Michael Quigley

Michael Quigley, is a Democratic member of Congress representing the 5th district of Illinois. He won the special election on April 7, 2009 to replace Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who resigned to become chief of staff to President Barack Obama.

Positions, record and controversies
During the 2009 campaign, Quigley took positions on the following issues:

Equality and civil rights
Quigley supports legislation to end employment and pay discrimination, as well as stronger legislation against hate crimes. Quigley is pro-choice and opposes attempts to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Economy
Quigley supports economic stimulus policies that focus on infrastructure investment, aid to the unemployed, and aid to states who might otherwise reduce medicare and unemployment benefits and services. Quigley also supports efforts to make stimulus spending transparent in order to increase efficiency and accountability.

Quigley also supports the Obama administration's plans to lower taxes on lower and middle income Americans and to simplify the tax code. He favors making all government contracts worth over $25,000 competitive, reforming the loan system to require more accurate disclosures, and bankruptcy reform to make it possible for consumers to restructure their debt. He has said that he will immediately become a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Environment
Quigley's priorities include reducing greenhouse gas emissions through a cap-and-trade system; tax credits for consumers to purchase more fuel efficient cars and investment in the development of more fuel-efficient technologies; efforts to create more "green jobs" for work that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and increases energy efficiency; and efforts to clean up the Great Lakes and preserve and restore their biodiversity.

Ethics
Quigley supports efforts to create an independent agency to oversee lobbying and the establishment of a central location for collecting lobbying disclosure information. Quigley also supports similar plans to monitor the federal contracting and spending processes and supports the Obama administration's efforts to increase government transparency.

Foreign policy
Quigley supports ending the Iraq war "responsibly and swiftly" in order to refocus efforts on Afghanistan and on resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. He favors a foreign policy that relies more on diplomacy, reducing dependence on foreign oil, and giving the Director of National Intelligence a fixed term in order to depoliticize the office.

Health care
Quigley supports plans that provide government help for those who cannot afford health insurance while preserving private plans for those who can afford and prefer them. He favors making health insurance portable from one job to another, making sure insurance covers pre-existing conditions, more emphasis on preventative care, tax credits for small business to help them afford health insurance for their employees, the use of electronic medical records, and allowing the government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs for seniors.

Immigration
Quigley supports comprehensive immigration reform that gives immigrants long resident in the United States a path to citizenship. He says he will support Senator Durbin's "Dream Act" which would allow the children of undocumented immigrants to attend college in the U.S.

Bio
Mike Quigley holds a law degree from Loyola University in Chicago and a master's degree in public policy from the University of Chicago. While a student at the University of Chicago, Quigley worked as an aide to Alderman Bernard Hansen. Quigley ran unsuccessfully for alderman in 1991, but later won election to the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 1998, where he was still serving at the time of his election to Congress.

Quigley is also an adjucnt professor in political science at Loyola University and Roosevelt University in Chicago and has lectured on environmental politics and local government.

In the 1980s, Quigley was a leader of the group, Citizens United for Baseball in the Sunshine (CUBS), who opposed the installation of lights at Wrigley field.

2009 special election
Mike Quigley, who won a multi-candidate Democratic primary election with 22 percent of the vote, defeated Republican candidate Rosanna Pulido and Green Party candidate Matt Reichel with approximately 70 percent of the vote in the special election held on April 7, 2009.

Quigley was sworn into office on April 21, 2009.

Local blogs and discussion sites

 * Prairie State Blue - Statewide Illinois Progressive Politics Blog