Celina Villanueva
From Ballotpedia
Celina Villanueva
Illinois State Senate District 12
Tenure
2023 - Present
Term ends
2027
Years in position
2
Predecessor
Prior offices
Illinois House of Representatives District 21
Illinois State Senate District 11
Compensation
Elections and appointments
Education
Personal
Contact
Celina Villanueva (Democratic Party) is a member of the Illinois State Senate, representing District 12. She assumed office on January 11, 2023. Her current term ends on January 13, 2027.
Villanueva (Democratic Party) ran for re-election to the Illinois State Senate to represent District 12. She won in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Villanueva served as State Representative for Oregon House of Representatives District 21 from 2018-2020, and as State Senator for Illinois State Senate District 11 from 2020-2023.
Biography
Celina Villanueva was born in Chicago, Illinois. Villanueva earned a B.A. in Latina/Latino studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2008. Her career experience includes working as a New Americans Democracy Project and youth engagement manager with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, a political consultant, and the director of organizing with Chicago Votes.[1][2]
Committee assignments
Note: This membership information was last updated in September 2023. Ballotpedia completes biannual updates of committee membership. If you would like to send us an update, email us at:editor@ballotpedia.org.
2023-2024
Villanueva was assigned to the following committees:
- Senate Higher Education Committee
- Human Rights Committee, Chair
- Labor Committee, Vice Chair
- Transportation Committee
2021-2022
Villanueva was assigned to the following committees:
- Senate Higher Education Committee
- Human Rights Committee, Chair
- Labor Committee, Vice-Chair
- Transportation Committee
2019-2020
Villanueva was assigned to the following committees:
- Appropriations-Human Services Committee
- Health Care Availability & Access Committee, Vice chair
- Public Utilities Committee
- House Higher Education Committee
- Labor & Commerce Committee
The following table lists bills this person sponsored as a legislator, according to BillTrack50 and sorted by action history. Bills are sorted by the date of their last action. The following list may not be comprehensive. To see all bills this legislator sponsored, click on the legislator's name in the title of the table.
Elections
2022
See also: Illinois State Senate elections, 2022
General election
Democratic primary election
2020
See also: Illinois state legislative special elections, 2020
General election
Democratic primary election
Endorsements
To view Villanueva's endorsements in the 2020 election, please click here.
2018
General election
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Silvana Tabares (D)
Democratic primary election
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Celina Villanueva did not complete Ballotpedia's 2022 Candidate Connection survey.
2020
Celina Villanueva completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Villanueva's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
Expand all | Collapse all
A long time resident of the Little Village neighborhood on Chicago's Southwest side, Celina Villanueva is currently the State Senator for Illinois' 11th District. The daughter of Mexican immigrant parents from Durango, Mexico, Celina began organizing and advocating for her community at an early age.
Before becoming State Senator, Celina was appointed to the Illinois House of Representatives in 2018, where she fought tirelessly to ensure that the voices of her constituents were heard through the negotiation of several large pieces of history making legislation.
Prior to joining the State House, Celina ran the largest immigrant civic engagement program in the state at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), while also working to advocate lawmakers to pass online, same-day and automatic voter registration - all of which are now law.
Celina continues to advocate and represent the people of the 11th district with the values and beliefs instilled in her by her family. The belief that people have the right to live openly, freely, have safe communities, ample resources and opportunities and should not be left to fend for themselves.
Celina is also a former union member and Union Steward of her unit under the NOLSW-UAW 2320.
It is difficult to point to all the policy that I am passionate about because so many issues are complex and are interconnected. My legislative priorities are largely influenced by issues that impact working and middle class families in the district as well as the organizations, schools, and educators that work day after day to improve the lives of our families and children. My district has been severely impacted by COVID-19 and has further highlighted disparities that were already impacting residents in my district, I intend to continue bringing policy solutions, programs, and services that bring greater economic, educational, workforce, and health opportunities to the diverse communities I represent.
We cannot address access to quality and affordable health care and education without addressing job creation and housing stability. It is also important for me to provide holistic policy solutions to address gun violence and police brutality that include mental health support and cultural bias training. As someone who grew up just blocks from one of the leading economic corridors in Chicago, I value the role small-businesses play for economic development of families and neighborhoods. That is why I plan to push for additional programs and assistance to small-businesses as well as strengthening the opportunities of minority and women-owned businesses. As a former immigration organizer and daughter of immigrants, my commitment to protect immigrant communities is a priority.
Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. Harold Washington died when I was 2 years old, but he has had a significant impact on my life due to the large coalition of people he brought together during his Mayoral campaign and during his tenure in city hall. His ability to bring people together and to understand the different experiences of people from different walks of life is something that I continuously strive for. Many of my political mentors are people who worked closely with him and oftentimes they will share the wisdom he imparted on them, but most importantly they all vividly remember how empowered he made them feel by working together towards a common goal.
As someone who represents a predominantly Latino district, I have a unique perspective on this issue. I firmly believe in having an equitable process for redistricting. For a truly representative democracy, it is important that as communities grow in numbers, representation is also reflected across government levels. Had it not been for Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), former Senator Miguel Del Valle, and countless other stakeholders we would not have a voting rights district like mine. It took MALDEF and community leaders filing suit to create a Latino majority district several decades ago and setting a precedent. This process required bipartisan approaches to ensure a transparent process. It has taken historical pieces of legislation, like the Voting Rights Act, to be able to make headway on representation, but it has also taken a coalition of people to continue to do this work so that we get maps that actually provide representation for underrepresented communities. I am open to exploring options to address gerrymandering and redistricting reform, which is why I will continuously fight for a process that works for the people and their representation.
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 finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Scorecards
A scorecard evaluates a legislator’s voting record. Its purpose is to inform voters about the legislator’s political positions. Because scorecards have varying purposes and methodologies, each report should be considered on its own merits. For example, an advocacy group’s scorecard may assess a legislator’s voting record on one issue while a state newspaper’s scorecard may evaluate the voting record in its entirety.
Ballotpedia is in the process of developing an encyclopedic list of published scorecards. Some states have a limited number of available scorecards or scorecards produced only by select groups. It is Ballotpedia’s goal to incorporate all available scorecards regardless of ideology or number.
Click here for an overview of legislative scorecards in all 50 states. To contribute to the list of Illinois scorecards, email suggestions to editor@ballotpedia.org.
2024
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2024, click [show]. |
|---|
|
In 2024, the Illinois State Legislature was in session from January 16 to May 29.
|
2023
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2023, click [show]. |
|---|
|
In 2023, the Illinois State Legislature was in session from January 11 to May 27.
|
2022
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2022, click [show]. |
|---|
|
In 2022, the Illinois State Legislature was in session from January 5 to April 9.
|
2021
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2021, click [show]. |
|---|
|
In 2021, the Illinois State Legislature was in session from January 13 to June 1.
|
2020
| To view all the scorecards we found for this legislator in 2020, click [show]. |
|---|
|
In 2020, the Illinois State Legislature was in session from January 8 to May 23.
|
See also
External links
Footnotes
Leadership
Senate President:Don Harmon
Majority Leader:Kimberly Lightford
Minority Leader:John Curran
Senators
Democratic Party (40)
Republican Party (19)
