Governor JB Pritzker introduced Tuesday morning that he had chosen Christian Mitchell, an ex -helper of the governor and an ex -Lealinois legislator, as his racing associate for Lieutenant governor as Pitzker undertakes his third mandate as a CEO of the State.
In a brief video printed by the Pritzker marketing campaign, Mitchell mirrored on his influences on why he entered politics, together with his mom, who mentioned he was a nurse for 38 years on the Rush University Medical Center, and his grandfather “who entered and stuffed the void for me” and was a sergeant of the American military and a metal agent of the Union.
“Both taught me the way it was to fret about your loved ones and work very laborious, as you proceed to go on in troublesome occasions,” Mitchell mentioned. “That’s why I needed to go to the general public service, as a result of life will be troublesome, I believe it may be just a little simpler if in case you have a frontrunner within the authorities that fear concerning the households who work, making life extra handy, making well being care extra accessible.”
An Illinois legislator who represented components of Chicago’s South Side from 2013 to 2019, Mitchell, who’s black, labored as deputy governor of the Pitzker administration from 2019 to 2023, the place he was a frontrunner strategist on power points, together with the local weather of 2021 and the stability of labor. Historical laws requested the state to maneuver from fossil fuels to power cleansing within the subsequent 25 years.
Since 2023, he has labored on the University of Chicago, supervising authorities relations and different workplaces, and was appointed by Pitzker final yr to the Council of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns McCormick Place and Navy Pier. During the 2018 electoral cycle, Mitchell was additionally government director of the Illinois Democratic Party, changing into the primary Afro-American African to carry the place.
“As a state consultant, as deputy governor of this state, Christian Mitchell did a lot for individuals,” Pitzker mentioned within the video. “And I do know when we’ve to face (republican president) Donald Trump and overcome the challenges he’s resulting in our state, that Christian Mitchell is prepared for that wrestle.”
The lieutenant governors of the Illinois are constitutional officers with few duties ordered constitutionally, a very powerful of which is to take the place of an unable, deceased governor, cease or take away from the workplace.
