE and CBP be criminally liable? Will they be impeached? I believe they should be, and I believe many will be. But that requires winning power back first. Until then, our job is to make sure we continue to try them in the court of public opinion. Every bit of pressure, every person persuaded, every fact brought to light is another step toward accountability.

How can we help you be successful in Congress — besides writing a check?

Let me answer the check part honestly first, because I think politicians usually duck it.

We are two and a half months into our general election campaign and reaching voters costs money. The fundraising treadmill that every candidate is on is something I genuinely hate, and getting big money out of politics is one of my primary goals. But the way you prove you can compete without being dependent on big money is by raising real money from real people in small amounts. So yes — if you can give what you’d spend on a lunch out, it helps. It all adds up, and the small donations we’ve raised through this Substack alone are already helping us build infrastructure to reach voters here and in swing districts elsewhere.

That said, there is so much you can do besides write a check.

The first is to help us grow our network, to talk to your friends. To bring your ideas and your community to this campaign. When volunteers ask me how to plug in sustainably, I tell them the same thing: do the thing only you can do. Think about your unique strengths and find a way to point them at this moment. We need everyone, but we need everyone doing what they’re best at — not everyone doing the same three things.

Sign up at danielbiss.com to volunteer. In addition to campaigning here in IL-9, we’ll be sending volunteers to neighboring states all summer and fall. If we want to be successful in Congress, we need a Democratic majority and that math runs through districts in the states surrounding Illinois.

Illinois has a trifecta in state government. Why haven’t we redistricted? Who’s standing in the way?

We didn’t redistrict this year in part because Indiana didn’t. Governor Pritzker used the threat of Illinois redistricting as a tool to stop Indiana from doing the same, which allowed us to maintain the same partisan balance we would have had if both states had redistricted, but without the disruption and chaos.

Unfortunately, after that worked, Trump targeted the Republican Indiana senators who resisted redistricting, and defeated most of them. That’s a pretty good indication of where we are – we have no choice but to wage maximum political warfare everywhere. Unilateral disarmament on redistricting — refusing to use the tools available to us while Republicans gerrymander aggressively in nearly every state they control — isn’t virtuous. It’s suicidal.

I think Illinois should redistrict before the 2028 elections. I’d rather live in a world where neither party drew maps for partisan advantage, and I’ll never stop fighting for that policy. But until we do, we have to play the game in front of us.

What’s your go-to Evanston news source?

Great question — I can’t pick just one, and the fact that I have options, that we all have options, is a true luxury and an essential, rapidly disappearing necessity for a healthy democracy.

In addition to the coverage we receive from Chicago news outlets, Evanston specifically has the Evanston Roundtable (nonprofit), Evanston Now (for-profit), and the Daily Northwestern (university-affiliated). We are extremely fortunate for a city of our size to have one credible news outlet, let alone three.

Full disclosure: they do good work, which means they’re sometimes tough on me which isn’t always fun. But it’s an enormous asset to the community. Our electorate is informed and engaged in significant part because we have real local journalism. The government here is held to account because there are people whose full-time job is to pay attention, and they make it easier for everyone else to be informed. As mayor, I’ve seen up close what that does for a community and it has driven home the importance of local journalism for me.

Keep the questions coming. Reply to this email, drop them in the comments, or send them my way on any of the socials.

— Daniel

During his first campaign, Trump joked he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. Then, it sounded outrageous. But over time, that line stopped sounding like a hyperbole and started to feel like a political reality.

So I get it when people tell me he feels invincible. He has gotten away with it. So far.

But one thing about being married to a historian, is that it’s a good way to be alerted when familiar patterns start to repeat themselves. History shows that when authoritarians believe there are no limits on their power, they begin making larger and larger mistakes.

That is where Trump is right now.

He is politically weaker than he appears. The cracks in his coalition have become visible. And if Democrats can recognize this moment for the opportunity it is, we have a real chance to break his hold on this country.

One of the clearest examples is Trump’s deeply unpopular war in Iran.

Trump has offered no coherent strategy, no clear exit plan, and no honest accounting of why the U.S. is at war with Iran. Thirteen American service members are dead. The 60-day clock established by the War Powers Act for unauthorized military action has long expired.

Last Tuesday, the Senate voted 50–47 to advance a resolution forcing Trump to end military action in Iran. Four Republicans crossed the aisle.

Then came the House vote.

Or rather, the House vote that never happened.

On Thursday, the House was supposed to take its own War Powers vote. But Republican leadership knew they were going to lose so they cancelled the vote entirely. They sent members home rather than allow a bipartisan majority to go on record opposing the President and his unauthorized war.

But they can’t delay that vote forever.

House Republicans will have to either stand up to Trump or vote against the majority of Americans who oppose this war.

It’s not just the war. Trump’s corruption has become so brazen that even parts of his own party are starting to recoil.

Last week, Trump’s acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a $1.776 billion (yes, that number is deliberate) slush fund to compensate people who claim they were politically targeted by the Justice Department during Biden’s term. Among those eligible are individuals convicted of assaulting Capitol police officers on January 6th.

The setup of this fund is a mind-bending exercise in corruption. It is effectively a settlement between the Trump organization on one side, and the federal government Trump controls on the other. Trump is the plaintiff and the defendant. He holds the pen that signs the check to himself, his friends, and radicalized militia members acting on his behalf. A separate provision bars the IRS from ever auditing his or his family members’ tax returns.

Some of the sharpest criticism of this decision has come from the highest levels of the Republican Party.

Mitch McConnell called it “stupid on stilts.” Lisa Murkowski publicly reminded the White House that laws don’t simply materialize on the President’s desk to be signed. Senate Republicans left Washington for Memorial Day without passing Trump’s immigration enforcement funding package because they could not resolve internal disagreements over the slush fund provision. Trump’s party broke discipline because his corruption is becoming impossible to defend.

The war he won’t end and the slush fund are connected by the same underlying reality: a president using the government as his own organized crime ring.

Trump built his entire political identity around the opposite claim. He predicated his appeal on the fact that he was a self-funded billionaire who didn’t need this job, who was doing it because he cared so deeply about the American people.

The facade is cracking. You can see it in his approval numbers. You can see it in Republican senators struggling to defend indefensible behavior. You can see it when House GOP leadership has to cancel votes.

Trump and Republicans were able to win because millions of people look at our broken political system and do not see anyone else willing to seriously challenge it.

They see a Washington that runs on legalized bribery, laws written by lobbyists, a healthcare system that bankrupts families, and a housing market that has priced young people out of the communities they grew up in. Then they see Democrats whose response, too often, is to defend the institutions that produced those outcomes.

People are not wrong about the system.

The system is broken. It is corrupt. The status quo is screwing them over.

And if our party positions itself as the party that will defend the status quo against authoritarianism we will lose. Again.

What I am trying to do in my own campaign — and what Democrats across the country need to do — is make anti-corruption and democratic reform central to our agenda.

We need a real plan for accountability starting in January of 2027. Investigations. Oversight. Reforms that make it harder for presidents to weaponize government for personal gain. And we need an economic agenda that confronts the concentration of wealth and power that has hollowed out our communities. Because here is the thing about Trump:

The reason he survives scandal after scandal, is not because he is politically brilliant. It is because he identified the right villain.

Washington.

The system.

He told Americans the system was rigged against them, and millions believed him, because the system is rigged against them.

If Democrats want to win voters back, we have to make the argument ourselves. We have to be willing to say clearly and specifically, that concentrated wealth, corruption and corporate influence are distorting our democracy and making life harder for working people.

Then we have to show up every day with the policies to fix it.

Trump is not invincible. He never was. He is a corrupt man running a corrupt government, and the country is starting to see it.

Our job is to give them somewhere to go.

If there are candidates in our party you see centering the message of anti-corruption, accountability and corporate greed, speak up and support them. Volunteer, make a donation, host an event, more candidates will share this message if we can show that it’s resonating. Our general election campaign is now in full swing, and I hope you’ll consider supporting our work here.

Thanks for all you do.

— Daniel

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This year, I can’t stop thinking about a family that had that all stolen from them overnight.

Three years ago, Ricardo Hernandez-Navarrete and his mother, Liliana, came to Chicago from Colombia after fleeing an extraordinarily dangerous situation. That’s the core of what this country is supposed to be: a place that is not just a safe haven from those escaping violence, but also a place where they can thrive.

When Ricardo and Liliana arrived, it was the dead of winter. Ricardo walked miles through a city completely foreign to him to find the indoor facility where Mather High School’s soccer team practiced. His passion and talent for the game were remarkable, and he has even earned a spot on Truman College’s fall 2026 team.

This past March, Liliana and Ricardo were told to report for a hearing about their asylum case. But there was no hearing. It was a trap set up by ICE to detain them.

Because Ricardo had just turned 18, ICE separated them – and then shipped them out of state and jailed them. Ricardo has missed his soccer season and the end of his senior year. He’s been sitting in a jail instead of a classroom.

They did what they were supposed to. They applied for asylum. They got Real IDs and work permits. They reported for check-ins. They worked hard, went to school, and built a life.

This is what the Trump administration means when they keep insisting that they’re going after “the worst of the worst.” It’s Orwellian.

In a reasonable world, Ricardo would be held up by our government as representing the promise of America. Instead, they entrapped him, unlawfully detained him, shuffled him through eight different detention facilities, and are now holding him in a county jail that leases beds to the Department of Homeland Security. Family advocate Kristy Morrow told me that just this week, Ricardo met someone serving a 60-year sentence for a serious violent crime.

Thanks to a recent judicial decision, Liliana was released, and as of just a few days ago, she is home–but Ricardo’s release remains in jeopardy. She is bravely speaking out and calling for her son to be sent home to her. He has a bond hearing next week, but we don’t know whether the judge will approve bond at all, or if he does, what it could cost.

Here’s what gives me hope: this barbarism is not popular. Most people in this country do not support what Trump and his crew of anti-immigrant zealots are doing. Most people look at a picture of Ricardo and Liliana, and their humanity kicks in, and they think — “this is wrong, and we have to do something.”

And we can.

Share this story, and others like it. Reach out to immigration support organizations in your area and ask how you can help. Donate to the Navarrete family’s GoFundMe to support their legal case. If a judge approves bond for Ricardo, it could be a huge expense for this family. Let’s make sure they can cover the cost.

Earlier this week, Senator Dick Durbin shared this family’s story on the Senate floor. Kristy and Liliana have spoken to dozens of media outlets, and every day this heart-wrenching story about our neighbors continues to gain more attention. The Trump administration wants everyone who’s horrified by their actions to be demoralized into silence. We can’t allow them to win. Let’s keep the pressure on. Let’s get Ricardo home to his family, where he belongs.

— Daniel

Saturday was a chance to say thank you, and to launch our general election campaign. We need to carry this energy forward, building a vigorous campaign that competes everywhere.

But that’s not all we’re going to do. We were joined by Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who has always channeled the power of this district of activists, of world changers, to advance progressive causes and candidates far beyond our community’s borders.

This election will decide whether we can put a stop to Donald Trump, MAGA and a full slide into authoritarianism. That’s because a Democratic Congress is how we stop Donald Trump’s attacks on everything we hold dear. Trump and the Republicans are rigging the electoral system and if we want to ensure a fair presidential election in 2028, we need to start winning power back now.

With democracy, affordability, dignity and basic human rights on the line, I’m asking you to join us. We need to organize. We need to mobilize across the Midwest. We need to win back the House and Senate. And we need YOU in order to do that.

We were also joined by Patrick Hanley, my future State Senator and co-founder of Operation Swing State, the network that mobilized thousands of people in the last election cycle. OSS is back and ready to get to work flipping House and Senate seats in Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio.

To everyone who has given their time to this campaign: from the bottom of my heart, thank you. If you’re looking for a sign to get off the sidelines and into this fight — here it is! Please sign up here and join us as we knock doors, make calls and write post-cards for the races that can win us back power in Washington!

I keep thinking of the proverb: better to light a candle than curse the darkness. Volunteering to elect more Democrats is how we light a candle.

Thank you for being in this fight,

Daniel

After many hours of consideration of more than 60 amendments, the Evanston City Council passed Housing4All, our strategic housing plan which lays the groundwork for creating more affordable housing across our community. (And even though much of the discussion was contentious, we passed it on a 7-2 vote!)

Evanston has no higher priority than housing – making sure that residents who want to stay can afford to do so, retaining the diversity that makes us vibrant, and welcoming more people to make our community even stronger. The passage of this plan, which includes many strategies to support homeowners and renters alike, while laying the foundation to change our zoning code and work towards increasing that “missing middle” of housing stock, is a big deal.

At the same time, it’s daunting to think of how much farther we have to go. Years ago, as this process was launching, my hope was that we’d be done by March – of 2025! Even once the zoning changes are enacted, it will take years to generate the duplexes and other multi-unit structures Evanston needs.

Relaxing zoning is just one of many strategies we need to deploy. An effective housing plan must include zoning reform alongside rental assistance, stronger regulation of landlords, support for existing homeowners, and a long list of other strategies we’ll need to keep adding to. Housing4All takes this list of ideas and refines them into a vision we can pursue together.

We have a political system that too often listens to the loudest most-resourced voices. And sometimes all that fighting can make it feel like nothing is ever going to change. But the answer isn’t to give up because progress is incremental. That’s what the loudest opponents want. They think if they create enough friction, we’ll move on to something easier.

The long road to this point has taught me a few important lessons. The first is patience. Yes, this is all taking far longer than I hoped. But that’s because we’ve seen a genuine desire on the part of many residents to have more input and discussion, which necessitated slowing down. The upside of this is that we have far more community engagement and input than we would have had everything passed 14 months ago.

This brings me to the second big takeaway: the power of organizing. Through this process, new organizations have sprung into existence as Evanstonians have engaged with these issues and decided to take action. These newcomers have joined existing entities like Joining Forces for Affordable Housing, Connections for the Homeless, Open Communities, and The Evanston Transit alliance to build a formidable coalition for change.

The irony is that while opponents of reform thought they would win by causing delays, instead they’ve created the conditions for more durable change that will ultimately get us further. The changes we need to enact may spread over the terms of multiple mayors, but more importantly, they’ll be designed by our whole broad, diverse, creative community.

That’s a great thing: when our community is involved, we all win.

So that’s what I’m asking of you, too. Keep showing up. Keep talking to your neighbors. Keep building support and consensus — one conversation, one meeting, one vote at a time — for the changes we need.

Evanston is at its best when we are socioeconomically diverse. That’s what makes our schools better, our small businesses stronger, our culture richer, and our civic life more engaged. And it’s exactly what we are losing, year after year, as housing costs climb and the people who built this community get priced out of it.

This vote is a big win for the city. It isn’t everything we need, but the good news is we’re just getting started.

—Daniel

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As our General Election campaign ramps up, I wanted a space to keep you updated on what we’re doing and how I’m thinking about the constant influx of news and threats to our democracy.

We’ve moved our newsletter to Substack and you’ll keep getting these updates in your inbox, just like before. The difference now: if you have the Substack app, you can comment, reply, and join the conversation in real time.

That last part is especially important to me. A lot of people talk about “meeting voters where they are.” For me, that’s not a platitude, it’s a two-way street our campaign is trying to build with our supporters and constituents.

Last Thursday, I sat down with Shia Kapos of Politico Illinois. Shia asked if Illinois Democrats should redraw our congressional maps to respond to gerrymandering in Republican-controlled states. This conversation has become increasingly potent in the wake of the Virginia Supreme Court decision on Friday striking down that state’s successful April 21st redistricting ballot measure.

Here’s my answer: I hate partisan gerrymandering. We should ban it nationally.

But. If Republicans are playing by one set of rules while Democrats force themselves to play by another, that’s not a functional democracy. We have to respond in kind. When the Illinois General Assembly was considering mid-cycle redistricting here in Illinois last year, I spoke out in support of the idea. I still think it’s the right move for states run by Democrats, whenever feasible, at least until there is a national ban on this kind of gerrymandering.

As I told Shia, this moment demands this bold action. The GOP is at the culmination of their decades-long pursuit to rig the system at every level to ram through their right wing agenda. Last month, the hyper-partisan U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent in shredding the Voting Rights Act, opening the floodgates to partisan gerrymandering while diluting Black and Brown representation. Already, states like Florida and Tennessee are rushing to redraw their maps to lock in more Republicans – and squeeze out Black voices.

Then, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned the will of the voters, striking down a redistricting referendum that would have tilted the balance in favor of Democrats. They didn’t just overturn a map, they overturned an election.

And by the way – not only do all of these decisions make it easier for state governments to redistrict now, but they also open the door for states to continuously redistrict year after year. A suburban Congressional seat looks like it’s starting to turn blue? Republicans could just change the map to move it out of reach from the Democrats.

This is the dismantling of our democracy in real time. While Democrats pushed for independent redistricting commissions, Republicans seized power in state legislatures and redrew maps to lock in their gains. Now, under Trump, Republicans launched a national redistricting war to keep control of the U.S. House. The two parties are operating in fundamentally different universes, and that asymmetry is categorically undemocratic.

The window to fight back is rapidly closing. If these Republican-drawn maps get locked in at the state and federal level, we don’t just lose the next election. We also accept institutions that are designed to continually change the rules to elect the Republicans, no matter the political environment.

When the will of voters becomes essentially obsolete, there’s no longer any reason to expect government to do anything the people actually care about. So much for worker protections, cost-of-living measures that actually reach working people, and human rights.

The rich get richer. People lose protections, lose opportunity, lose their voice. The system stops responding to anyone who isn’t already winning.

The next two years of political decisions will shape society for many years to come. These seemingly small steps, gone unnoticed, could end the American experiment as we know it. So that’s what this newsletter is going to be about: the stakes, the strategy, the people doing the work, and what you can do to fight back.

Right now, I’m going to ask you for one thing: keep paying attention. Send someone in your network this Substack, talk about what happened in Tennessee and Virginia. Tell people on both sides of this aisle why this is dangerous.

Thanks for being here, hit reply, drop a comment, tell me what you’re seeing out there.

Let’s go.

— Daniel

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Back in 2015, the Illinois General Assembly passed a law to ban Illinois pension systems from investing in companies that boycott Israel or territories controlled by the State of Israel. The vote was unanimous at the time, and I was among the ‘yes’ votes.

I would not cast the same vote today, and I want to explain why.

First, here’s what the bill was actually about: Illinois pension funds invest enormous amounts of money, paid by millions of public employees as well as state and local governments, in order to have the assets needed to pay out promised pensions. In addition to funding the retirement of public workers, the performance of these investments determines how much future taxpayers will have to spend.

For these reasons, the legislature has been hesitant to inject political considerations into pension investment decisions, only restricting investments for a tiny handful of reasons. The pension systems are allowed to invest in almost any company, no matter how contrary its business practices are to our values – unless it boycotts Israel.

The past few years have laid bare the consequences of government using its economic power to bully private entities. All of us have watched as the Trump administration has attacked free speech, often under the guise of combatting antisemitism. They often do so using economic pressure (for instance through the withholding of grants to universities and the leveraging of regulatory power against media companies) rather than outright bans or prosecution, so as to be able to claim that they’re not violating the First Amendment.

It’s wrong when the Trump administration does it, and I’ve come to believe that laws like Illinois’ ban on investments feed into the framework that makes actions like this possible.

On the topic of Israel-related boycotts, I want to be clear. I am not a supporter of the global BDS movement. But that isn’t the question. Whether or not you believe in boycotting Israel or Israeli products from the occupied West Bank, or in boycotts in general, we should all be able to agree that our government must not be wielded to stop people from using their economic agency to advocate for their values. It’s time to repeal the ban on pension funds investing in companies that boycott Israel or Israel’s illegal settlements. There are bills in the Illinois House (HB2723) and Senate (SB2462) today that would do just that, and I hope the Illinois General Assembly passes them.

Should I be elected to Congress this fall, I will use that seat to oppose national efforts to criminalize or crack down on free speech or peaceful political activity. And I will do so irrespective of whether I personally agree with the activity in question, because protecting free expression is necessary in order to maintain a free society.