Steve De La Rosa first became politically aware as a child in the 1960s, when his father was in the United Steelworkers union.

 “My dad was a union member for 44 years, working at the United States Steel South Works plant. We lived through strikes and lay-offs, and that brought union-related activities to our kitchen table,” he recalled.

He went on to become an activist. De La Rosa had already worked on issues like getting the voting age lowered when he first spoke with CAC founder Theresa Amato in the 1990s during a meeting he chaired to discuss current issues. He began working with her, supporting a CAC lawsuit that forced DuPage County to reveal who won contracts and how much they were paid, helping end what he said were “gravy contracts” awarded to campaign contributors.

 That experience helped De La Rosa learn where to look for the levers of power and how to challenge them, he recalled. He became a member of the CAC board.

 One of the powers in DuPage County was U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, a strong anti-abortion Republican. In 1999 De La Rosa helped organize a book night for the authors of “Henry Hyde’s Moral Universe,” but electricity to the CAC offices was mysteriously cut beforehand. Once power was restored and the event finally began, four allies of Hyde disrupted the meeting until De La Rosa and others ushered them out the door. 

De La Rosa retired from his job in the manufacturing sector in 2018 and left the CAC board at the same time but continued to work on public issues. In 2024, he is working with “Immigrant Solidarity DuPage,” a community group, to stop a new, permanent waste transfer station in West Chicago. At this writing that issue remains unresolved.