Amanda Zahorak: 2026 candidate for Illinois House District 48

Bio

Office sought: State Representative House District 48

Party: Democrat

City: Roselle

Age: 32

Previous offices held: NA

Q&A

What do you consider the three most pressing issues facing the state in the next four years, and how should they be addressed?

Housing: Costs keep climbing, and it's getting harder for young families and seniors alike to buy or rent. I'd support legislation prioritizing housing supply while letting municipalities decide what type goes where, plus more down payment assistance and grant funding for housing organizations with real track records. Lower property taxes play into this too.

Healthcare: Illinois has cracked down on pharmacy benefit managers so drug savings reach patients, banned junk insurance, and stopped insurers from denying doctor-prescribed treatments. Next, I'd support the Prescription Drug Affordability Board done carefully to protect Medicaid, keep tackling medical debt, and watch hospital consolidation, since fewer big systems usually means higher prices.

School funding: Our constitution says the state must fund public schools, but it only covers a fraction, leaving property taxes to cover the rest. I'd fully fund schools at the state level through a graduated tax on the highest earners, not small businesses, push more direct state support to cities and counties, and take pension debt seriously.

How would you assess the General Assembly's handling, to date, of the various proposals surrounding a Chicago Bears stadium in Arlington Heights? What proposals would you have been willing to support and in what ways, if any, might you have approached it differently?

The careful deliberation by the General Assembly is warranted given that this isn't just a "Bear's" bill but a mega projects bill that could apply to more than just the Chicago Bears. The potential of a property tax freeze resulting in a hike for local taxpayers in surrounding areas is a serious consideration and one that must be taken seriously given the tax burden that already falls on community members. I would be open to supporting the bill with a shortened freeze period, revenue-sharing, or scaling the payment to assessed growth.

Now roughly three years into the elimination of cash bail in Illinois as part of the SAFE-T Act, how would you assess the success or failure of the criminal justice reform measure? What changes, if any, would you support?

Large reforms take time to fully assess, and good legislators don't just pass something and walk away.

While the SAFE-T Act's early results are encouraging, we must keep evolving it as real data comes in. Removing wealth as a factor in who sits in jail before trial leads to more equitable outcomes, and current data backs that up. However, Illinois is a big, varied state, meaning what a community downstate needs looks different from Cook County or the collar counties. I support honest, ongoing evaluation, adjusting the pieces that aren't serving communities while protecting what's working. Pretrial fairness is also only part of the picture. If the goal is reducing long-term harm, the support has to extend past the courtroom into neighboring policies like housing and treatment for substance abuse.

Illinois homeowners face one of the highest relative property tax burdens in the country. What specific proposals could you offer to ease the burden on state residents?

I'd support reworking the Senior Citizens Homestead Exemption to an increased rate statewide, so seniors can age more comfortably in their homes. I'd also push to increase the Local Government Distributive Fund, so municipalities rely less on property taxes to cover basic operating costs.

But, property taxes won't be solved overnight, and there's no quick fix. The long-term play is moving to a graduated tax system that eases the burden of pension and school funding on homeowners. This idea has been shut down before, but there's room for compromise if we ensure the system doesn't overwhelmingly burden job-creating businesses and business owners. We can also build more attainable homeownership, like townhomes and condos throughout the community to grow the tax pool. That development should be spread out rather than concentrated in one area, so single-family homeowners don't absorb a disproportionate share of the burden.

Gov. JB Pritzker recently paused a state initiative granting incentives to data center developers, and residents statewide have concerns about how such developments are affecting their access to water, utility rates, and the environment. How should the state approach data centers going forward?

While data centers are part of our future, it's important that they don't dictate our communities' future. Data centers should work for the community, not the other way around. If a data center wants to operate here, it should pay for its own energy and water use, and take real steps to mitigate community impacts like pollution. If it fails to do that, there needs to be consequences, and I'd like to see any resulting fines go directly back into the community to help relieve burdens like property taxes or school funding. As this surge continues, I'd also like to see public hearings mandated for new proposals, paired with real, transparent environmental reporting so communities know what they're getting before it's built. This would emulate a true and transparent partnership between development and the community.

Illinois’ “sanctuary” policies concerning immigration have made it a target for the Trump administration and critics who say they encourage criminal behavior. How do you feel about those policies, and how, if at all, would you change them?

Illinois' immigrant communities are part of what makes our state and our workforce strong, and I support laws that let people live without fear that a routine interaction turns into a deportation proceeding. I also believe that anyone contributing to our workforce should be put on track to gain documentation. The TRUST Act is built to keep local police focused on public safety, not federal civil immigration status. Illinois law enforcement can and does cooperate when there's a valid criminal warrant. What it restricts is holding someone based solely on their immigration status. That difference matters because it means the state isn't shielding violent offenders, it's declining to turn local police into a civil immigration enforcement arm.

Violent crime is unacceptable no matter who commits it, and anyone who commits a violent crime, documented or not, should be held accountable. If there are gaps where dangerous individuals are falling through the cracks because of how information gets shared between agencies, I'm open to fixing those types of specific problems. But I don't support repealing the TRUST Act altogether.

Many women in the legislature complain about a culture of sexual harassment in Springfield. Do you see evidence of this and, if so, what should be done about it?

Sexual harassment in any workplace should not be tolerated and there is much work to do where this is concerned in general as well as in Springfield. I believe that creating real solutions should be a nonpartisan effort and I would be committed to working across the aisle to ensure this. I also believe that the Legislative Ethics Commission should be made up of non-legislators to ensure fairness.

Are you satisfied with the state's existing ethics policies for senators and representatives? If so, what about the policies should reassure Illinoisans that elected leaders abide by high standards? If not, what changes need to be made?

Illinois has made real progress on ethics oversight since the Madigan era, a lobbying cooling-off period, a ban on session-time fundraising, expanded disclosure requirements. I want to build on that progress, not just defend it. One area I'd focus on is strengthening our ethics watchdog. Right now, the Legislative Inspector General needs permission from the Legislative Ethics Commission, a body made up of sitting lawmakers, before issuing subpoenas or publishing findings. I'd support giving the Inspector General more independent authority alongside adding a non-legislator to the Commission to help investigations move forward.

What personal qualifications do you bring that would make you an effective legislator?

My background is in the nonprofit space, and I believe that gives me a genuinely useful perspective for this job. I've worked in educational equity and affordable housing, where the work is about serving families, not scoring political points. In that world, you build coalitions around a shared goal, not a party line, and you learn to get creative when resources are scarce, because the mission doesn't stop just because the budget is tight. Those are the same skills this job requires: bringing people together, finding common ground even with people who don't share your politics, and genuinely caring about outcomes for people regardless of their background. That's the kind of legislator I intend to be. The goal for me is and will always be, people first.