William McNary

Co-Director for Citizen Action/Illinois

William McNary has been called one of the most electrifying and inspirational speakers of our time. He is the Co-Director for Citizen Action/Illinois, the state’s largest public interest organization working on an ambitious agenda that includes the fight for workers’ rights, advancing public education funding, utility rate and insurance rate reform, environmental safety and protecting consumers from unfair predatory loan practices. He previously served as the Legislative Director for Citizen Action/Illinois.

He is the Legislative Chair of the Responsible Budget Coalition, a coalition dedicated to making the Illinois tax structure fairer in order to provide the revenues needed to create jobs, educate our children, and provide for health care, human services and public safety.

One of the nation’s leading advocates for health care reform, McNary was one of the founding members of Health Care for America Now!, the largest national grassroots health care coalition which led to the successful passage of the national Affordable Care Act that was signed into law by President Obama.

McNary has been appointed by two Illinois governors, the Illinois Attorney General, the Cook County Board President and other state constitutional officers to serve on several state boards, task forces and transition teams. Most recently, Treasurer Mike Frerichs appointed McNary to serve on his transition team where he advocates using state funds to incentivize banks and lending institutions that serve economically challenged urban and rural areas.

McNary served as the founding president of USAction, one of the nation’s largest coalitions of progressive grassroots organizations. He served as a surrogate speaker for President Barack Obama in his first run for President. He was also elected as an Obama delegate and served as Illinois Convention Floor Whip at the Denver Democratic Convention in 2008.

McNary served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Public Campaign, an organization that promoted public financing of elections to fix a broken campaign finance system. He was appointed by former Governor Pat Quinn to serve on the Illinois Task Force for Campaign Finance Reform.

He currently serves on the board of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability an organization that promotes tax fairness. He also serves on the board of the Voter Participation Center, an organization that empowers unmarried women, people of color and other underrepresented groups to participate in the democratic process. He also serves on the board of the Environmental Law and Policy Center which promotes environmental progress through economic development and jobs.

Since 1996, McNary has worked with the Rainbow/Push Coalition where he co-directs targeted voter registration and “Get Out the Vote” campaign efforts.

Honorable Toni Preckwinkle

Cook County Board President

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has been a dedicated community leader for over two decades, providing independent and progressive leadership founded on experience, know- how and a commitment to practical results.

Toni has the integrity and forward-thinking ideas that are needed to transform county government into a world-class institution of which the people of Cook County can be proud.

Toni stood up to the city’s political machine, and despite failed first attempts, she prevailed. She ran an improbable campaign against the political establishment and was elected 4th Ward Alderman in 1991.

In her 19 years as Alderman, Toni has improved the quality of life of her constituents by providing independent, transparent and accountable leadership. She ended the old patronage model in her ward that awarded jobs based on political clout. She has successfully fought for greater funding for education and affordable housing in her ward. She sponsored the Living Wage and Affordable Housing Ordinances, and was a lead plaintiff in a lawsuit to institute a more racially equitable map of Chicago's ward boundaries. Toni sponsored an ordinance that limits the establishment of payday loan stores and was a lead sponsor of the anti-smoking ordinance. She has not been afraid to stand-up to the status-quo, voting against the parking meter privatization and standing with a small minority in opposition to the 2008 tax increases.

Toni’s independent and progressive leadership earned her the IVI-IPO Best Alderman Award in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2005 and 2008, and the 1997 and 2009 Leon Despres Awards.

Toni was elected Cook County Board President on November 2, 2010. She holds a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree from the University of Chicago. She taught high school history for ten years before being elected to City Council. She is also a mother of two children and grandmother of three.

Kevin Conlon

President, Conlon & Dunn Public Strategies

Kevin Conlon’s passion for politics and public policy was sparked when he volunteered as an 11- year-old at Rich Township Democratic Headquarters, where he later became a committeeman. He went on to choose a career in government relations and to serve in leadership roles in campaigns at all levels of government.

Kevin’s campaign work has included serving as the State Co-Chair of the Illinois Hillary Clinton presidential campaign for the 2008 and 2016 elections. During President Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, Kevin was a member of the National Finance Committee, and founder and National Co-Chair of the Obama Leadership Circle. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Kevin acted as Illinois State Chair and Vice Chair of the National Finance Committee for Governor Howard Dean and, later, Illinois State Finance Chair for Senator John Kerry. He has held a variety of positions with the Democratic National Committee, most recently serving as a member of the DNC’s Permanent Committee on Rules (2006-08) and a Delegate at a Democratic National Conventions dating back to 1996.

Kevin has held elected office, as Rich Township Democratic Committeeman for 14 years and as Rich Township Supervisor for nine years. He was the first Democrat in 130 years elected to lead Rich Township, and, in 1994, he was named “Supervisor of the Year” by Illinois township officials.

After practicing labor and employment law as district counsel for the Communications Workers of America, Kevin founded a government relations firm (now Conlon & Dunn Public Strategies) with former Democratic National Committee Chairman David Wilhelm. The firm has helped more than 200 clients, mostly nonprofits, achieve their goals in the public arena.

Kevin served on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Expanding Training Opportunities during the Clinton administration and has been an adjunct faculty member at DePaul University, Chicago-Kent School of Law (Illinois Institute of Technology), and the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies, where he has taught classes on campaign strategy. A native of the south suburbs, Kevin holds degrees from the Loyola University of Chicago School of Law, the University of Illinois, and Illinois State University.

Honorable Lauren Beth Gash

Attorney, Former IL State Representative and IL Human Rights Commissioner

Hon. Lauren Beth Gash holds a law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, where she served as Associate Editor of the American Criminal Law Review. As an undergraduate at Clark University, she majored in Psychology. Recently, she has been a Commissioner with the Illinois Human Rights Commission. Prior to that, she served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, where she chaired the Judiciary Committee and worked with then-State Senator Barack Obama on several pieces of legislation. She was also Vice-Chair of the Elections and Campaign Reform Committee.

Lauren was a member of the Electoral College on behalf of President Obama in 2008 and 2012, and on behalf of Hillary Clinton in 2016. She was an elected Delegate to the Democratic National Convention several times. Lauren previously worked in Washington, D.C., and has served on the staffs of U.S. Senators Alan Dixon and Paul Simon.

Lauren is a life-long community organizer who has served on numerous notfor-profit boards, including the League of Women Voters, PTA and the Anti-Defamation League. She is a former volunteer attorney at Prairie State Legal Services.

In her race for Congress as the Democratic nominee in a Republican district, Lauren garnered 49% of the vote. She went on to become the Founding Chair of the Tenth Congressional District Democrats (Tenth Dems), a grassroots organization dedicated to building a strong Democratic infrastructure in Chicago’s northern and northwestern suburbs.

The group’s Tenth Dems University regularly hosts nationally recognized speakers and other committees help local residents through such efforts as Tenth Dems’ Job Interview Workshops, Expungement and Sealing Events with volunteer attorneys, and Annual Student Poetry and Prose Contests. The Tenth Dems Election Protection Team put 125 lawyers at polling places throughout the 10th District in November, working to make sure that everyone who is entitled to vote is actually allowed to vote. Volunteers put into action the group’s motto that “Politics should be about more than just elections; it should be about working together to build stronger communities.”

Lauren lives in Highland Park and is married to Gregg Garmisa. They have two adult children – Sarah, who uses her MBA and Master of Public Policy degrees to work toward social justice with not-for-profit organizations, and Ben, who serves as the Communications Director for U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth on Capitol Hill.