Jeremiah E. Joyce

Early in his career, he was a history teacher, a Chicago police officer, and an assistant state's attorney for the criminal division of the Cook County State's Attorney. He also worked as an adjutant at Saint Xavier College and the John Marshall Law School.^[1] He served on the Chicago City Council as an alderman from the 19th ward from April 1, 1975, until resigning to become state senator on February 1, 1979.^[2] He served on the Illinois State Senate from 1979 to 1993 as a Democrat.^[3][4] In 1999, Joyce was appointed to the Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees where he served until 2001.^[5] He has worked on the campaigns of Richard M. Daley, Dan Rostenkowski, Thomas Hynes, Michael Sheahan and Dawn Clark Netsch.^[6]

Ahead of the 1987 Chicago mayoral election, Joyce indicated his intention to run for the Republican nomination for mayor,^[7] but ultimately did not run.

He has four sons: Dan, Kevin who served in the Illinois General Assembly, Jeremiah Joyce, Jr. who ran for mayor of Chicago in the 2019 mayoral election, and Mike who runs the Celtic Boxing Club and is married to Muhammad Ali's daughter Jamillah.^[8][9]