Amelia Schafer
ICT
When Anthony Tamez first ran for office and won in 2023, he made history as the second Native person to hold an elected office in Illinois, and one of the youngest Native people to hold a position in the U.S. Tamez is making waves again by announcing his run for the Illinois Fifth Congressional District.
If elected, Tamez, who is running as a Democrat, would be the first Gen Z Afro-Indigenous member of Congress to serve in the United States.
“The people that got us into the mess that we are in today aren’t going to be the ones that get us out of this mess,” he said. “I think we need people specifically in Congress who aren’t going to be afraid to stand up for, one, their constituents, their neighbors, but also this country’s most, the most vulnerable populations that we have in our country.”
Tamez, who is 25 and Key First Nation Oji-Cree/Saulteaux and Sicangu Lakota, was born and raised in Chicago. He became interested in running for office to make a difference in his community.
“I thought that we needed more people in office who not only physically look like me and come from the same background as me, but also have the same values,” Tamez said.
In February 2023 was elected to the Chicago Police District Council for District 17 at just 23 years old.
Only one other Native person has held an elected office in Illinois.
In early August, Tamez announced his run for Congress. Since then he’s been gearing up, holding different community events in Chicago and bringing the community together.
Tamez said, if elected, he would prioritize cannabis equity, a federal data privacy bill to protect individual’s data, and bringing health equity to his district. Tamez said he’s a pro-Palestine and anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement candidate.
In office, Tamez said he’d prioritize bold protections of Native sovereignty and honoring treaty rights.
“Until almost a year ago, we didn’t have any federally recognized tribes (with trust land) in Illinois,” Tamez said. “Now with the Prairie Band Potawatomi being back in the state, it’s really important to me that not only our state and local lawmakers, but our federal lawmakers in the state know that they have an obligation.”
In March, the Kansas-based Prairie Band Potawatomi regained several acres of their former reservation land near De Kalb, Illinois, marking a victory in the tribe’s return to their ancestral homelands.
Despite having a population of nearly 70,000 Native people and housing the Ho-Chunk and Tunica-Biloxi Chicago branch offices, Chicago lacks Native representation. Now, Tamez said, the state of Illinois, with a significant Native population in Chicago, needs to learn about its obligations to the returning tribe and about the Native people who inhabit the state.
Within Chicago’s Native community, Tamez is the former chairman of the Center for Native American Youth’s Advisory Board, a member of the Chi-Nations Youth Council, and a steward and co-founder of the First Nations Garden, which was founded in 2018. Tamez also was involved with Advance Native Political Leadership’s Native Leadership Institute.
The First Nations Garden is currently under construction and was recently placed into a land trust managed by NeighborSpace. Through NeighborSpace and the Designated Youth Council (Chi-Nation Youth Council), Tamez said the land is ensured to always be stewarded and cared for by Native people.
“(It’s) a piece of land that will far outlive me and many members of my family,” Tamez said.
Tamez also secured a $1.2 million grant with the city for the garden’s development.
“In the grand scheme of things, it’s very little money when it comes to the development of a land, but the Native community hasn’t seen money like that,” he said. “So we have experience advocating for and bringing these big dollars into our community to make sure that we’re reinvesting in not only our nation’s first people but Black people and Latinx people, and our nation’s most vulnerable populations.”
Tamez said he would aim to bring that same energy from the First Nations Garden to Congress.
“(That’s) making sure that we are investing in programs that are supporting Native youth,” Tamez said. “It is Native youth who are becoming the next generation of teachers, becoming the next generation of public servants, whether that’s running for office, whether they are working in a governmental office or human services, or they are working to be a first responder. We need to make sure that our people are taken care of.”
Additionally, Tamez said he would strive to connect with his constituents regardless of their political views.
“I think that the majority of people, Democrat, Republican, Independent, people with no political party, are upset with Democrats. They’re upset with Republicans. They’re upset in general with how our political system is operating,” he said. “I think young people bring a very unique perspective, in terms of being able to sit down and be that generational gap between.”
Tamez’s official launch party will be on August 22, with the Democratic primary following on March 17, 2026.