About Ishan
Ishan Daya is a neighbor in the Bucktown community, and is running for Democratic Ward Committeeperson for the 32nd Ward of Chicago, where he is fighting to make the vision of an inclusive, democratic, and thriving city a reality.
Ishan has spent the last 15 years in Chicago, where he’s been rooted as a community organizer and entrepreneur. He’s focused his organizing around improving public safety, and creating a public infrastructure for mental health care access with a non-police crisis response for mental health crises. Previously, he built and scaled a tech-enabled business that created over 230 jobs in Chicago across technology, operations, and hospitality. He’s dedicated to building bridges between people and policy, and has brought that to life through creating a Progressive IPO (Independent Political Organization) in the 32nd Ward of Chicago, The People’s 32nd.
Ishan would be the first Muslim-American to hold a Democratic Ward Committeeperson seat in the City of Chicago – and is focused on continuing to break barriers to create a more inclusive, electoral system for everyone in this city. As an organizer, Ishan is committed to building a transparent and participatory process – and fighting against efforts of intimidation and disinformation that seek to undermine that process.
Ishan is a graduate of Northwestern University with a degree in Music and Business. After graduating from Northwestern, Ishan was a business analyst at McKinsey & Company where he primarily worked on Agricultural Development, Food Security, and Business Model Innovation work. From there, he went on to co-found and build an organization that has won an Inc. 5000 Award, Chicago Top Places to Work, Fifty on Fire, and many others. He has been deeply engaged in community organizing work around improving public safety, developing universal access to mental health care, helping secure that legislation through a public referendum process as well as in the 2024 city budget, and building community leaders here in the 32nd ward.
What is a Committeeperson?
The role of Committeeperson (FKA committeeman pre-2019) has evolved materially since the time of Mayor Daley, when it was the frontline of the political machine. In today’s landscape, the role of committeeperson has two main responsibilities:
Appointing individuals to fill elected role vacancies (more on the recent appointment made by our current 32nd ward Committeeperson in our blog) through a transparent, community-based process.
Being the liaison between the Democratic party and the ward – helping communicate the priorities of our neighbors and ensuring that they are heard at the party level, to shape the party platform.
This role is an unpaid role that does not hold formal policy responsibilities.
The committeeperson has the ability to join committees within the democratic party to help shape the platform. In the 32nd ward, our current committeeperson, Scott Waguespack, is not a part of any of the committees to help shape policy and platform, nor has he engaged in a transparent, community-based process for appointments.
My hope is that, as committeeperson for this ward, I can engage with our community on the things that are most pressing for us and the greater city, and bring that to the party to help drive party-level change, as well as build a transparent, and community-based process for appointments.
As an individual and as a leader, there are truths that I believe we need to hold when we engage in electoral politics: an expectation that candidates hold our Democratic values close – from improving economic opportunity for our neighbors across the city, expanding access to healthcare and mental healthcare, ensuring the security of reproductive rights, improving our critical infrastructure - both transportation and utilities, investing in secure and affordable housing for all residents, ensuring that our elderly have high quality care and accommodations, and ensuring that every child has access to the best public education.
If you believe in these values, and believe that our appointment process should be one that is democratic and participatory, then join me in helping change the way we’re represented here in the 32nd!