Meet Will

Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago) represents the 39th District in the Illinois House, serving the Logan Square, Belmont Cragin, Hermosa, Bucktown, and Avondale neighborhoods of Chicago. Currently in his fifth term, Guzzardi is the chair of the Housing committee. He is also a founding co-chair of the Illinois House Progressive Caucus.

In the legislature, Guzzardi has championed issues of pressing importance to working people and those in need. He has advanced measures to end workplace discrimination; lower the cost of prescription drugs; make college affordable for every student; and curb abuses by the debt collection industry. And in February of 2019, he passed historic legislation raising Illinois’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025.

Raised in North Carolina, Guzzardi graduated from Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature in 2009. He has lived in the Logan Square neighborhood since that time. Prior to joining the General Assembly, he was an editor for Huffington Post Chicago and the head writer for admissions at the University of Chicago. He was also an active organizer in his community, joining with neighbors to fight school closures and advocate for an elected school board in Chicago.

Guzzardi’s successful outsider bid for elected office in 2014 — against one of Chicago’s most notorious political dynasties — is the subject of the short documentary, “The 39th.”