Background
Harmon was born and raised in Oak Park where he attended Saint Giles Grade School.
Harmon was born and raised in Oak Park where he attended Saint Giles Grade School.
He graduated from Saint Ignatius High School on Chicago"s west side, Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the University of Chicago (law degree and Master of Business Administration).
His district includes Chicago"s Austin neighborhood and the suburbs of Oak Park, Addison, Bensenville, Elmwood Park, Franklin Park, Melrose Park, Northlake, River Grove, Rosemont, Schiller Park, and Stone Park. In January 2009, incoming Senate President John Cullerton appointed Harmon Assistant Majority Leader. Harmon has since been appointed Illinois Senate President Pro Tempore.
After law school, Harmon served in Springfield on the House legal staff
He was then elected to his first full term as Committeeman in 2002 and has since been re-elected in 2006 and 2010. In 2010, Harmon was elected to serve as the Suburban Vice-Chair of the Democratic Party of Cook County.
Illinois Senate
First elected in the fall of 2002, Harmon has promoted a progressive agenda in the Illinois Senate. During his first term he served alongside then-State Senator and now United States. President Barack Obama.
Harmon sponsored legislation creating the Illinois Early Learning Council to create policy recommendations regarding the education of children from birth to age five.
The result of that effort was the Pre-School for All program implemented throughout the state. He also authored the Illinois Civil Rights Acting of 2003 to prohibit discriminatory policies by state, county or local governments, and to preserve for Illinois citizens civil rights protections eroded by recent United States. Supreme Court Decisions. Additionally he helped pass legislation to eliminate two obsolete taxing districts-the Cook County Tuberculosis Sanitarium District and the Cicero Township Trustee of Schools saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
= Committee Assignments In the 99th General Assembly, Senator Harmon serves as the Chair of the Executive Committee as well as the Executive Committee"s Subcommittee on Election Law.
He is the Vice Chair of the Assignments Committee. He serves on the Judiciary Committee, the committee"s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendements and is the Chair of its Subcommittee on Firearms.
In August 2000, Don Harmon was nominated by members of the Democratic Party of Oak Park to fulfill the term of former Illinois Senate President Philosophy Rock as Oak Park Democratic Committeeman.