Jacqueline McGowan

I was born and raised in California and moved to Chicago after high school. This is when I began an 18 year career as a stock broker; 9 of those years in Illinois and another 9 in New York. After a very successful career in a fast paced and male dominated industry where I negotiated high stakes deals, I left to become a cannabis policy advisor.

The proudest project I worked on was where my two career worlds collided, I helped facilitate the sale of an abandoned prison for a cannabis company due to both my negotiating skills, and my cannabis policy expertise, I helped ensure that this process was fully compliant with local, state, and federal laws. This facility is now growing cannabis where it used to grow food for inmates.

I aspire to become the first openly proud cannabis consuming Congressperson in D.C. and feel that more of us need to be open about our use of this plant in order to help destigmatize this type of medical consumption.

Congress is an exceptionally brutal field and I feel I am the most dominating and most qualified Democrat to represent this wonderful district of hard working people.

• I am certain that I am the most qualifed candidate to beat a Trump Republican in this District. I offer the greatest probability of retaining this a blue seat. I have a proven record of differenting myself and thriving in challenging , competitive, and demanding situations.
• Like the majority of my constituents, I know what it takes to be self made, and self driven. I understand how important and valuable the access to opportunity is and how Congress must continue to invest in our District to create opportunities.
• We have several great candidates but I don't believe they are as tough as I am. I am goal oriented and outcome driven. My goal is singularly focused and that is to keep this seat blue. I will not rest until I have exhausted every possible path to ensuring that Kevin McCarthy does not become the next Speaker of the House. There is no more ruthless environment than Wall Street, and there is no more convoluted political environment than in the cannabis policy space and I have exceptional experience and success in both of these arenas. It is my experience that makes me the most qualified to go into this political shark tank and succeed in fighting for the hard working people in District 17.

I am very concerned about the destruction of Roe vs. Wade and will fight hard to codify women's reproductive rights into law. Illinois must continue to be the safe haven that it is for women to travel to this great state to ensure their right to safe access is protected.

I am also extremely concerned with companies that are price gouging during this high inflationary times. I look forward to supporting the "Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act" in order to assess and address the fact that energy companies are making record profits this year.

I am personally passionate about legalizing cannabis at the federal level and in a way that it doesn't disrupt what currently exists across the Country. I would like to begin with independent legislation to release 40,000 non violent cannabis criminals across the nation.

The best path to sustaining the US as Number 1 in the world is though education. We need to ensure that an associates degree is attainable by all in just the same way a high school diploma is.

It truly depends on what hour of the day you ask me this question. If you would have asked a few weeks ago it would be Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Chaney as well as Joe Manchin, and Kristin Sinema. All of these elected officials have been willing to sacrifice their careers in order to do what's best for their constituents. I pledge to do the same.

If asked this question last night I would have said Abraham Lincoln for freeing the slaves, or Elanore Roosevelt for addressing segregation. I aspire to address institutional racism due to the fact that I was raised by a racist and I understand this issue more than my competitors on how we fix this.

Yet a consistent answer for me would always be that the Obama Administration was my most admired. I aspire to be as classy, as effective, and as compassionate and as they all were.

City So Real is a docuseries that tracked the political campaigns of all of the candidates for Mayor of Chicago in the last cycle. This is and has been a huge influence of philosophy of how dirty this entire game is and on how absolutely dependent the voters are on finding the ones that have a good heart and a strong nose in order to raid into this swamp and do the right thing.

There are main two driving factors to creating successful politicians. The first is that they must be able to enter extremely contentious situations and also be able to navigate and implement success for their distirct's policy goals.

Honest and transparency with their constituencies on what is and was able to be accomplished. They also have to be able to articulate where they have fail.

I became a cannabis advocate at the age of 8. I realized at this age that my abusive father did not harm my mother when he was smoking that stuff. So even though I believed in Santa Clause at that time, I asked my mom how much weed cost. She had a minor melt down thinking her 8 year old was smoking pot, but I assured her that I just wanted to go hustle selling sodas at construction sites in order to pay for a bag. I had $17 dollars saved at the time and my mother was 9 months pregnant with my brother. I knew if I could buy him a bag that the beatings would stop and that my little brother would be born ok.

Cannabis has now become the best natural medicine I have ever know and I aspire to be the first openly proud cannabis Congresswoman in office.

I worked at a Wendy's in high school and I had that job for 3 years.

"Art of the Deal" by Donald Trump......just kidding!!

My favorite book is the "Alchemist"

Robinhood

"I Can't Stop"-by Flux Pavillion

The US House of Representatives it truly the government that is directly properly elected, and because of that you do not see any more honest representation of what the people think and feel.

Having experience in any job is usually a very good thing, however in politics they have either existing biases or existing financial relationships that cloud their judgment or influence their policy making in a way that deters the will of their constituents.

We are heading straight into a recession and there is no way to deny that. Rising inflation usually is due to a roaring economy. This one is slightly different. This one is being caused by price gouging and supply chain issues. Studying economics, one would know that rising interests is the go to solution for inflation. However, this inflation wasn't caused by the usual. I believe we need to create company incentives for green energy and job training for when those jobs arrive in order to proceed through this transition into a green new world.

I would aspire to honor the esteemed Congresswoman Bustos' legacy of serving on both the Appropriations Committee and the Agricultural Committee so I could continue to implement the bills she has passed throughout her tenure.

I do not agree that this term limit is effective in true representation in Congress for those that elected them. Fundraising is an extremely time commitment that results in a less accessible representative for their constituents. I believe the limit should raised to 4 years.

I think it takes time to achieve power and allies in Washington D.C. I don't think that trajectory to achieving those tools should be prohibited by any longer term limit than 16 years. I would also support Grandfathering in all of the current office makers that were elected under unlimited terms.

While out signature gathering, I encountered a family of African Americans. They wanted to discuss a few issues before they signed my petition. The first was the Democrats message of "Defunding the Police." They explained to me that this actually caused a bigger rift between them and law enforcement and that their messaging was off. It always should have been "Reform the Police," according to my constituents.

Q. Why did the housewife cross the road?

A. I'm not sure, she's supposed to be in the kitchen.

As a pro second amendment proponent, I am also a mass shooting survivor when I was 16. This issue made me wish back then that there were better assessments on individuals buying guns so quickly, but it did not make me wish to stomp on the rights of legal owners. I believe the only way through this issue is to have true compromise. Waiting periods and raising the legal age limit on when you can buy an assault rifle are where both parties are going to have to meet in the middle.

Compromise is the only path through the divisive times we live in.

I would begin by looking at emerging markets and how we could attract those businesses to this District. I had extreme power working on Wall St and I walked away from that. This new power wouldn't be new to me at all and I would continue to put the hard working people of my District first.