State Sen. Daniel Biss (D-Evanston) will be leading a non-profit group to train Democratic Party candidates after finishing his term in Springfield, he announced last week.

Biss will be the new executive director of Rust Belt Rising, a non-profit that aims to “bring the Democratic Party back to its roots as the party of working families,” with a focus on training candidates in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The organization’s website currently lists Biss as its only staff member. Board members include John Gearen, a partner at Mayer Brown Chicago, Rita McLennon, a former executive director of the Shriver National Poverty Law Center, and Richard Devine, a former chief of staff to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

According to its website, Rust Belt Rising is partnering with the National Democratic Training Committee, and several other left-leaning political organizations.

Biss, who earlier this year lost the Democratic nomination for governor to businessman J.B. Pritzker, served one term as a state representative before he was elected to the Illinois Senate in 2012. Prior to his career in politics, he was an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago.

In a email to his followers, Biss said the goal of Rust Belt Rising is to “bring the Democratic Party back to its roots as the party of working families who have been left behind by a system rigged in favor of the top 1 percent.”

“As we hopefully head toward a blue wave election this November, it’s become clearer than ever that in a world with terrifying consolidation of wealth, power, and privilege in the hands of a very few, the path to success is to focus on an agenda and message that unites the many who have been left behind around a bold vision of the just society we can build together,” Biss said in the statement.

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