'Chuy' Garcia vows to keep fighting Chicago machine from Congress
In 2015, Jesús "Chuy" García, longtime Cook County commissioner, former alderman, and state senator, became the only challenger to ever push a Chicago mayor into a primary runoff. Now García is running to represent Illinois's Fourth District in the U.S. House of Representatives—a spur-shaped area gerrymandered to capture large Mexican and Puerto Rican communities on the west side of Chicago and in the western suburbs. Current congressman Luis Gutiérrez, in office since 1993, endorsed García's candidacy in the same breath as he announced his retirement. But García says his decision to pursue national office wasn't just a matter of a political upgrade.
To many people it might seem like you've been anointed to take over this congressional seat. How do you counter that general perception?
The decision to pursue Congress has to do with a sense of urgency in my mind to have an immigrant voice in Congress at this time in Washington, D.C., because of what Donald Trump has said and is pursuing in terms of seeking to criminalize the immigrant community. I think that because I've lived that experience since I came to this city 53 years ago, because of my involvement in immigrants' rights issues for almost 45 years, I'm well suited to represent the district. Whether it's DACA, protecting family migration and keeping it a pillar of our immigration policy, or defending gains that we've made to protect immigrants like the ICE detainer ordinance at the county, and of course protecting the sanctuary designation that the city has.
With respect to how this developed: It was Luis Gutiérrez first seeking to I think break the ice that had existed since the mayoral election. He and I had not had a face-to-face conversation since that time. It was obviously a very frosty relationship over the past three years. Initially I kind of laughed it off, I joked it off reminding him that he had thought about retiring ten years ago. . . . So when he when he finally convinced me that he was serious and became pretty emotional in conveying that, I said, looks like this guy is serious and began thinking about it seriously. I consulted with my family, my wife especially, and we felt that it was an important time to have a voice like mine in Congress.
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