"It felt like a big step," said New Eastside resident Deborah Lane after turning in her petitions on the last day of filing to get on the municipal ballot for the Feb. 23, 2027, election. Lane is running for 42nd Ward alderperson against a 20-year incumbent.
Lane worked for the Chicago Transit Authority for 32 years. She worked her way up from rank and file to leadership roles and advocated for the people responsible for keeping the system running. That experience gave her a ground-level understanding of how city services shape people's daily lives and what it takes to keep a citywide system safe, reliable and moving for the people who depend on it.
The East St. Louis native was elected financial secretary and treasurer of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308. She became the first woman to be elected president of ATU Illinois Joint Conference, representing thousands of transit workers across Illinois.
As a representative of her fellow workers, Lane went on to become the union's organizer and lobbyist in Springfield. Her work as a coalition builder with various labor and faith-based organizations would lead her to become statewide senior adviser for Illinois Treasurer Mike Frerichs.
Lane has immersed herself in the New Eastside neighborhood, since moving there seven years ago. Her knowledge of state resources, relationships across government, business, labor, faith-based and community organizations helped to move forward a bipartisan housing-investment initiative for a 635-unit development at 400 N. Lake Shore Drive. She also was instrumental in helping to bring back the Chicago River Swim with a bold $50,000 fundraising commitment for swim lessons in underserved communities.
Lane is running because the 42nd Ward is both an economic center and a neighborhood and she says City Hall cannot lose sight of either.
"Downtown must continue to be an economic engine for Chicago and the entire state, but it is also where people live, raise families, work and build small businesses," says Lane. "Visitors matter, but the people who call this ward home can never be an afterthought. They deserve an alderperson focused on their daily quality of life-- whether they can sleep at night, ride the CTA, walk safely, get dependable city services and receive an answer when they need it."
Lane submitted three times the needed 473 signatures to get on the ballot. Many of them she collected herself.
