MEET MAT
Mike Madigan conspired to kick me off the ballot. I had video evidence of voters signing my petitions to get on the ballot and I even collected affidavits of voters who swore in front of a public notary that their signatures were genuine; yet, the corrupt Board of Elections decided to throw away my evidence, and accept the testimony of Madigan's fake handwriting expert who claimed that my petitions were forgeries. My story has been covered by WGN TV, the Chicago Tribune and Capitol Fax blog.
Appointed bureaucrats and lawyers should not decide the outcomes of elections in backrooms. That's why I am fighting back with a Write-In campaign.
Who Am I?
I was born in Poland, and I came to America with my family (and 4 suitcases) when I was 9 years old. My family started at the bottom. We rented a small apartment in Archer Heights, my dad worked the night shift at a -- now closed -- factory in Alsip, and my mom worked with disabled children for the Chicago Public Schools in Mt. Greenwood.
We worked our way through some difficult times; but, I was lucky enough to rise through the Chicago public school system (Edwards School, and Chicago High School for Agricultural Science), Cornell University for my bachelor's degree and Princeton University for my PhD. My research in health policy and political science has given me the opportunity to work as an adviser to health economists writing the Affordable Care Act. My writings on politics and policy have been published in the national press, like Vox or Politico Magazine, and scholarly journals. And, my work as a teacher at Princeton and the University of Chicago has given me the opportunity to teach, guide and learn from a generation of young Millennials.
"When we elect wealthy business people or cogs in political machines, this the kind of government that we get: an oligarchy that privileges the rich and the well-connected."
Over the last few years, I have become disillusioned with our political system. Through work with my colleagues at Princeton, I discovered just how much our politicians have come to resemble an oligarchy. Indeed, on issue after issue, empirical study has shown that when the rich and the poor disagree on policy, the Republicans and Democrats are more responsive to the political opinions of the richest Americans than the rest of us.
And, nowhere is the American political system's failure more apparent than in our broken health care system. Ever since my brother's illness, I have been obsessed with understanding how health care works. But, I can no longer sit back on a college campus and watch as the work of scientists who dedicate their lives to understanding public policy is discarded by Washington D.C. -- a place where health insurance lobbyist write legislation.
Today, even though 80% of Democrats, 60% of Independent, 30% of Republicans, and majorities of doctors favor a Medicare for All health care system; only, about 30% of Democratic politicians in the Congress support such a bill (HR 676). This is unacceptable. If elected, I will fight with every fiber of my being for single payer.
Who Is Mike Madigan?
The current representative on the State Central Committee in the IL 3rd, Mike Madigan.
Madigan has been in power for more than two decades. He had the opportunity to fix Illinois' broken tax system, but he hasn't. Instead he keeps finding ways to enrich himself from the state's property tax laws. Over the last 7 years, Madigan's law firm has won $1.7 BILLION in property tax reductions for wealthy clients. That's tax payer money, which could have gone to schools and infrastructure.
It's time for Madigan to go.