Prior to pursuing a political career, Biss was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Chicago from 2002 to 2008.
A member of the Democratic Party, Biss began his political career by running unsuccessfully as his party's nominee for the 17th district seat in the Illinois House of Representatives in 2008. Biss was successful in 2010 at his second attempt at running for the Illinois House of Representatives, representing its 17th district from 2011 to 2013. In 2012, Biss was elected to the Illinois Senate, and represented its 9th district from 2013 through 2019. Biss unsuccessfully ran as a candidate in the Democratic primary for Governor of Illinois in the 2018 election. In 2021, he won the election for mayor of Evanston in the city's consolidated primary.
Prior to full-time pursuit of a political career, Biss was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Chicago from 2002 to 2008.[12]
At least four of the mathematics papers that Biss published in academic journals were later discovered to contain major errors. Mathematician Nikolai Mnëv published a report in 2007 that there was a "serious flaw" in two of Biss's works published in Annals of Mathematics and Advances in Mathematics in 2003, saying "unfortunately this simple mistake destroys the main theorems of both papers".[13] In 2008 and 2009, Biss acknowledged the flaw and published erratum reports for the two papers, thanking Mnëv for drawing his attention to the error.[9][14][15] He and a co-author, Benson Farb, also acknowledged in 2009 that there was a "fatal error" in a paper they had published in Inventiones Mathematicae in 2006, thanking mathematicians Masatoshi Sato and Tom Church for helping to explain the problem.[16] Another of his papers published in Topology and its Applications was formally retracted by the publisher in 2017, fifteen years after its 2002 publication, with the journal saying "This article has been retracted at the request of the Editors-in-Chief after receiving a complaint about anomalies in this paper. The editors solicited further independent reviews which indicated that the definitions in the paper are ambiguous and most results are false. The author was contacted and does not dispute these findings."[17] The journal said they had identified twelve specific errors in the paper, but clarified that they had concluded that the paper's findings were merely inaccurate, not fraudulent.[18][19][20] When contacted by the journal, Biss had responded saying "Thank you for writing. I am no longer in mathematics and so don't feel equipped to fully evaluate these claims. I certainly do not dispute them. If you would like to publish a retraction to that effect, that would seem to me to be an appropriate approach."[18][20]
When the 2017 retraction and the previously identified errors were reported by the Chicago Sun-Times in September 2017, his campaign blamed operatives for the perceived front-runner for the Democratic Party candidate for governor of Illinois, J. B. Pritzker, for raising it as a political issue. They said "Whether it was training at MIT or the University of Chicago, Daniel has had dozens of academic papers reviewed by his peers and published. In a few cases, further research has found that the case posited in the original article didn't stand up, and he revised his findings."[18] They referred to the raising of the issue as "silly opposition research".[18]
Illinois House of Representatives
Biss ran for a seat in the Illinois State House of Representatives in 2008, losing to RepublicanElizabeth Coulson in the 17th district.[21] Starting in 2009, he then worked as a policy adviser to Pat Quinn, the Democratic governor of Illinois.[12][22][23] He successfully ran for the same Illinois State House seat in 2010.[24]
Committee assignments
Appropriations – Elementary & Secondary Education
Personnel & Pensions
Consumer Protection
Small Business Empowerment & Workforce Development
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Tenure
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Political positions
According to his responses in a 2008 "Political Courage Test", Daniel Biss supports carbon emissions limits and is pro-choice (supporting legal access to abortion services). He also supports allowing Illinois high school graduates to pay in-state tuition at public universities regardless of immigration status, as well as state funding to raise the salaries of teachers.[29] He received a 7% rating by the NRA Political Victory Fund in 2010.[30] Biss has expressed support of labor unions[31] and he received a $20,000 campaign contribution from AFSCME.[32] Biss also supports legalizing marijuana in Illinois.[33]
In 2013, Biss cosponsored SB 1, a bill that aimed to limit the annual growth of retirement annuities within state employee's pension plans in an attempt to reduce debts in the state retirement system.[34] In May 2015, the Illinois Supreme Court found the law unconstitutional.[35] In rejecting the constitutionality of SB 1, the Illinois Supreme Court stated: "These modifications to pension benefits unquestionably diminish the value of the retirement annuities the members…were promised when they joined the pension system. Accordingly, based on the plain language of the Act, these annuity-reducing provisions contravene the pension protection clause's absolute prohibition against diminishment of pension benefits and exceed the General Assembly's authority," the ruling states.[36] Biss later said that his work on SB 1 was an error, saying, "I decided this was the least bad of the bad options. I allowed myself to think we couldn't do better." Biss later expressed support for funding higher pension payments if necessary by instituting a tax system with a graduated income tax and a tax on financial transactions.[37]
In March 2017, Biss sponsored SB 1424, a bill proposing a system of matching state funds for small-donor political contributions[38] and SB 780, a bill proposing to elect a number of statewide offices by ranked-choice ballot.[39] He also co-sponsored SB 1933, a bill by State Sen. Andy Manar to allow for automatic voter registration when applying for an Illinois driver's license.[40]
Biss briefly named Chicago alderman and Democratic Socialists of America member Carlos Ramirez-Rosa as his gubernatorial running mate, but dropped him from the ticket after just six days because Ramirez-Rosa had expressed some support for the BDS movement which seeks to impose comprehensive boycotts on Israel over alleged human rights violations against Palestinians. Biss' ally, Representative Brad Schneider, had rescinded his endorsement of the ticket over his pick of Ramirez-Rosa as his running mate, though Biss denied that that affected his decision.[48] Biss later announced his selection of Rockford-based state representativeLitesa Wallace, a single mother and former social worker.[49][50]
On March 20, 2018, Biss lost the Democratic primary to J. B. Pritzker. He received 26.70% of the total vote, behind Pritzker with 45.13% and ahead of Chris Kennedy with 24.37%. Biss carried two counties, McLean and Champaign.[55]
Post-Senate activities
Having not sought reelection in the 2018 Illinois Senate election (instead running for governor), Biss was succeeded in the Illinois Senate by Laura Fine on January 6, 2019.[56]
On September 18, 2018, Biss announced in an email to supporters that he had accepted the position of executive director of the nonprofit Rust Belt Rising, which aims to train and support Democratic candidates in the Great Lakes states.[57]
On September 16, 2020, Biss announced the launch of a campaign for mayor of Evanston, Illinois.[63][64][65][66] On October 28, 2020, the incumbent mayor, Steve Hagerty, announced that he would not be seeking reelection.[67]
Biss' mayoral campaign received many prominent endorsements. In December 2020, his campaign rolled out a list of 100 endorsements, including those of nine Evanston aldermen, as well as United States congresswoman Jan Schakowsky; state senator Laura Fine; state representatives Kelly Cassidy, Robyn Gabel, Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz; and Cook County commissionerLarry Suffredin.[68] The Democratic Party of Evanston gave Biss its endorsement,[69][70] as did Northside Democracy for America,[71] the Organization for Positive Action and Leadership (OPAL),[72] and the Community Alliance for Better Government (CABG).[73] Biss was also endorsed by incumbent mayor Stephen Hagerty, and former mayors Elizabeth Tisdahl and Jay Lytle.[74] On February 18, 2021, Biss' former gubernatorial primary opponent J.B. Pritzker, now the governor of Illinois, endorsed his candidacy for mayor.[75]
Biss had a vast financial advantage over his two opponents. In the first three months after announcing his candidacy, he had received in excess of $100,000 in contributions. By that point, opponent Lori Keenan had only raised $3,000 and opponent Sebastian Nalls had only raised $1,000.[74]
Biss won a landslide victory in the consolidated primary on February 23, 2021, forgoing the need for a runoff by receiving an outright majority of the vote.[76] Biss won all but one of the city's 50 voting precincts.[77]
Transition
Ahead of the April 6 Evanston municipal general election, mayor-elect Biss criticized the group Evanston Together LLC for distributing mailers which inaccurately implied that several candidates for municipal office had outright supported switching the city from a council-manager government to a strong mayor government. Biss also remarked that, while a shift in the city's form of government would not be a priority to him, he is not opposed to exploring the idea if it would remedy issues in the city.[78]
^Giovetti, Olivia (January 18, 2011). "Jonathan Biss". Time Out New York. Archived from the original on September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 5, 2013.
^Mnev, N (2007). "On D.K. Biss' papers "The homotopy type of the matroid Grassmannian" and "Oriented matroids, complex manifolds, and a combinatorial model for BU"". arXiv:0709.1291 [math.CO].
^"Who's on Team Biss?". Daniel Biss for Governor. Biss for Illinois. 6 November 2017. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2018.
^Biss, Daniel (August 15, 2019). "Endorsement of Elizabeth Warren". Twitter. Retrieved April 3, 2020. A presidential candidate whose rallying cry is "big structural change" -- yes, please! ... I'm proud to endorse Elizabeth Warren, who represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform our broken system. I hope you'll join me in supporting her. [pic.twitter.com/LNGu8Bufgb Video]