Gen Z Enters State Politics
22-year-old Brad Fritts of Dixon, who is the youngest person ever elected to the General Assembly.
NOTE: This story was originally posted for subscribers only. To receive subscriber-only newsletters and content, click here.
Brad Fritts is a farm kid from Dixon. But he’s also the first person ever born in the 2000’s to be elected to the General Assembly.
He was born January 8, 2000, and on January 11, 2023 will be sworn into the House of Representatives.
Fritts won election to the 74th House District, stretching from Whiteside County near the Mississippi River in the west to almost DeKalb in the east and nearly to LaSalle-Peru in the south of a t-shaped district. He replaces Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon), who lost the race for State Treasurer last month.
He’s the youngest person ever to win an election to the House, though Fritts won’t be the youngest person ever in the General Assembly, but it will be close. Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) was about a month shy of her 23rd birthday when she was appointed to the House in 2015.
Fritts wasn’t the choice of establishment Republicans in the primary, many of who endorsed a two-term Mayor of Dixon.
He is one of two members of the so-called “Generation Z” elected last month.
Rep.-Elect Nabeela Syed.
Democrat Nabeela Syed notably won a suburban House seat in November at the age of 23. She is a Muslim Indian-American who wears a hijab.
House Democrats declined to make Syed available to speak to The Illinoize, but she told NBC News one of her first political memories was Donald Trump’s election as President in 2016.
“The day Trump got elected, I remember I cried in every single one of my classes,” she told NBC . “I felt like this country was not for us. I was like, ‘I don’t know if I belong here.’ This is the only home I’ve ever known, and I was questioning whether or not I belonged here.”
Fritts says he and Syed met during new member orientation after the November election and want to work together on issues that impact young people.
“Obviously, we come from very different backgrounds, different demographics, different districts,” Fritts said. “I look forward to bridging that gap wherever we can, because we have the same mentality of wanting to serve people and to do what’s best for the state of Illinois. The whole premise of our nation’s founding was as a melting pot of a bunch of different people from all around the world coming together and living in freedom.”
Syed, meanwhile, has said she wants to be a voice of inclusion in the legislature.
“It’s important for me, growing up in this community and knowing what it feels like to not belong, to make sure everyone feels like they do belong,” she told NBC. “It’s a big moment for my family personally, and I hope it feels to other young people and to women of color that we can do this. We have space here.”
Each will likely have a high profile freshman term. Syed took a Republican leaning district that will surely be targeted by the GOP in 2024, meaning extra attention from House Democrats. Fritts counts incoming House GOP Leader Tony McCombie (R-Savanna) as one of his “mentors.” It never hurts to be close to the leader when you’re new in town.
They won’t be the last Gen Z legislators, but both Syed and Fritts will have plenty of eyes on them as the first.
