About Me

I'm John and I want to fight for you.

I’m not a career politician. I’m not a Washington insider.

Hell, before 2024 I had no aspirations for political office.

I was just a young man who was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and was trying to make a living in the city I love while performing stand up comedy.

Then, November 2024 happened ...and it made me reconcile the failures in our system that were apparent in my own life:

I remembered the confusion I experienced as a kid conducting my first mass shooter drill.

I recalled the shock I felt when I learned so many of my childhood friends who welcomed me into their homes, were not in the country legally. 

I watched my parents’ savings be wiped out by the financial crisis of 2008 while banks received bailouts. 

I observed my siblings struggle with the burden of student loan debt that they accrued by pursuing higher education. 

I navigated the murky waters of trying to access VA health benefits after serving four years in the US Marine Corps.

I listened to the pain in a client’s voice while they told me how getting sick plunged them into an endless debt cycle when I worked at a bankruptcy law firm. 

I struggled with navigating teaching new Sailors at Great Lakes Naval Station classes on sexual assault prevention while having to be sure I don’t bring up race or sexual orientation, even when they asked.

These life lessons made me realize that empathy and compassion and diversity are strengths, not weaknesses. The humanity behind policies that turn us against each other cannot be ignored no matter who you are and where you come from. 

I believe that no one is more ‘American’ than any one else

... and ‘Patriotism’ isn’t defined by your willingness to live in a fairytale world where your country has no faults. It’s the belief that it can and should be better for EVERYONE.