Susana A. Mendoza is an American politician. She is the 10th
Comptroller of Illinois
The Comptroller of Illinois is a constitutional officer in the executive branch of government of the U.S. state of Illinois. Ten individuals have held the office of Comptroller since the enactment of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, replacing ...
, serving since December 2016. A member of the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, she formerly served as
Chicago City Clerk
The City Clerk of Chicago is in charge of record-keeping for the city of Chicago and its elections. When the Chicago City Council is in session, the City Clerk serves as council secretary. This position is a citywide elected office, one of three ...
and as an
Illinois State Representative
The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the current constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 re ...
, representing the 1st District of Illinois.
Mendoza was first elected as State Representative in 2000 and served into her sixth term, when she won the election for City Clerk of Chicago in February 2011, becoming the first female city clerk. She served in the position for five years until successfully running for the position of Comptroller of Illinois
in 2016.
Mendoza ran unsuccessfully in the
2019 Chicago mayoral election
The 2019 Chicago mayoral election was the 2019 edition of the quadrennial elections held to determine the Mayor of the City of Chicago, Illinois. The election was held on February 26, 2019. Since no candidate received a majority of votes, a run ...
.
[
]
Early life
Mendoza was born in Chicago to Joaquin and Susana Mendoza, who had emigrated from Mexico in the 1960s. The family moved from Chicago's Little Village
Little Village was an American/British rock band, formed in 1991 by Ry Cooder (guitar, vocal), John Hiatt (guitar, piano, vocal), Nick Lowe (bass, vocal) and Jim Keltner (drums). Each of the group's members had previously worked on Hiatt's 1987 ...
neighborhood to Bolingbrook when she was a child due to the ongoing violence in Little Village.
Mendoza graduated from Bolingbrook High School
Bolingbrook High School or The Brook is a public four-year high school located in Bolingbrook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Bolingbrook High School is the second high school in the Valley View Community U ...
in 1990 where she earned All‐State and All‐Midwest honors in varsity soccer. She then attended Truman State University
Truman State University (TSU or Truman) is a public university in Kirksville, Missouri. It had 4,225 enrolled students in the fall of 2021 pursuing degrees in 52 undergraduate and 11 graduate programs.
The university is named for U.S. Presiden ...
in Kirksville, Missouri
Kirksville is the county seat and most populous city in Adair County, Missouri. Located in Benton Township, its population was 17,530 at the 2020 census. Kirksville is home to two colleges: Truman State University and A.T. Still University.
...
on a soccer and academic scholarship and graduating in 1994 with a B.A.
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
in Business Administration
Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...
. She played for the soccer team from 1990 to 1994, redshirting during the 1993 season after suffering an injury in the first game. In total, she scored 10 goals and recorded 10 assists in 68 appearances for Truman.
After college, Mendoza moved to Chicago and lived with her family for they had relocated back to their Little Village neighborhood. It's at this time, while working a full-time job, that she became a local community organizer for her neighborhood and got involved in Chicago politics.
Rise in politics
Mendoza became involved with Southwest Side Chicago politics in the mid-1990s. As a young operative, she lost a 1998 bid for the Illinois House. In 1999, she was invited to coordinate the aldermanic runoff campaign of Chicago First Ward incumbent Jesse Granato. Granato had been forced into a runoff by progressive independent candidate Cynthia Soto. Central to the mayor's aggressive development plans, the First Ward election was one of five hotly contested races in independent efforts to oppose the city's patronage political system. Granato's chief support came from then-Mayor Richard M. Daley
Richard Michael Daley (born April 24, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term ...
as well as the controversial Hispanic Democratic Organization The Hispanic Democratic Organization (HDO) was a political action committee (PAC) officially started in 1993.
History
HDO was created by Tim Degnan, Victor Reyes, and Al Sanchez in 1993 to assist Richard M. Daley win his first mayoral election. ...
and Coalition for Better Government.
State representative
In 1998, Mendoza was slated by the regular Democratic Organization but lost to independent progressive incumbent Sonia Silva (1st Legislative District). In 2000, immediately after her victory for Granato and supported by Daley, the Hispanic Democratic Organization, and House Speaker Michael Madigan, Mendoza was slated and elected as an Illinois State Representative
The Illinois House of Representatives is the lower house of the Illinois General Assembly. The body was created by the first Illinois Constitution adopted in 1818. The House under the current constitution as amended in 1980 consists of 118 re ...
. At only 28, this made her the youngest member of the 92nd Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 181 ...
.[
Mendoza was Chairwoman of the International Trade and Commerce Committee, Vice-Chairwoman of the Bio-Technology Committee and was a member of the Labor, Public Utilities and Railroad Industry committees of the House.] Mendoza served as Co-Chairwoman of the Conference of Women Legislators, and also co-founded the first Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus.[
Mendoza was a known critic of then Illinois Governor ]Rod Blagojevich
Rod Blagojevich ( , born December 10, 1956), often referred to by his nicknames "Blago" or "B-Rod", is an American former politician, political commentator, and convicted felon who served as the 40th governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009, when ...
's staff in 2007. In 2008, Blagojevich blamed Mendoza, along with nine other Chicago Democrats, for lawmakers rejecting his capital bill; he also accused them of holding two taxpayer-paid jobs at once, being paid by the city or state at the same time as collecting salaries as state lawmakers. Mendoza took an unpaid leave from her job as a project coordinator with Chicago when she went to Springfield for legislative business. In her response to Blagojevich, Mendoza stated, "It is an obvious example that the governor is a pathological liar. If he honestly believes, in his lunacy, that 10 people from the City of Chicago controlled the fate of that doomed capital bill, he needs medical attention."
Mendoza served as an Illinois Democratic delegate in the primary elections for presidential candidates Al Gore
Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore was the Democratic Part ...
in 2000 and John Kerry
John Forbes Kerry (born December 11, 1943) is an American attorney, politician and diplomat who currently serves as the first United States special presidential envoy for climate. A member of the Forbes family and the Democratic Party (Unite ...
in 2004. In 2002, she visited the African countries of Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
and Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands and ...
as a delegate for the American Council of Young Political Leaders. In June 2004, the State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...
sent Mendoza to Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
where she participated in a series of debates in which she represented the National Democratic Party's 2004 presidential platform.[
]
Chicago city clerk
Mendoza was the first woman elected City Clerk in Chicago. In 2011, shortly after being elected, she took charge of an office responsible for more than $100 million in annual revenue from vehicle stickers. Mendoza spearheaded the Companion Animal and Consumer Protection Ordinance which banned Chicago pet stores from selling dogs, cats, or rabbits unless the animals are sourced from humane shelters or animal rescues. She changed the city's once-a-year vehicle sticker sales to year-round sales, saving about $4 million a year.
Illinois Comptroller
Mendoza ran for Illinois Comptroller in the 2016 special election, defeating the Republican incumbent Leslie Munger
Leslie Geissler Munger(January 5, 2015) "Rauner to Appoint Leslie Munger as Next Illinois Comptroller" ''WGNtv.com''. Retrieved January 12, 2015. (born September 5, 1956) is an American politician and business executive who served as the Illinois ...
by 5% of the votes cast.
Mendoza was elected during a special election to fill out the remaining two years of the term won by the late Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka
Judy Baar Topinka (January 16, 1944 – December 10, 2014) was an American politician and member of the Republican Party from the U.S. State of Illinois.
Originally a journalist, Topinka served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1981 ...
.[
Mendoza took office amid a two-year budget impasse between the Governor and the General Assembly. In 2017, '']Politico
''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...
'' named Mendoza to its national list of "18 to watch in 2018."
In her first year in office, Mendoza introduced and passed the Debt Transparency Act, which provides residents and legislators with a monthly accounting of the debts owed by every state agency. Though then-Governor Bruce Rauner
Bruce Vincent Rauner (; born February 18, 1956) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and politician who served as the 42nd governor of Illinois from 2015 to 2019. Prior to his election, he was the chairman of R8 Capital Partners and chai ...
vetoed the legislation, Republican and Democratic members of the House of Representatives overrode the veto unanimously. The State Senate likewise voted to override Gov. Rauner's veto with a 52 to 3 vote.
Her second year in office, she passed, three more Transparency bills: 1) The Truth-in-Hiring Act (requiring governors to list employees on their own payroll), 2) The Truth in Budgeting Act (requiring governors to address the state's Late Payment Interest Penalties in their proposed budgets) and 3) The Vendor Payment Program Transparency Act (requiring lenders to state vendors to disclose their owners and the source of their financing).
In 2018, Mendoza was re-elected as comptroller, winning 59.9% of the vote in an election against Republican nominee Darlene Senger
Darlene J. Senger (born July 28, 1955) is an American politician. She was a member of the Naperville, Illinois City Council, where she served from 2002 to 2008,"State Rep. Senger may run for Congress". ''The Naperville Sun'', July 17, 2013, page 3 ...
.
2019 Chicago mayoral candidacy
On November 2, 2018, a video leaked from Mendoza's campaign signaling her intention to run for Mayor of Chicago
The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and r ...
in 2019 despite her concurrent run for re-election as Comptroller. Two weeks later on November 14, Mendoza launched her mayoral campaign to replace Mayor Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
.
On December 14, 2018, rival candidate Toni Preckwinkle
Toni Lynn Preckwinkle (née Reed; born March 17, 1947) is an American politician and the current County Board President in Cook County, Illinois, United States. She was first elected as President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, the e ...
challenged Mendoza's 12,500 petition signatures, which are required for Mendoza to appear on the ballot in February. Preckwinkle claimed that there were "a pattern of fraud, duplicate signatures, signatures that don't match addresses and faulty page numbers".[ On December 19, 2018, after a petition challenge was held to verify if the signatures supporting Mendoza's campaign were valid, Preckwinkle conceded the challenge as it was discovered that Mendoza had more than 13,000 valid signatures.
Mendoza emerged, early in her campaign, as one of the race's leaders in both polling and fundraising.] In November and December 2018, publicly released polls consistently showed Mendoza and Toni Preckwinkle to be the top two polling candidates. At this point, the media was characterizing the race as a matchup between her and Preckwinkle, with the two being seen as the race's front-running candidates. Mendoza remained a top contender in polls released in January 2019, but was no longer consistently in the top-two.[ In February, Mendoza did not place in the top-two in any polls. (see 2019 Chicago mayoral election polls)
Mendoza was one of four mayoral candidates (alongside Toni Preckwinkle, Bill Daley, and ]Gery Chico
Gery J. Chico ( ; born August 24, 1956) is an American politician, Chicago lawyer, public official and former Democratic primary candidate for United States Senate.
Chico served as the Chief of Staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley from 1992 to 1995, ...
) who had political ties to Alderman Edward M. Burke
Edward Michael Burke (born December 29, 1943) is an American politician who is the alderman of Chicago's 14th ward. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the Chicago City Council in 1969, and represents part of the city's So ...
, whose corruption scandal upended the race for mayor.[
Mendoza was perceived to be seeking strong support from Hispanic voters. In the end, she received the highest support among Hispanic voters of any candidate in the first round.] However, Hispanic voter turnout was low.[
Mendoza's campaign was endorsed by labor activist ]Dolores Huerta
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organiz ...
and LIUNA Chicago Laborers’ District Council.
Mendoza did not advance to the runoff for mayor, finishing 5th in the primary election with 9.05% of the vote. On March 23, 2019, Mendoza endorsed Lori Lightfoot
Lori Elaine Lightfoot (born August 4, 1962) is an American attorney and politician serving since 2019 as the 56th mayor of Chicago. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot worked in private legal practice as ...
for Mayor of Chicago in the runoff.
Personal life
In December 2011, Mendoza married David Szostak, who attended Bolingbrook High School
Bolingbrook High School or The Brook is a public four-year high school located in Bolingbrook, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Bolingbrook High School is the second high school in the Valley View Community U ...
with her.[ In 2012, their son was born.][
She serves on the board of advisors of ]Let America Vote
Let America Vote is a political action organization founded by former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander in February 2017. Its mission is to end voter suppression across the country.
Overview
Kander first became concerned about voter suppre ...
, an organization founded by former Missouri Secretary of State
The people below have served as the Secretary of State of the U.S. state of Missouri.
List
Gallery
File:Warren E. Hearnes.jpg, Warren E. Hearnes
File:James C. Kirkpatrick.jpg, James C. Kirkpatrick
File:Rep Roy Blunt.jpg, Roy Blunt
File:Matt ...
Jason Kander
Jason David Kander (born May 4, 1981) is an American attorney, author, veteran, and politician. A Democrat, he served as the 39th secretary of state of Missouri, from 2013 to 2017. He had previously served as a member of the Missouri House of R ...
that aims to end voter suppression
Voter suppression is a strategy used to influence the outcome of an election by discouraging or preventing specific groups of people from voting. It is distinguished from political campaigning in that campaigning attempts to change likely voting ...
.
Electoral history
References
External links
Office of the Illinois Comptroller
Campaign website
* Official Illinois General Assembly
The Illinois General Assembly is the legislature of the U.S. state of Illinois. It has two chambers, the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois Senate. The General Assembly was created by the first state constitution adopted in 181 ...
websites:
*
Rep. Susana Mendoza (D) 1st District
''(2011–2012)''
*
Rep. Susana Mendoza (D) 1st District
''(2009–2010)''
*
Rep. Susana Mendoza (D) 1st District
''(2007–2008)''
*
Rep. Susana Mendoza (D) 1st District
''(2005–2006)''
*
Rep. Susana Mendoza (D) 1st District
''(2003–2004)''
, -
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mendoza, Susana
1972 births
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
City and town clerks
Comptrollers of Illinois
Hispanic and Latino American state legislators in Illinois
Hispanic and Latino American women in politics
Living people
Democratic Party members of the Illinois House of Representatives
People from Bolingbrook, Illinois
Women state legislators in Illinois
American democracy activists
Mexican-American people in Illinois politics
American women's soccer players
Women's association football midfielders
Soccer players from Illinois
Truman Bulldogs women's soccer players