Elected: 2015

Carlos Ramirez-Rosa was born and raised in Chicago and started as a community organizer with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He later worked as a congressional caseworker for U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and as a Community Representative to the Avondale-Logandale Local School Council. The first openly gay Latino alderman elected to the City Council, Ramirez-Rosa was 26 –years old when he defeated Ald.  Rey Colón  with  67 percent of the vote – successfully avoiding a run-off. A Democratic Socialist, Ramirez-Rosa has championed causes including affordable housing and civilian oversight of the police department. He has been a vociferous critic of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, particularly in the early discussions of the civilian-led police oversight board. When Lightfoot went back on her promise to support the Grassroots Association for Police Accountability’s oversight plan, Ramirez-Rosa took to Twitter to critique her stance and  “Mayor Lightfoot ran as an expert on police reform.

We should be able to assume that her decision to support civilian oversight wasn't made lightly.” He’s been a chief advocate on police accountability measures and pushed the expansion of Chicago’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance, which codified that undocumented residents are not prosecuted solely based on their immigration status. Lightfoot agreed to the issue after months of disputes. Ramirez-Rosa ran as Daniel Biss’s running mate for a whirlwind six days when Biss ran for governor.

He was eventually dropped from the ballot when Biss’s supporters learned that he supported the Boycott-Disinvest-Sanctions movement against Israel. Litesa Wallace quickly became Biss’s new lieutenant governor running mate. Ramirez-Rosa smoothly won his 2019 re-election and again avoided a run-off with 59 percent of the vote. He called his re-election “one of the most contentious in the history of our ward” in a letter to supporters. tweeted “Mayor Lightfoot ran as an expert on police reform.

We should be able to assume that her decision to support civilian oversight wasn't made lightly.” Ramirez-Rosa pushed the expansion of Chicago’s ‘Welcoming City’ ordinance, which codified that undocumented residents are not prosecuted solely based on their immigration status.Ramirez-Rosa smoothly won his 2019 reelection and again avoided a run-off with 59 percent of the vote. He called his reelection “one of the most contentious in the history of our ward” in a letter to supporters. 

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