Kwame Raoul: Candidate Profile

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Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioQA Bio City: ChicagoWebsite: www.kwameraoul.comTwitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Attorney general Age: Candidate did not respond.Family: Candidate did not respond.Occupation: State senator partner, health law group, Quarles BradyEducation: Chicago-Kent College of Law (J.D., 1993), DePaul University (B.A. in Political Science, 1987)Civic involvement: Board member, International Child Care board member, Legal Prep Charter School advisory board, Youth Guidance - Becoming a Man program steering committee, American Heart Association - Counsel for a CauseElected offices held: State Senate (2004-present) delegate to Democratic National Convention (2008, 2012, 2016)Questions Answers What personal background and experiences particularly qualify you for the role of attorney general?During my 24 years of practicing law and 13 years in the state Senate, I have been involved in a wide variety of law and policy issues related to the duties of the Attorney General's office, including voting rights, workers' rights, criminal justice reform, public safety, consumer protection, education, health care access, the environment, the rights of domestic violence and sexual assault victims and the protection of working families and the middle class. I have served as a prosecutor, practiced education and health law, represented workers in labor and employment cases, represented those falsely accused of crimes and taken on civil rights cases. While serving in the General Assembly, I actively advanced policies such as the abolition of the death penalty, comprehensive law enforcement reform, sentencing reform, protections for victims of domestic violence and limits on excessive payroll debit card fees. I sought to lead by bringing together legislators and interest groups with diverse viewpoints and brokering difficult deals. With this background, I am uniquely qualified to transition from legislating to prosecuting, advocating and enforcing as the state's Attorney General. In particular, my experience crafting and passing criminal justice reform legislation will allow me to use the office of Attorney General to continue making Illinois' justice system more equitable and effective.What do you consider the chief responsibility of the state attorney general and how would you conduct the office to achieve it?I believe the three primary roles of the attorney general are to protect, represent and advocate. As attorney general, I will protect the people of Illinois by continuing the current attorney general's aggressive pursuit of consumer protection actions, appropriately distributing crime victims' assistance resources to benefit those who need them most, strengthening the Workplace Rights Bureau to more effectively handle allegations of labor law violations and fighting back against federal overreach that threatens the rights of Illinois residents. I will use my own legal experience and the top-quality diverse, talent I will hire to ensure that the State of Illinois is effectively represented in court where it is the defendant or plaintiff. And I will utilize this statewide office's bully pulpit to advocate for criminal justice reform, open government and other policies that benefit the people of Illinois and make justice more accessible and even-handed in this state.Is the office of public information public access counselor important? What should be the attorney general's role in ensuring that state and local governing bodies operate in an open and transparent manner?I believe that the number one deterrent to public corruption is sunshine. That is why I helped secure passage of legislation creating in statute an office under the Attorney General Ãcirc;#144; the Public Access Counselor Ãcirc;#144; to expedite responses to Freedom of Information Act and Open Meetings Act complaints. Members of the media and the general public should be able to access all information to which they are entitled as quickly as possible so elected officials can be held accountable and so voters and taxpayers understand what governments are doing with their authority and money. FOIA is a powerful tool, but only to the extent that government bodies comply with it. One of my top priorities as Attorney General will be assuring that the Public Access Counselor is appropriately staffed to respond quickly and accurately to FOIA requests and complaints. The first step in combating public corruption is making sure the existing powers of this office can be exercised to the fullest extent allowed under law. I will seek out additional means of using my role to deter and oppose public corruption, which degrades public confidence in government, discourages the civic involvement of talented people motivated to serve the public good and wastes taxpayer dollars. I would create more specific mechanisms for cooperation between my office and local prosecutors in order to access their grand jury powers in collaboration with them. Wherever appropriate, I will collaborate with federal prosecutors.How aggressive should the attorney general be in seeking consumer protections through the courts?Current Attorney General Lisa Madigan has done a tremendous job of using the powers of her office to protect consumers against fraud, deception and other corporate misconduct, taking for-profit colleges, payday lenders, student loan servicers and more to court. I will continue to aggressively pursue these cases and look for additional opportunities to protect consumers from scams and unsafe products, partnering with other states' attorneys general when doing so would be advantageous to the people of Illinois.How efficiently do you think the attorney general's office operates currently. What, if anything, would you do to streamline the office?The Office of the Attorney General has an annual budget of approximately $80 million, $30 million of which comes from General Revenue Funds and more than half of which is self-generated through court fees and fines. As attorney general, I will carefully evaluate the functions of the office to determine whether its divisions are operating at maximum effectively, to improve value to the taxpayer and to identify where additional staff and resources are needed to build on the work the office is currently doing while equipping to face new threats to the rights of Illinoisans. In the Senate, I filed legislation expanding the Workplace Rights Bureau. This division is dedicated to handling cases involving allegations of workers' rights violations and is equipped to prosecute rogue employers. It needs to be strengthened for more effective enforcement of Illinois labor law. While it is unclear how much additional funding will be needed to adequately staff this unit, the expansion could largely pay for itself through improved recoupment of fines from employers found in violation. As attorney general, I will ensure the public access division is adequately staffed in order to handle FOIA requests and complaints in a timely fashion and protect the public's right to be informed. I will also evaluate the staffing and capacity of the crime victims' services unit to make sure resources are reaching the most victimized communities in Illinois.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?I will continue the work I began in the legislature on criminal justice reform, working with lawmakers of both parties to maintain Illinois' progress toward appropriately focusing the resources of the corrections and justice systems. I will call for and participate in initiatives that target gun trafficking. And I look forward to bringing to fruition the pilot trauma center program I pushed for in the General Assembly to address the trauma stemming from violent crime ravaging already under-resourced communities. Evidence shows that untreated trauma feeds the cycle of violent crime when violence becomes normalized in a community and victims are disproportionately likely to become the next perpetrators. I believe we must follow where this evidence leads and establish policies that do not merely respond to gun violence, but prevent it. The office of a state attorney general has become a position of heightened importance as the Trump administration has aggressively sought to roll back policies that protect the rights of people living in Illinois and nationwide. Whether independently or in concert with other attorneys general, I am prepared to combat its attempts to undermine the Affordable Care Act, roll back protections for victims of campus sexual assault and student loan fraud, weaken penalties for nursing homes that put patients at risk, expose voters to attacks on their privacy and bully local police into acting as immigration officers. I will sustain Illinois' involvement in ongoing multi-state lawsuits against the federal government and be prepared to respond appropriately to further developments.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.I am inspired by Pope Francis's unconventional leadership.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?Resources shouldn't be wasted. Growing up in a Haitian-American household I was reminded about less-fortunate families back in Haiti who would not waste anything.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?Making sure I carved out a lot more time for my kids.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Mathematics, I discovered both law school and thereafter that most challenges that don't seem to be numerical can still be reduced to a mathematical equations.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Do not let someone else define the happiness you strive for in life.