The Chicago School Board and the fight to keep progressive candidates on the ballot. 

Billionaires are trying to prevent Chicagoans from having real choices in the School Board races this fall. 

So far, at least, they’re not succeeding. 

Urban Center—a billionaire-affiliated group that fights to close schools and privatize our public education system—failed on Wednesday in an attempt to kick several School Board Candidates off the ballot based on a “dual circulator” argument, (more on that later) according to Chalkbeat.

That objection included 33rd Ward Working Families-backed Debby Pope for 2B. It targeted volunteers who had collected petitions for progressive candidates in this year's primary, including 40th District State Representative Democratic Nominee Miguel Alvelo-Rivera, 20th District State Senator Graciela Guzmán, and 3rd District Congresswoman Delia Ramirez.

Urban Center and its lawyers could still appeal the decision and go to court, and just might, because their allies’ project to wrestle control of our school system away from our communities and into the hands of a few ultra-wealthy individuals has been going on for decades. 

That’s the main point. To break down the petition challenge numbers a bit, per the Tribune and Chalkbeat:

• 28 candidates total faced challenges 

• 22 of those candidates faced challenges under the “dual circulator” argument that was dismissed Wednesday

• But 14 of the 28 challenges total came from Urban Center, at least, so far as local outlets were able to confirm, and most were dual circulator-related.

One-third of those 14 challenged by Urban Center were progressive or CTU-backed. 

If the dual circulator challenge had succeeded, according to Chalkbeat, many races could have had only one candidate, including Districts like 3B, where progressive challenger Jason Dónes is going up against charter school lobby-backed Carlos A. Rivas Jr.

Another progressive facing a challenge? Norma Rios-Sierra, who was appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and is now running for election. An objection said she should be kicked off the ballot because her paperwork for the nomination did not have a hyphen, according to Chicago Parent. Talk about friv-o-lous! 

So, this was clearly an ideological move from an organization that is trying to steal an election from voters before they even get to the ballot box. 

Urban Center is a gathering place for the usual wealthy villains fighting to weaken our public sector unions, steal money from schools, and prevent communities from being funded by taxing the rich.

Among those wealthy villains is Paul Vallas, who, in addition to hollowing out CPS’ budget, (fun fact) fired 7,000 public school teachers in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, decimating a powerful union and eliminating thousands of jobs mostly occupied by Black women. 

A little time on campaign finance transparency website Illinois Sunshine reveals plenty about his base of support. His mayoral campaign was financed by billionaires like Ken Griffin, who spent $54 million to defeat progressive revenue in Illinois. Investment manager Daniel O'Keefe donated $225,000 to Urban Center’s PAC and has donated to Vallas as well as Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke—who refuses to prosecute ICE agents. 

Urban Center further includes donors who support Illinois Senate President Don Harmon and Speaker of the House Emanuel Welch, both of whom this Springfield session refused to tax the rich in order to fund our public schools, which has led CPS to deal with a massive budget shortfall with devastating cuts. Also, literally, Bank of America. 

So, the signature challenges are being led and financed by the usual suspects. 

Signature challenges are time-consuming, expensive, stressful for candidates to deal with. They have been used by various entities in Illinois because the rules to get on the ballot are so complicated from our state and city’s legacy of machine politics, according to the Tribune. 

While there is a lot of backroom nitpicking about signature validity that goes on, the dual-circulator challenge was more unusual because it was a wholesale interpretation of election law that could have knocked 22 candidates off the ballot right off the bat. 

Basically, the Urban Center gang claimed that people who circulated petitions for the March primary could not circulate petitions for the nonpartisan school board, because of a state law that prevents people from circulating petitions for two different parties or for partisan and independent candidates in one election cycle, according to Chalkbeat. 

Lawyers for the other side argued that the law was actually intended to prevent people from running from two different parties in a single election cycle, per Chalkbeat.

We have a problem with the billionaire-affiliated leveraging their resources to subvert democracy and grassroots campaigns before voters even make it to polling stations. The ultra-wealthy already have the money to flood our mailboxes, social media feeds, and TV screens. But, it's clear they would rather not even bother to make a case at all.

We must make ballot access easier in Illinois to remove this lever for undemocratic maneuvering. 

In the meantime, we invite you to continue to organize with us to support our school board candidates and keep up with opportunities to do so on our social media. You can also donate to Debby Pope here.

As a slate of candidates in New York showed us last week, when working people fight, we win.