CHICAGO — Danny Davis, the 83-year-old dean of Illinois’ U.S. House delegation and a voice for progressive politics for decades, announced Thursday that he will not seek election to a 16th term representing his downtown and West Side district — the latest move in a generational change sweeping the state’s and nation’s political scene.

Davis also announced his endorsement of veteran state Rep. La Shawn Ford in a budding primary contest to succeed him for the Democratic nomination in March. Ford had announced his congressional bid in May but said he would not run if Davis had sought another term. With his announcement Thursday that he wasn’t running for reelection, Davis will serve as chairman of Ford’s campaign.

Davis’ decision to retire at the end of his current term in January 2027 creates the fourth open-seat congressional contest for Illinois Democrats next year.

U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg and Robin Kelly of Matteson have opted to seek the seat of retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, along with Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. And U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Evanston announced in May she would not seek a 15th term in Congress.

All four districts are regarded as safely Democratic, meaning the winners of next year’s March 17 Democratic primaries will be the heavy favorites in the general election.

Davis’ endorsement of Ford, who has been in the state legislature for 18 years, comes as many others have expressed an interest in succeeding Davis for the 7th Congressional District seat. In addition to Ford, at least eight people have filed to run, including attorney Richard Boykin, a former Cook County commissioner and Davis’ former chief of staff.

“Congressman Davis is among the most impactful public servants of his generation,” Boykin wrote in a statement Thursday that didn’t address Davis endorsing someone else. “I am proud to have worked alongside him as he passed his first major piece of legislation — an amendment to the Access to Jobs Program that helped provide grants to transportation companies to connect people in urban areas to jobs in suburban communities.”

Chicago businessman Jason Friedman has also filed to run for the seat. And also on Thursday, after news of Davis’ announcement broke but before the congressman’s morning news conference, Chicago City Clerk Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin announced she planned to run for the seat. Conyears-Ervin challenged Davis for the congressional seat in 2024 but lost in the Democratic primary.

Before he made his announcement, Davis acknowledged his age and nodded to the fact that others were lining up to succeed him in Congress.

“I’m no spring chicken,” Davis told the Austin Weekly News on June 13. “Most people my age retired years ago.”

Davis said he had been consulting supporters, his physicians and constituents. But he also acknowledged his tenure in the House and the role seniority plays on Capitol HIll, adding, “I’m a senior member of Congress, not just a member.”

Despite facing pressure in previous campaigns from younger challengers pushing a message of change, Davis survived primary reelection battles with the backing of the current Democratic establishment, a contrast to the old Democratic guard that he once fought against to win public office.

Known for a deep, authoritarian bass voice that could have been used to voice movie trailers — and for his constant companion, his walking stick — Davis’ tenure encompassed an evolution of Chicago politics over nearly a half century in public life.

An Arkansas native, Davis after college moved to Chicago, where he was a community organizer with the Greater Lawndale Conservation Commission and also served as a teacher in the city’s public schools. He and other civil rights advocates were part of the 1960s Chicago Freedom Movement led by the Rev. Martin Luther King to challenge racial discrimination in city housing, education and employment.

In 1979, he was elected 29th Ward alderman as a political independent, directly challenging the remnants of the Chicago machine three years after Mayor Richard J. Daley’s death. He worked for the election of Harold Washington as the city’s first Black mayor in 1983.

In 1984 and 1986, he unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Cardiss Collins and, four years later, lost in taking on incumbent county Treasurer Ed Rosewell, but he won an at-large seat on the Cook County Board.

In 1991, he entered the race for Chicago mayor in challenging incumbent Richard M. Daley in the Democratic primary and finished second, 33 percentage points behind. Two decades later, he dropped a mayoral campaign in favor of former ambassador and U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun as a Black “unity” candidate who unsuccessfully challenged front-runner Rahm Emanuel’s bid to succeed Daley.

It was in 1996, when Collins retired, that Davis launched his congressional career. He won a 10-way Democratic primary race for the 7th Congressional District seat, defeating a field that included then-County Board member Bobbie Steele and then-Aldermen Dorothy Tillman, 3rd, Ed Smith, 28th, and Percy Giles, 37th. The general election in the heavily Democratic district was a political formality.

Davis, a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, is widely considered to be one of Congress’ most progressive members as he often leans to the far-left of Democratic Party politics.

He has long supported Medicare for All, pushed for the Green New Deal energy initiatives, advocated for a higher federal minimum wage and voted against the Iraq War in 2002. In 2013, he co-signed a letter with other Democratic members of the state’s U.S. House delegation urging the General Assembly to approve marriage equity.

His 15-year-old grandson’s murder by two teens who fought over a pair of Air Jordans prompted Davis to call for “every unit of government to call a state of emergency” to boost social and economic development in the city’s neglected neighborhoods.

“I know what it feels like to have a loved one whose life was wiped out unnecessarily for no apparent reason,” Davis testified in 2019 before the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee. “I have attended the funeral of so many children in my communities whose wonderful lives were interrupted by gun violence. I feel the devastation.”

His tenure has not been without controversy. In 2004, he attended a religious ceremony at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., where he crowned the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who declared himself the Messiah, and Moon’s wife, “the King and Queen of Peace.”

Davis in 2018 called Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who has made antisemitic and homophobic remarks, an “outstanding human being.” He later backtracked on his praise, saying, “Let me be clear: I reject, condemn and oppose Minister Farrakhan’s views and remarks regarding the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.”

In 2024, Davis easily won a five-way Democratic primary with 52% of the vote, which included overcoming challenges from Conyears-Ervin and Kina Collins, a progressive organizer. Two years earlier, in a largely two-person primary race, Collins put a scare into Davis when he won by a relatively close margin, 52% to 46%. Collins also challenged Davis in 2020, losing the Democratic primary 60% to 14%.

“I’m calling this a victory … for senior citizens,” Davis told supporters after his 2024 primary win.

But during the first half of this year, Davis had raised only $54,000. He had nearly $115,000 in his federal campaign bank account as of July 1, however, he also listed more than $66,000 in campaign debts.

In a 2010 oral history that is part of the Chicago anti-apartheid collection at Columbia College, Davis reflected on what was then an already lengthy political career.

“Although I’ve won offices, I’ve lost them. I’ve campaigned. I’ve spent a lot of money, I’ve spent a lot of time, energy, and effort,” Davis said.

“I’ve neglected a lot of people that I love, I’ve neglected a lot of people that I like and would love to have spent more time with them. But the necessities of politics and the desire to do it kind of forced me to do what I do,” he said.

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