Dan Rostenkowski - Illinois Legislature

Illinois Legislature

In 1952, while still a student at Loyola, the twenty-four-year-old Rostenkowski was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives in Springfield, Illinois. He was its youngest member. As a state lawmaker, Rostenkowski worked on the planning and financing of a major federal highway from downtown Chicago to the new O'Hare International Airport. Like Daley and many other Chicago politicians before him, serving in Springfield was often viewed as a first step to a higher office in Chicago. The perception of the state legislature as training ground went hand in hand with another idea, that Chicago, not Springfield or Washington constituted the most desirable locus of political life.” (Cohen 24) After two years in the House, he was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1954. In 1957 he pushed a bill to extend state funded free polio vaccines to children as well as a bill that would have provided bonuses of up to $555 for Korean War veterans – financed by a one-cent cigarette tax. It passed, but was later rejected by Illinois voters in a 1958 referendum.(Merriner 76)

While serving his second term in the senate, Chicago Mayor, Richard J. Daley suggested that he run for clerk of the Cook County Court, instead, Rostenkowski pushed for and received Daley’s support to run for the United States Congress.