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Rush Darwish
Rush Darwish (Democratic Party) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Illinois' 3rd Congressional District. He lost in the Democratic primary on March 17, 2020.
Darwish completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Darwish was born in Bellwood, Illinois. He attended the College of DuPage Illinois Center for Broadcasting, graduating in 1997. Darwish worked as a sports broadcaster for 10 years in Texas and Nebraska. He started a multimedia production company, Rush Productions, in 2006.[1]
As of 2019, Darwish was an executive board member of AMVote PAC and the Arab-American Business Professional Association. He was also affiliated with the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.[1]
Elections
2020
See also: Illinois' 3rd Congressional District election, 2020
Illinois' 3rd Congressional District election, 2020 (March 17 Democratic primary)
Illinois' 3rd Congressional District election, 2020 (March 17 Republican primary)
General election
General election for U.S. House Illinois District 3
Marie Newman defeated Mike Fricilone in the general election for U.S. House Illinois District 3 on November 3, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Marie Newman (D)  | 56.4 | 172,997 |
 | Mike Fricilone (R) | 43.6 | 133,851 | |
| Total votes: 306,848 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for U.S. House Illinois District 3
Marie Newman defeated incumbent Daniel Lipinski, Rush Darwish, and Charles Hughes in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Illinois District 3 on March 17, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Marie Newman | 47.3 | 52,384 |
 | Daniel Lipinski | 44.7 | 49,568 | |
 | Rush Darwish | 5.7 | 6,351 | |
 | Charles Hughes | 2.3 | 2,549 | |
| Total votes: 110,852 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Abe Matthew (D)
Republican primary election
Republican primary for U.S. House Illinois District 3
Mike Fricilone defeated Catherine A. O'Shea and Arthur Jones in the Republican primary for U.S. House Illinois District 3 on March 17, 2020.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Mike Fricilone | 57.5 | 9,804 |
 | Catherine A. O'Shea | 32.5 | 5,541 | |
 | Arthur Jones | 10.0 | 1,708 | |
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.0 | 2 | ||
| Total votes: 17,055 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign themes
2020
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Rush Darwish completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2019. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Darwish's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I have always had a deep desire to improve my community. I have been involved in working to improve the lives of both Americans as well as people around the world. I have served as a member of the Executive Board of AMVote PAC, where I have worked to increase voter registration and political engagement in the 3rd Congressional District, and served on the transition team for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
In addition to working to improve my community, I am a small business owner. I was a newscaster for ten years, after which I started an award-winning multimedia production company. However, I am most proud of being a husband to my wonderful wife, Aziza and a father to my two boys, Adam and Amir.- Providing universal health care by enrolling every uninsured American in Medicare while allowing people who have insurance through their employer to keep it.
- Ensuring a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who are already here and are contributing to our society.
- We have to get big money out of politics. This campaign is built on a grassroots movement of people engaging in the political process for the first time and is free of any PAC money.
We have let longtime politicians try to solve our problems, and they have failed, because politicians over time begin to only serve special interests and PACs
Foreign Affairs
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
Campaign website
Darwish's campaign website stated the following:
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I support Medicare for all who want it. Americans are suffering from a healthcare crisis. While politicians in Washington debate, Americans face serious uncertainty regarding their coverage and their employer-provided plans. In every other developed country, healthcare is treated as a basic right and is provided at significantly lower cost. Today, the United States is the wealthiest country that has ever existed. Our healthcare system must reflect this reality and treat healthcare as a human right, not a privilege. As it exists today, healthcare policy in the United States creates a two-tiered system that favors the richest at the expense of millions of Americans. To provide millions of Americans with the healthcare they both need and deserve, I support the Medicare for America Act as proposed by Reps. Rosa DeLauro and Jan Schakowsky. Medicare for America would provide coverage for every uninsured American and lower costs for those already insured by doing the following: 1. Allow Americans who like their insurance plans to keep them. Under the Medicare For America plan, those enrolled in employer-sponsored insurance programs would have the option to remain enrolled in their current plan. However, prior authorization and step therapy will be banned, meaning your insurance provider will no longer be able to require you to “try” cheaper or generic medications before covering the best possible treatment. This plan will allow the government to negotiate prescription drug prices, so that Big Pharma will no longer be able to charge unlimited amounts on necessary medications and pharmaceutical products. Should providers refuse to negotiate with the Department of Health and Human Services, prices would be established according to the Department of Veterans Affairs prices or by basing prices on average global market rates. Additionally, Medicare for America finally puts an end to Fee For Service private arrangements, which will help in lowering overall private insurance costs. 2. Provide a low-cost, public option for every uninsured American as well as those who would like to switch. Medicare for America provides a low-cost, public option for insurance coverage, in which enrollees would “pay in” no more than 8% of their monthly income. Those with incomes twice the federal poverty line or below would pay no premiums at all. 3. Allow for expanded coverage through Medicare Advantage. Medicare For America also provides greater choice in the form of Medicare Advantage. Individuals and families can enroll in Medicare Advantage plans and pay separate premiums for additional coverage, on top of the public and private insurance options. Increased coverage under Medicare For America would include long term services, as well as disability and senior citizen coverage, a great improvement on the current state of Medicare and private insurance providers. So how do we pay for it? Voters have a right to know how healthcare plans will be paid for. Reps. DeLauro and Schakowsky propose getting rid of the 2017 Republican tax bill and implementing a 5% surtax on adjusted gross incomes of over $500K.[1] If you make less than $500,000 a year, your taxes won’t go up. Medicare for America also makes sure that states would pay no more into Medicaid and CHIP programs than they already do under what are known as maintenance of effort payments. The rate of inflation on these payments for states will grow over time, however.[2] I support Medicare for all who want it because I believe in providing choice. Too many politicians in Washington don’t believe that healthcare is a right, or don’t trust Americans to choose what is right for them. I believe that Medicare for America is the best way to ensure choice while providing coverage for every American. The reason I support Medicare for America is because I trust my fellow Americans to make the right decision for themselves and their families. [1] This accounts for additional incomes outside of primary source of income like capital gains. [2] States that accepted the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act would receive a discount on inflation rates for maintenance of effort payments for the first 10 years, after which all states would pay the same amount. Economy/Job Creation Thousands of families across the 3rd District are struggling to make ends meet. It’s becoming more difficult than ever to qualify to buy a home and people are pushing their dreams off further and further. At the same time there’s a rising demand in the technology, manufacturing, and transportation industries for skilled workers. I believe in social innovation, and the reality is that the current economic situation for a lot of families in our district is unsustainable; while I fully support a Federal Minimum Wage of $15, I believe that more must be done to support our families. As your Congressman I would:
My wife and I have been dealing with student loans throughout our marriage, 18 years and 2 kids later and we’re still paying them. This experience is a systemic crisis, thousands of students across the US graduate each year with tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. These folks are forced to put off their goals and instead spend years and years paying off this debt. I firmly believe that the key to our future as a nation is investing in our public education systems – primary, secondary, and post-secondary – to allow them to have adequate funding, providing students with low, or no cost education. In an effort to do our part, my family and I founded an annual scholarship at Moraine Valley Community College to lessen the financial burden on recipients, but what we need as a country is a reallocation of funds to our public education systems to support our students. As your Congressman I would:
Immigration This country was built by immigrants seeking freedom from persecution, seeking a better opportunity, and working towards a better tomorrow. My parents are immigrants who came here for a better opportunity, with the dream to raise our family. The current administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions are simply unacceptable: the Muslim ban, the family separation policy, making migrants fleeing violence wait for months at the border to apply for asylum, the ICE raids on places of business, the actions being taken to deny green card applicants and visa applicants by expanding the LPC test, the almost everyday stream of racist and tasteless comments about different communities. This is an attack not only on those communities, but on our ideals and values as Americans. This administration is dehumanizing these families and I am absolutely unwilling to allow it to continue. Asylum is an internationally recognized human right. In my personal time, I have been connecting undocumented families I know with pro-bono immigration attorneys to assist them in gaining legal status. While I believe that has made a small difference, what we need as a country is comprehensive and fair immigration reform to put these families on a path to citizenship and prevent any future administration from the egregious actions which have taken place over the last few years. As your Congressman I would:
Women’s Rights As a government which prides itself on being a leader in human rights, civil rights, and civil liberties I believe we have done a great disservice to half of our constituents. To think that in our country today I, as a male, have a higher income sheerly on the basis of my sex is absurd. What’s more is women’s reproductive rights are regularly under attack in states across the country. In the case of Georgia specifically, that bill allows for a woman who miscarried to potentially be investigated, does not include language protecting women from criminal prosecution should they seek an abortion, among other ludicrous inclusions. This is a far governmental overreach into the lives of constituents. The fact of the matter is the Georgia bill and bills like it, passed in Alabama, Mississippi, Ohio, and introduced in many other states put women’s health and lives at risk. I believe in a woman’s right to choose; that we have control over our own bodies is essential to the very core of personal liberty. As your Congressman I would:
Substance Abuse and Mental Health In America today there are crises surrounding substance use, particularly opioids, and mental health which we can no longer avoid. 130 people die everyday as a result of opioid overdoses, and the CDCP estimates that the cost of prescription opioid misuse is over 78 billion dollars each year! (reference footnoted) I believe in accountability, and the fact is this crisis is primarily due to a lack of oversight and regulation over the Pharmaceutical industry, which promoted these drugs to physicians with the false pretense that they were non-addictive. I think it speaks volumes about our current mental health system when one of the largest mental health facilities in the country is Cook County Jail. On top of the fact that the stigma of mental health is a barrier from seeking proper care, mental health centers have been closing across our state due to a decrease in funding. Our families simply do not have adequate access to the programs and resources they need to help them overcome these issues. As your Congressman I would:
Supporting Small Businesses I’ve always had the vision of owning my own production company. In 2006, I started Rush Productions from the basement of my home. I couldn’t qualify for a loan, and I had very little equipment of my own so I borrowed equipment from some generous friends in the industry. Business picked up quickly, but then the recession in 2008 hit, practically erasing all of the progress I made. With the help of family and friends, I was fortunate enough to get back up and running and today have a fully functional storefront business with multiple locations and all the equipment and gadgets I could possibly need. As a small business owner I understand how difficult it can be at times. All across our country, the same banks that caused the recession and got bailed out with our tax dollars are denying families the small business loans they need to achieve their dreams. Corporations like Amazon and Walmart are getting larger and larger, putting existing small businesses at risk. All this while our government sits by and does nothing. As your Congressman I would:
Campaign Finance Reform There is too much money in politics and, as much as some politicians like to deny it, money buys influence. In our current system industries have the upper hand, they’re worth billions of dollars and have no issue putting in hundreds of millions towards candidate’s committees. If an incumbent comes out against them, they pour millions of dollars into their opponent’s campaign. This issue is further exacerbated by the use of dark money, and lack of enforcement surrounding campaign finance violations. The funding system has become very complex and far-reaching, and lost in the midst of things are the issues families care about the most. While grassroots, crowd-sourced, funding strategies are effective in theory, they simply cannot create as much funding as quickly. This is why we need comprehensive reform. As your Congressman I would:
Climate Change and the Environment The science is clear, global climate patterns are shifting and it is up to us to take action to protect our future generations. We simply cannot continue to put off action on this issue, in the past 10 years climate change has cost US taxpayers over 350 billion dollars. Corporations cannot be allowed to continue to pollute our air with toxins, which is why I supported the Sterigenics shutdown. We cannot continue to rely on fossil fuels and coal to power our lives. We have a responsibility to ensure our future generations will have clean air, water, energy, and be safe from environmental disasters resulting from climate change. As your Congressman I would:
Gun Violence Prevention Gun violence is an epidemic in our country and recent events have demonstrated the gun violence epidemic is in fact a national emergency. In recent years, we have all seen the tragic violence that domestic terrorists can inflict with assault rifles and demented ideology, be it anarchy or white supremacy. Policies need to focus on the disproportionate impact of gun violence on communities of color – Black men are over 10 times as likely and Hispanic men are over 3 times as likely to be gun homicide victims than white men. Here in the 3rd District, we are also exposed on a weekly basis to the less publicized displays of gun violence on our city streets. I believe that federal legislation regulating the purchase of firearms does not infringe on the rights afforded by the Second Amendment. Legislation I am proposing does not stop an individual from purchasing a firearm. Rather, these proposals are focused on three primary goals: 1. Creating harsher federal sentences for those who buy and sell illegal guns Rush believes that those who profit from and exploit the straw purchasing loopholes in various states, as well as those criminals stockpile weapons by acquiring guns illegally from these straw purchasers, are the biggest contributors to the endless gun violence in Chicagoland and other urban areas. Rush has proposed “Sell for Life” legislation, which would ensure that straw purchasers and anyone else who buys or sells guns illegally would be charged with a federal crime with a life sentence. Illegal gun sales contribute to thousands of deaths across the country each year and should be treated the same way as the crime of first-degree murder. Representative Robin Kelly’s H.B 6441, making all straw purchases of firearms a federal crime, is a good first step on this front and should be passed by Congress immediately. 2. Taking assault rifles, high capacity magazine clips, and other weapons of war completely off our streets The use of assault rifles in mass killings across the country has allowed domestic terrorists to rack up tragically high body counts in a short period of time. Assault rifles and high capacity magazine clips are weapons of war and should be treated as such. Rush believes Congress should immediately pass a national ban on the importation and sale of all assault rifles and high capacity magazine clips. These weapons should only be utilized by our Armed forces and at certain times by local law enforcement. 3. Implementing the most thorough and transparent set of federal background checks for those wishing to purchase a firearm Unfortunately, the number of white nationalist groups in the United States, those particularly electrified by Trump’s presidency, surged by almost 50 percent in 2018. Recent events have demonstrated that inhabitants of the dark web attracted to radical ideologies like anarchy and white nationalism should not be allowed to purchase firearms, and a federal database that takes this into account in its background checks may very well stop the next mass shooting. Homeland Security should be investing the resources and the manpower to address this rising white nationalist threat that threatens the safety of all Americans. We are living in a data-rich age and private companies often know more about our internet search history and consumer habits than we do ourselves. There is no reason big data can’t work towards developing a national background check database that would be a required screening step before any American purchases a firearm.[2] |
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| —Rush Darwish’s campaign website (2020)[3] | ||
See also
2020 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 17, 2019
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Rush Darwish 2020 campaign website, "The Issues," accessed March 3, 2020
