Should the question arise as he campaigns
downstate, the Rev. Dan Rodriguez-Schlorff plans to answer:
“Yes, I identify as queer.”
And young. Part Filipino. A minister. A
venture capitalist. A former Republican. A Green Party member.
It’s a good thing for Rodriguez-Schlorff that most of those
qualities don’t necessarily count you out of an Illinois
election. With a rather late announcement that she will
seek the governor’s seat, state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka
has left a fairly level field for candidates who want the job she
is giving up, several of whom have launched their campaigns in the
past two weeks: • State Sen. Christine Radogno,
R-Lemont, the Republicans’ pick to replace Topinka, has
started circulating petitions. • The state Democratic Party has backed
Knox County State’s Attorney Paul Mangieri. • Banking heir Alexi Giannoulias has the
support of some heavy-duty Illinois Democrats in U.S. Sen. Barack
Obama and Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Representing the Green Party,
Rodriguez-Schlorff says that he was a stone-cold Republican until
five years ago. “I used to be anti-gay marriage,
ironically,” he says. “I used be anti-abortion,
anti-this, anti-that, just like a lot of Republicans. “I was involved in anti-abortion
groups. Luckily I never attended any protests, probably because I
was too busy crusading against gay rights.”
Interestingly enough, more because of the
party’s economic libertarianism than because of its
conservative social agenda, Rodriguez-Rodriguez-Schlorff jettisoned
the GOP for the Green Party during the 2000 election, when he began
campaigning for Ralph Nader. Initially passing up the opportunity to run for the Legislature, Rodriguez-Schlorff, 25,
decided this year that he wanted to help give the Illinois Green Party
the teeth to be “more than just a political activist
group.” “It gets really tiring after a while,
having no political power other than, ‘Say, elected official,
would you be able to do this for us? Please?’ ”
Rodriguez-Schlorff says. Fearing that because he’s young, gay,
and Green, voters may dismiss him as a viable contender,
Rodriguez-Schlorff plans to persuade Illinoisans to elect him on
the basis of his experience as a successful investor and former
health-agency auditor.
In high school, Rodriguez-Schlorff and his
brother started a vending-machine business, the money from which he
invested in mutual funds. Today, although admittedly not a
millionaire, Rodriguez-Schlorff lives comfortably in North
Chicago’s upscale Lakeview neighborhood and, for now,
finances his campaign out of his pocket.
“I have no problem — and some
Greens would really wring my neck after saying this — that
I’m a venture capitalist. We live in capitalistic society. We
can’t pretend that we don’t, and, yes, we can try to
effect change within capitalism.”
Originally from Indiana,
Rodriguez-Schlorff has identified small-business investment and
single-payer health-care insurance as two of his top priorities. He plans to invest state funds
heavily in agriculture and socially responsible corporations,
particularly those involved in the production of corn-based ethanol. Rodriguez-Schlorff lauds Gov. Rod
Blagojevich’s All Kids plan as good step for children but
says that he would like to see some form of universal health care. “There are certain things that should
be socialized, but that doesn’t mean that we need to suddenly
reject world capitalism and become a socialist state,” he
says. “There’s a difference between
socializing certain things and becoming socialist.”
As a minister in the United Church of Christ,
Rodriguez-Schlorff has traveled to parts of the state in which his
opponents have yet to make inroads. He plans to also make
nondiscrimination issues and gay marriage part of his campaign,
even as he campaigns downstate. “I don’t plan on being
in-your-face about being gay,” he says, “but I do plan
to be unabashedly out throughout my entire campaign,”
Besides, Rodriguez-Schlorff says, he can
convince voters that “if there’s any place you can feel
comfortable in voting for a gay person, it should probably be the
Illinois state treasurer, because it’s not a policy-maker
position.”
This article appears in Dec 8-14, 2005.
