The 23-year-old ready to take on Illinois

Mar 03, 2023

With help from Brakkton Booker, Rishika Dugyala, Jesse Naranjo, Ella Creamer and Teresa Wiltz

Nabeela Syed

POLITICO illustration/Photo by Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

Hey, Recasters! It’s Marissa Martinez, a reporter on POLITICO’s states and campaigns teams. Super excited to anchor this week's feature interview, in which we travel outside the Beltway to my home state of Illinois. Today we focus on a fellow Gen Zer who is making her mark and shattering barriers in the state House.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who made history as the first Black woman and the first openly gay person to helm the city, lost her bid for reelection this week. It was a stunning fall for a figure who just four years earlier was hailed as trailblazer: an outsider who never held elected office defeated a member of the Daley dynasty and cruised to victory in a runoff election by winning all 50 City Council wards with campaign promises to root out corruption in City Hall and run a transparent administration.

Lightfoot came in a distant third on Tuesday. The April 4 runoff threatens to divide the deep-blue city along racial lines and will come down to two men — one Black and one white — vying for the role of disruptor and savior.

Last November, Chicago’s suburban voters signaled they wanted a disruptor too.

Enter Nabeela Syed — the youngest Democrat in the Illinois state House — who broke barriers when voters overwhelmingly voted to send her to Springfield. At just 23 years old, Syed, the daughter of Indian immigrants, became the first Muslim woman to win a General Assembly seat and did so by flipping a district held by two-term GOP state Rep. Chris Bos. She’s one of two new youngest lawmakers in the Assembly.

I chatted with her about why she launched her campaign, what it is like navigating working with legislators — some more than double her age — and all things Gen Z.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

THE RECAST: You are just about two months into your role as a state representative. How have you been adjusting to the job?

SYED: It's been good. I've been down in Springfield for the past few weeks, working on legislation, filing my bills and working with advocacy groups and organizations and learning about what issues folks are championing down in Springfield. I’m also figuring out how I could get some legislation across the finish line.

The most important thing I've learned is making sure that I'm balancing the work that I'm doing in Springfield and the work that we're doing back home, to continue to engage constituents and address their concerns.

THE RECAST: What are the priority bills that you want to make sure you get through this session?

SYED: There's some legislation on organ donation I’m supporting a legislator on.

I've made one speech on the floor — it was Feb. 14, National Organ Donor Day. I shared my experience as an organ donor and explained the importance of becoming an organ donor or a bone marrow donor or a blood donor to save lives.

It's something very personal to me — I donated a portion of my liver in 2021. Folks from across both sides of the aisle came up and talked about the importance of that with me. It was just a speech — it wasn't like I was introducing legislation — but to know that my words had an impact there. It meant a lot to me to see that, and to hear that feedback.

And the first bill that I actually filed is about pre-registering 16-year-olds to vote so that when they're 18, they are automatically registered.

Research shows that it actually boosts youth voter turnout, so it's exciting to put forth a piece of legislation that gets more young people engaged in the process.

THE RECAST: I live in D.C. and a lot has been made about Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), because of his age — he’s 25 and the first Gen Zer elected to Congress.

Do you feel like there’s pressure to represent your entire generation for the state?

SYED: I don’t think so.

There are huge generational divides, even between 15-year-old, 16-year-olds now — and I’m only 23. There’s so much that I’m having to be very cognizant about as a young person, so I can’t imagine when you’re many years removed from high school, from college, how it might be more of a fleeting thought in your mind.

For many legislators in Illinois, that’s not necessarily the case.

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It’s been very encouraging to see the excitement over young candidates, Maxwell being one of [them] where you look at him and you’re like, “Yeah, we could do it, we could be in Congress.”

I’m hoping that young people see that … we do have a place in politics and we’re not too young and these descriptors that people throw at us, like being “naive” or “inexperienced.”

THE RECAST: How have your other identities — being Indian American or Muslim American — impact how you think about legislating?

SYED: My lived experiences inform my decision-making process because it continually reminds me that there are marginalized groups that need to be thought of and need to be heard.

Wearing a hijab — I don't look like my colleagues, there's no other woman that wears a hijab, there's no other Muslim woman on the House floor.

Identity is complex. Sometimes people don't even understand my identity. Sometimes people assume I'm Arab, or don't understand that I'm South Asian, but I'm also Muslim and how that factors into who I am.

When I launched my campaign, a legislator early on was very supportive, but let me know that they wouldn't have been as supportive a few years ago. It's not easy to be the only person in the room that carries those lived experiences, but I do hope that if anything, it serves to pave the path for others.

Nabeela Syed

Nabeela Syed is one of the newest members of the state House and a unique lawmaker in her own right. | Courtesy of Nabeela Syed

THE RECAST: There’s also a record number of Asian Americans in the state Legislature now. What have you and other legislators been talking about, and what’s on your mind in terms of the Asian American identity experience in the state right now?

SYED: It’s so important what was accomplished this past election cycle. We had so much growth and representation and I’m excited to join this group. One thing that I know folks are working on in Illinois is increasing language access in different state entities.

I know the difficulty of my grandparents, not knowing how to read or speak English, going through the citizenship process. The first time [my grandmother] failed, it was difficult, because she understood the things in Urdu and Hindi, but she could not translate that over to English.

I can’t imagine how many other folks across the country or across the state have issues because of language barriers. I want to support the work that different organizations and coalitions are doing in our state to bridge those gaps.

Nabeela Syed

At 23 years old, she’s the second youngest lawmaker in the Assembly, as well as one of the first South Asian or Muslim people to win a seat in Illinois. | Courtesy of Nabeela Syed

THE RECAST: Prior to deciding to run for office yourself, you also worked to organize Asian American voters in Georgia ahead of the 2021 Senate runoffs. What was that experience like?

SYED: I went to Georgia to volunteer with the Asian American Advocacy Fund, and that experience taught me the importance of door-knocking.

What campaigns and organizations tend to do is cast aside Asian American voters because they’re considered low-propensity voters, they don’t necessarily turn out.

[But in the Georgia suburbs,] some folks were excited to see someone speak their language at their doors, hear from someone that cares enough to do this. It’s important that we help people do their civic duty, especially when there might be language barriers to understanding the electoral process and wanting to break those down.

Nabeela Syed

After campaigning on issues like reproductive justice and affordable health care, Syed is still nailing down her team and legislative priorities. | Courtesy of Nabeela Syed

THE RECAST: My last question is a little tongue-in-cheek, but since we’re close in age, I have to ask — what’s the process of going past high school civics classes and AP U.S. History tests to becoming a young legislator?

SYED: That’s what’s exciting about being a young person — I’m used to learning. I was just in college, so I know how to take notes and soak in information, and that’s what this job is.

And don’t immediately disqualify themselves from getting more involved in politics, running for office because they think they’re too young.

The age minimum in Illinois is 21 years. We are capable of doing so much and this is the world that we’re going to have to inherit, and future generations are living in the longest. … I’m meeting with so many folks from different backgrounds, talking to motorcycle organizations and local, small businesses here, and young people in the community, and I’m very grateful to them for educating me throughout this process.

You’re not expected to know it all as a legislator, but as long as you’re willing to learn, I think you’re good to go.

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It’s incredible to think the first weekend in March is already here! Before we head out the door here we have some can’t-miss items for you to explore!

Priya Guns reimagines Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” in “Your Driver is Waiting,” a deeply political novel following the life of Damani Krishanthan, a Tamil immigrant who drives for a ride-share app and bodybuilds in her spare time.

“Gods of Mexico,” in theaters now, presents a series of vignettes and tableaus centered on Indigenous communities. The footage was shot across the last decade and oscillates between black-and-white and color imagery.

In “Black Girl Missing,” Cheryl searches for her daughter while police and the press are distracted by the case of a missing white girl. It airs tomorrow at 8 p.m. on Lifetime.

BTS’ j-hope teams up with his idol J. Cole for “on the street,” capturing the K-pop star’s beginnings as a street dancer.

Ash Goh Hua’s “How to Forgive Your Mother” is a delicate yet painful portrait of familial trauma, memory, and the potential for healing.

TGIF! Rema has the perfect segue into the weekend with a feel-good visual for “Holiday,” which sees him dancing in grocery aisles, playing video games and biking with friends.