Inside Booster: Cong. Quigley quietly making a career out of a lifetime of community actions

The following article appeared in the December 4-10 issue of Inside Booster.

By: Patrick Butler

Since becoming a Congressman in 2009, Mike Quigley has delivered pizzas for Leona’s, has delivered mail in Roscoe Village, helped the bakers at Dinkel’s, labeled canned goods at the Greater Chicago Food Depository, made caramel corn at Nuts-on-Clark, and worked at Superdawg on Milwaukee near Devon.

He’s also conducted band practice at Bateman High School, assembled industrial pumps at the Graymills factory on Lincoln, worked at the Safe Haven homeless shelter, distributed food to clients at the Lake View Pantry and worked the presses at Consolidated Printing.

No he’s not trying out new careers, he is perfectly happy with his current job. It’s all in a day’s work for the 55-year-old Democrat whose 5th district runs from Old Town and the Near West Side, up to Edgewater, Ravenswood, Lincoln Square and Bowmanville, and then west into suburbs around O’Hare Airport, like Bensenville, Northlake, Oak Brook and Hinsdale—most of them bright red conservative sections of the State.

The 5th District was dramatically gerrymandered after the last Census during the latest remapping, part of a state-wide plan that helped Democrats pick up four Congressional seats in the last election. As a result, defeated foes included Joe Walsh (8th), Robert Dold (10th), Judy Biggert (11th), and Boby Schilling (17th).

Republicans sued to overturn the map, claiming that Democrats drew only one Hispanic district when more were needed because of population growth. A panel of three judges, including two Republicans, disagreed calling it a “blatant political move to increase the number of Democratic congressional seats,” but also saying that the Republicans had “failed to present a workable standard by which to evaluate such claims.”

The former Cook County Commissioner and onetime aide to former Ald. Bernie Hansen (44th) not only lives in his Capitol Hill office when in town, but also travels around Washington on a bike and unwinds by playing hockey, watching the Cubs, and –when he’s back home in Lakeview—walking his three dogs with his wife Barbara, and daughters Alyson and Meghan.

“They’re ill-behaved, horribly trained bad dogs my wife and I couldn’t imagine not having around,” said Quigley who started playing “undercover congressman” as a kind of listening device like Studs Terkel’s Working book.

“When I took over the job, one in 10 people in the district didn’t have a job, two in 10 didn’t have health benefits, and three out of the 10’s mortgages were underwater. You get to hear what people really care about.

“I learned about immigration reform and Chinese currency manipulations working in factories,” said Quigley, adding he also learned job fulfillment and that a job is worth more than just a paycheck, it’s a sense of being, a place and purpose about having value which he says is “even more important than the paycheck.”

Of course, some jobs can be a lot of fun, “like working at Dinkel’s where you have to taste the product to make sure it’s OK,” said Quigley, who also got a kick out of the reactions of some people who didn’t expect to see their congressman delivering their pizza.

One voter who did recognize Quigley “started yelling for me to protect his Second Amendment rights (to own guns),” said Quigley, who also tries to reach out to the voters by going to as many as a dozen block parties over a summer weekend.

He also tries to show up at as many community meetings as possible. “If there’s a community group like the Lake View Citizens Council, these are the people who are already attuned to what’s happening in their neighborhoods,” said Quigley, adding that this point, the most often-voiced concerns he hears today are about Chicago Public Schools.

“Of course, one of the hazards of the job is trying to eat all the food they offer you at block parties or bigger events like the Roscoe Village Hamburger Fest. So riding your bike is a very good idea,” he laughed. “You learn early that you can’t eat or drink everything.”

Quigley estimates he’s gone to at least 4,000 meeting in the 31 years since he started attending them as an aldermanic aide. Sometimes, “I’ve been to three or four a night. It gives people access to you and a chance to vent,” he said. “I’ve got 750,000 people in a district that runs from Lakeview to Elmhurst. You can’t give everybody 20 minutes.”

Quigley’s office should be the first stop for those planning a visit to Washington, D.C. Whether you’re coming on a short business trip, to lobby for legislation or an extended family vacation, his office can help make arrangements for some of the more popular attractions including the popular White House tours, now that they’re back on after President Obama gave up his self-imposed bans on them.

His office is located on the 1st Floor of the Longworth House Office Building (Room 1124), call 202-225-4061.

He said he also holds “Congress on Your Corner” once or twice a month (with the next one slated for the second Saturday in December at the Lakeview Library).

Despite it’s many early failures, Quigley still believes that comprehensive health care reform is vital to the nation’s future prosperity. “President Obama has made this initiative a top priority, one which I share. Forty-seven million Americans are currently uninsured, a number that continues to rise as unemployment grows. Health insurance premiums are skyrocketing, doubling in the last eight years, and increasing 3.7 times faster than wages.” Quigley believes these increases are simply unsustainable for families and businesses, and must be addressed because “the status quo isn’t working.” He remains hopeful that the President and his staff can find a way to do that in the future.

While Quigley and his 20-member staff worked straight through the most recent government shutdown, most agencies like the Veterans’ Administration and Social Security weren’t open, he said.

But, “if there’s anything good that came out of the shutdown, it was a reminder that government does matter,” said Quigley, whose office routinely handles an almost bewildering variety of calls for service.

“Your son is supposed to leave for college in London, but doesn’t have the right visa. Or your wife lost her passport or didn’t realize it expired. We had a family whose relative was killed in the Korean War who still had medals coming. And there’s always plenty of immigration issues,” he said.

While one of the biggest changes in the four years he’s been in office has been the rise of the Conservative Tea Party that helped put his Democrat Party in the minority, probably an even bigger problem for most congressmen of all stripes is the increasing amount of time they have to spend raising between $500,000 and $1 million a year for the next election (congressmen serve two-year terms).

“I suspect some have to spend three-quarters of their time raising money. It’s an unnatural function that creates a mindset where you never get to focus on long-term issues like global warming.”

So it’s no coincidence that more and more new congressmen are wealthy and distant from the problems of their constituents.

Still, “it’s a job where you continue to learn every day and while it sounds corny, you get to help a lot of people.” And that’s what really makes the job worth doing, he said.