KNI Communications' principals have decades of combined experience in campaign management, issue advocacy, communications, public affairs and business promotion. We have won dozens of elections – involved in campaigns from the Courthouse to the White House – and led the charge for public policy victories on critical issues ranging from breast cancer screening to genocide education.

• Led the effort to pass four landmark pieces of breast cancer legislation in the Illinois General Assembly: requiring insurance coverage of breast cancer screenings recommended by physicians, requiring insurance coverage of medical costs related to cancer clinical trials, establishing numerous crucial new state programs to fight breast cancer through the “Reducing Breast Cancer Disparities Act” and requiring insurance coverage and state standards for potentially lifesaving clinical breast exams. All four pieces of legislation passed with overwhelming majorities in both chambers.
  
  
• Helped win millions of state and federal dollars over the past 15 years to fund breast cancer screening programs serving low-income and uninsured women.
  
  
• Worked with Congressional leaders of both parties to win $4.5 million in State Department funding to help victims of slavery in Mauritania, West Africa and the surrounding region. Generated international media attention to the widespread, but globally overlooked, issue of race and descent-based slavery in Mauritania – called Slavery’s Last Stronghold by CNN.
  
  
• Worked with diverse communities and leaders throughout Illinois and the global anti-hate organization Simon Wiesenthal Center to create the nation’s first mobile Museum of Tolerance in 2020. The ‘museum on wheels’ which will be educating students throughout Illinois about the importance of tolerance and opposing hate, bigotry and prejudice.
  
  
• Led the successful charge for a “first of its kind” Sudanese Community Center in Illinois to serve refugees from genocide in Darfur and the Sudanese civil wars.
  
  
• Provided critical support for groundbreaking Illinois state legislation, sponsored by State Senator Jacqueline Collins, to divest funds from Sudan and cut off money used by the Sudanese government to commit genocide against the people of Darfur.
  
  
• Coordinated interfaith and cross-community efforts to promote meaningful anti-hate crimes legislation.
  
  
• Spearheaded Illinois General Assembly passage of legislation increasing penalties for serious wage theft and barring companies which have committed serious wage theft from receiving taxpayer-funded state contracts.

Political Campaigns

• Successful roles in President Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaigns (Primary and General) and 2008 Presidential Campaign.
  
  
• Served as lead consultants on the successful 2018 campaign of Cam Davis, President Obama’s Great Lakes protection lead, who won the largest number of write-in votes in modern Illinois history – beating a state record previously held by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
  
  
• Winning campaigns in the 2020 Democratic Primary for Appellate Justice Michael Hyman, Judge Teresa Molina, Judge Patricia Fallon, Judge-elect Jill Rose Quinn, Judge-elect Chris Stacey, Judge-elect Jamie Guerra Dickler, Judge-elect Eileen Marie O’Connor, Judge-elect Maire Aileen Dempsey and 13th Subcircuit Democratic judicial nominee Susanne Groebner. Judge Molina won by the largest victory margin of any (Cook) countywide judicial candidate and Jill Rose Quinn became the first openly transgender Judge in Illinois history and one of the first in the nation. KNI has managed over 25 winning judicial campaigns in recent cycles.
  
  
• Victories in key municipal races for Evanston Mayor Steve Hagerty (2017), Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner (2013) and numerous Chicago City Council Members including Michele Smith and James Cappleman.
  
  
• Over sixteen years of experience in District of Columbia politics including experience on the winning campaigns of DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, DC Shadow Senator Paul Strauss and numerous current and former Members of the Council of the District of Columbia.