HYDE PARK — State Sen. Kwame Raoul is jumping into the race to replace Lisa Madigan as Illinois attorney general.
Raoul is the second candidate so far to have announced a run for attorney general since Madigan announced on Friday that she wouldn’t run again in 2019.
“As attorney general, I’ll put my problem-solving and advocacy experience to work to ensure that justice in Illinois is blind, never discriminating between city, suburban and Downstate, between brown, black and white or between rich and poor,” Raoul said in a statement Wednesday. “I am running to restore balance so that political gamesmanship is no match for the rule of law, under which all are equal.”
Raoul has served in the state Senate seat that represents the south lakefront from Downtown to the southern boundary of the city since 2004.
State Rep. Scott Drury of Highland Park announced on Tuesday that he would run.
At least two other Democrats are considering a run in a primary that will likely pit the winner against Erika Harold, a former Miss America and a Harvard Law School grad, according to Crain’s Chicago Businesss.
Raoul led the effort in the Senate to abolish the death penalty and has in recent years established a reputation for his efforts to reform the criminal justice system in the state and to address heroin and fentanyl drug trafficking.
He is considered a political progressive within the party and serves in the seat previously held by Barack Obama, progressive activist Alice Palmer before that and for 24 years by Richard Newhouse Jr., the first African-American to run for mayor in Chicago.
