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Official portrait of Mike Simmons-Gessesse

Mike Simmons-Gessesse

Public offices, source records, and ways to connect.

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PROFILE

About

Simmons is a Democratic member of the Illinois Senate representing the 7th district. He was appointed to the Illinois Senate in February 2021 and was re-elected in 2022 and 2024, running unopposed both times. Simmons earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Amherst College. In 2017, he founded Blue Sky Strategies, a public policy and consulting firm.

Draft summary written from the sources below; each sentence is checked against an exact source quote. Not reviewed by an editor.

Also known as Michael Simmons.

Illinois Senate7th districtRogers ParkLincoln SquareChicagoAmherst CollegeBlue Sky StrategiesDemocraticpublic transitgender affirming careEthiopian American
Wikipedia: Mike Simmons Portrait: Paul Goyette, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:6-17-25_world_refugee_day_advocacy_event_Mike_Simmons_(cropped).jpg) · CC BY 2.0

Wikipedia contributors, Mike Simmons, revision 1365689802. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1365689802. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ . Prose extracted; summary is an adaptation. Identity matched by openstates source.

state GOVERNMENT · TIER 7 Verified 2026-10-25

IL State Senator

Illinois State Senate district 7 · Illinois

Party in source
Democratic
Term began
Not recorded
Term ends
Not recorded
Record date
2026-10-25

Connect

senatormikesimmons@gmail.com

Source & provenance

data.openstates.org

Status reflects the supplied CitizenSuccess dataset. See the original source for subsequent changes.