Issues

Dave is:

1) The ONLY candidate with 22 years working in Congress. That means your priorities will get more legislative results. Our community will suffer a lot if we have to wait for years of on-the-job training. Congress is a unique institution; It's not like state or county or city governments. As a legislative assistant, my mentors and bosses were two of the most effective Congressmen ever (Charlie Rangel-NY and Claude Pepper-FL). I plan to extend their legacy of helping constituents, especially to get better and more affordable health care but in every major district issue, through policy, casework, and in every other way. We successfully dealt with regular cases of racial discrimination of constituents. That's why I'm angry now. The Trump administration's and Hegseth's anti-DEI racism and sexism is different, open, and extremist. We have to make all discrimination shameful and illegal again.

2) The ONLY candidate with 43 years of policy experience. Public policy seems simple on its face. You advocate for a bill and everyone votes for it. It's not.

The issue has to be on the Congressional decision agenda (you can help but it takes more than one). The problem has to be framed correctly. Specific, clear, consensus goals have to be articulated, largely agreed on by major stakeholders. Policy alternatives have to be fully analyzed, again with wide input. These above factors have to go into a policy proposal that achieves its goals and is palatable politically. The bill has to clear the legislative counsel's bars for effective laws (not easy). And then the policy faces implementation challenges, usually their biggest challenge, for as long as the policy is in place. Oversight prevents more legislative and agency and state and local challenges. And finally, good evaluation to determine the extent to which the policy is achieving its goals. Sometimes the statistical analysis is complicated and misunderstood. Credit and blame is allocated by all involved. Professionals in many fields work around the clock to find loopholes in the policy, usually successfully. And then, if the policy can't be explained in 30 seconds during campaigns, it can be used against you even if successful. Or killed or revised in the next legislative session. No, you don't want amateurs new to Congress to represent you if you want to see results.

3) The ONLY candidate that advised presidential agencies for over a decade. GAO, Congress' Government Accountability Office, investigates what the president and his administration are doing, asking questions like: is a policy working, and at what cost? Is the Administrative agency implementing the policy as Congress intended? If not, GAO writes recommendations with full transparency for all federal issues except some intelligence, covert, and Fed activities (see GAO.GOV). It's core "mission values": accountability, integrity, and reliability.^[

4) The ONLY candidate that advised many congressional committees and members of Congress. Members of Congress trust GAO advice, passing 70% of recommendations into law. In addition, GAO provides other types of investigative and consulting assistance to Congress, such as testifying at many committee hearings, giving briefings to committee members and staff, and even giving private briefings on GAO work, special white papers, or short-term analysis requests.

5) The ONLY candidate who has trained thousands of graduate students who are now serving the public in government, nonprofit, or business roles. Dave has been teaching for 20 years, on 25 different policy-related subjects from climate policy to policy analysis to statistics to organizational theory to nonprofit and government finance. These students, some mid-career high-level legislators already, have continued or gone on to important jobs across the spectrum of public service professions. I try to keep with their career successes and I like to think (and they kindly let me think) that I played some small role in their success. Many are doing phenomenal work in the IL-7 today.

6) The ONLY candidate writing a book on Policy Design, now being edited down from 400 pages. I've have one career goal since my freshman year of college: to understand and then make public policy better. Five years ago my 5-year old daughter told me I should teach more people about to make better laws and rules. Now I'm trying to take her advice and make her proud.

7) The ONLY candidate who taught graduate public policy analysis, policy evaluation, advocacy, implementation, and public sector decision making courses, including at the #1 ranked public affairs school (USNWR) I only add this to say that I'm vetted by students and fellow faculty every semester in both my universities, and I always get high average marks across many facets of teaching, rigor, mentoring, and communication.

8) The ONLY candidate who has taught graduate public management and organizational behavior courses, including at the #1 ranked program in Public Management and Leadership (USNWR). Even after studying political science as an undergrad at the University of Michigan and getting high honors, when I went to the Hill and worked in Congress I was still mystified by how public (and all) organizations really worked. While getting a masters at night at Georgetown, baffling and complicated agency behaviors finally started to make sense. Your congressman is dealing with organizations constantly - in government and the private and the nonprofit sectors, both in DC and in the IL-7 district. Understanding them is a prerequisite to getting things done every day.

9) The ONLY candidate who has taught climate change policy and environmental policy for 20 years, including currently at the #1 ranked US graduate program in Environmental Policy & Management (USNWR). If you care about the environment, climate change, or getting energy prices down, Dave's your guy. If you want Chicagoland to be the US and global center for clean energy manufacturing, finance, services, and their huge numbers of associate jobs, see below. For more detail, see the Clean Energy issue drop-down below. The climate hoax is that it's not happening. Another hoax is that clean energy is more expensive than fossil fuels. It's not.

10) The ONLY IL-7 candidate - compared to ZERO current members of Congress - that has recently qualified to run the Boston Marathon (as far as I know). Yes, your representative needs endurance to deal with all the #*&@%# of politics and government every day of every year. To bring federal funding and resources to IL-7. To get help for the Chicago-based federal agencies. To help 7th District individual people deal with the federal government. Dave has the experience, knowledge, and stamina to do it.

11) The ONLY candidate named Dave. Remember to vote for PROFESSOR DAVE EHRLICH on March 17