Chicago Story: Corruption and a Family Legacy Are on the Ballot

[Celerity]

Jesse Jackson Jr.—convicted, unpardoned, and unrepentant—is running for Congress again.

https://prospect.org/2025/12/11/chicago-story-corruption-family-legacy-on-ballot-jesse-jackson-jr/


Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., seen in a recent television interview, has announced his bid to return to Illinois’s Second Congressional District. Credit: Screenshot/ABC 7 Chicago

Chicago has a busy 2026 ahead. Three Democratic members of Congress are retiring from their seats across the city, which has prompted dozens of candidates to hop into the races in hopes of gaining a long-term incumbency. There’s Illinois’s Ninth District, where a field of 16 candidates is led by Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and new-media journalist Kat Abughazaleh. In the Seventh District, 13 candidates are vying for the seat. But perhaps the most classically “Chicago” race is in Illinois’s Second District, which starts on the South Side of the city and stretches into such south suburbs as Dolton and Blue Island. That race, an open seat because Rep. Robin Kelly is seeking election to the U.S. Senate, raises this question: What could be more “Chicago politics” than a corrupt politician with name recognition trying to rebrand himself and return to Congress?

That’s the story of Jesse Jackson Jr., former congressman and son of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson. Jackson Jr. threw his hat into the IL-02 race 13 years after he resigned from the very same role and was shortly thereafter convicted of stealing $750,000 of campaign funds for personal expenses, including a Rolex, taxidermied elk heads, a $4,600 fedora worn by Michael Jackson, and much more. Jackson is framing his entry into the race as an almost spiritual redemption project. “Even when I was exiting prison after I was sentenced, I said I still seek forgiveness, and I still seek the restoration and the resurrection of my life and the life of others, and I’m still right there,” he said on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight: Black Voices in 2024.

But his Facebook posts since he was convicted reveal a man who consistently downplays and justifies his crimes, showing a lack of remorse and reflection. In 2018, Jackson weighed in on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) struggles to afford an apartment in D.C., writing on Facebook: “This is what happens. Then when you have kids and they need to attend decent schools in DC and you want to have a life while serving, guess what? You start calling everything you do a campaign expense.” Jackson went on to justify his spending of campaign contributions: “A life long vow of poverty, I did not take for me or my family. [W]hen you truly represent people you have a lot of personal standards that you have to maintain and they are expensive.”

But what Jackson calls not taking a “vow of poverty” was spending three-quarters of a million dollars of campaign money on luxury items and experiences. Jackson spent $43,350 on a gold-plated Rolex. $17,163 at tobacco shops. Nearly $27,000 on various pieces of Michael Jackson memorabilia. $5,800 worth of clothing from a fur shop, including a reversible mink parka and multiple cashmere capes. “I would buy my kids what they wanted for Christmas, and I said to myself, ‘self, they deserve it, my supporters won’t mind, because I’m working hard as hell,’” he finished the post. Now, he’s hoping his supporters in the Second District “won’t mind,” or at least won’t remember how his 17 years in Congress ended.

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