The Article below was published in Vol. 135, Issue 4 of the Lake Forest College Stentor on December 6, 2019
By Emma Overton ‘22
Managing Editor and News Editor
On November 12, an audience of approximately 65 students gathered in the Lily Reid Holt Memorial Chapel for a town hall event with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. Assistant Professor of Politics Zachary Cook moderated the event and Raoul’s son, Che Raoul ‘20, introduced his father at the start of the event.
Opening the event, Raoul stated that in his position as Attorney General he is the “chief legal officer of the state, the chief law enforcement officer of the state and the chief advocate of the state.” Raoul described his office of “approximately 400 attorneys” as being “multifaceted, it has both a criminal side on the appellate level as well as on the trial level . . . we defend the State of Illinois and its agencies when they are sued, we bring civil action in the public interest, we have [an]environmental protection [division], [and an]Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.”
Professor Cook asked Raoul for his advice to college students who are interested in pursuing a career as a public official. Raoul stated that “college is the perfect time to get engaged, [and]getting involved in politics is getting involved in advocacy because, at the end of the day, politics is the process by which we elect decision-makers.”
Raoul shared the story of his own professional journey, describing himself as “a three-time loser.” Shortly after he graduated from college, “[Chicago mayor] Harold Washington died while in office [and]I watched the council proceedings that elected his successor and I was embarrassed by what I saw in terms of representatives that represented communities like mine. I told myself back then, we can do better and somebody like me has to lend themselves to it.”
A year after graduating from law school, he started his campaign for the Chicago City Council, where he ran “against the incumbent alderman of the 4th ward, Toni Preckwinkle, who now is the County Board President of Cook County.” Explaining his first campaign, Raoul admitted he “didn’t know about the structure of campaigns . . . I had 60 people talking to each other instead of talking to the voters, so I lost.” Following his first loss, Raoul was asked to run in a race for state senate, but lost again due to his opponent’s successful attempt to “split the African-American vote.” Raoul’s third attempt was again against Toni Preckwinkle, where he “lost worse than the last time.” However, despite his losses, Raoul “did some reflection during that [final]race and I found that what was driving me was a desire to be an elected official and not necessarily what should have been driving me, which was a desire to have an impact in whatever way that I can.”
Following the election, Raoul “wrote [Preckwinkle] a letter shortly after the election and explained what I realized . . . I said I still want to be engaged . . . so I’d like to volunteer for your organization in whatever way I can.” Although his letter went unanswered, Raoul nevertheless “started showing up to meetings and I would volunteer for whatever task, including cleaning up after the meetings.” As Raoul recounts, one day, “Toni Preckwinkle rolled up in her beat-up van that she used to drive and walked over to me and shook my hand and said ‘this is really big of you,’ and I thought to myself, ‘it took you a couple of years to realize it.’” Raoul said he saw Preckwinkle’s acknowledgment as his “invitation inside.”
As a result of Raoul’s interaction and professional relationship with Preckwinkle, and later, with 5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston, he was eventually chosen as Barack Obama’s successor in the Illinois State Senate, a position that he credits to Preckwinkle and Hairston having “just about all of their wards within the legislative district,” allowed them to command over “55 percent of the committee’s weighted vote.”
Summarizing his journey, Raoul stated that the “decision to lend myself to this uncompensated volunteer position with no thought that it would lead to an opportunity to serve in the state senate was what gave my entryway to serving.” Of his time in the state senate, Raoul stated that he “was one of the hardest-working legislators in Springfield and I think that is what set up my opportunity to run for Attorney General.”
Following Raoul’s description of his professional journey, Professor Cook opened the floor to audience questions. One audience member questioned the ability of Illinois to protect Dreamers if the DACA policy is overturned, to which Raoul replied that under the Trust Act, “Illinois is not going to use our law enforcement resources to enforce immigration law that is within the jurisdiction of ICE, but, we can’t use our resources to obstruct federal law enforcement from doing what they are legally allowed.” Elaborating on the possible elimination of DACA, Raoul said “let’s face it, overturning DACA creates a problem for the federal government and I think the president and others in his administration know they’ll have to do something else because there is no way they are going to be able to or want to round up everybody and deport them.”
Answering an audience question on his thoughts concerning criminal justice reform, Raoul stated that he is “disturbed about how people talk about criminal justice reform these days because it is oversimplified . . . we’ve done criminal justice reform without really looking at the underlying analysis. What we need to do is bring about the individualized treatment of offenders. Oftentimes we talk about violent offenses and nonviolent offenses . . . but we are not even talking about the offender . . . so where we need to go is not talking about violent offenses versus nonviolent offenses, it is talking about having risk assessment tools to really find out who is a threat to public safety and who is not.”
Commenting on her impression of the event, attendee Allie Caskey ’22 of New Lenox, Illinois stated, “I thought it was really interesting to hear from the Attorney General himself about the roles he has to fulfill.”
Emma Overton can be reached at overtoneg@mx.lakeforest.edu
