The Deep Dish: January 3, 2019

January 3, 2019

Here's your slice of Chicago's 2019 elections    Welcome to The Deep Dish—Ballotpedia’s in-depth look at Chicago’s 2019 city elections. And welcome to 2019! There have been 181 challenges filed against candidates in Chicago's municipal elections—many from competitors for the same office. We're serving up the latest on candidates who have withdrawn or been removed from the mayoral and city council races. Plus, we’ve got a deep dive into the debate around school closings and a special announcement about our custom-made Chicago candidate survey.           Voters head to the polls Feb. 26, where they will select a new mayor and decide all 50 city council seats as well as choosing a treasurer and city clerk. For all offices on the ballot, runoff elections will be held April 2 for races in which no candidates receives more than 50 percent of the vote. All offices are nonpartisan and come with four-year terms. This week's news 6 candidates out of mayoral race The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners has disqualified five candidates from the mayoral race: Conrein Hykes Clark, Catherine Brown D'Tycoon, Sandra Mallory, Richard Mayers, and Roger Washington. One candidate—Ja'Mal Green—has withdrawn. Fifteen candidates remain in the race. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners announced Dec. 27 that three mayoral candidates had been disqualified from the ballot. Candidates Richard Mayers and Conrein Hykes Clark did not have the required 12,500 valid petition signatures. A board representative said the third candidate, Sandra Mallory, filed her paperwork incorrectly. Activist Ja'Mal Green became the first to withdraw Monday. Green said his campaign lacked the resources to continue amid a petition challenge launched by candidate Willie Wilson's campaign lawyer. The challenge stated that Green didn't have the required number of valid signatures (12,500) to qualify for the ballot. Green said the following at a news conference: "It’s not even about the 12,500 signatures. … It’s about you having manpower to have people down here at the Board of Elections for 11 hours a day. It’s about having tens of thousands of dollars to pay lawyers to continue to go to court and continue fighting for you. This process is not fair for the regular person." Wilson said of the challenge, "This is a big boy’s game, and you’ve got to have something to come to the table with. … Otherwise, you get left out." The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners was in the process of considering the challenge at the time of Green's withdrawal. On Wednesday, the board removed two more candidates from the running amid petition challenges: Catherine Brown D'Tycoon and Roger Washington. The board voted D'Tycoon off the ballot for incorrectly filing paperwork. Washington had not appeared at petition hearings. Petition challenges against three candidates are still being considered by the board: Dorothy Brown, La Shawn Ford, Neal Sales-Griffin. Other candidates who faced petition challenges were Bill Daley, Garry McCarthy, Susana Mendoza, and Lori Lightfoot. Toni Preckwinkle's campaign dropped its challenges against Mendoza and Lightfoot, Paul Vallas withdrew his challenge of Garry McCarthy, and Jerry Joyce dropped his challenge against Bill Daley. Mayoral campaign finance update Former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Bill Daley is the first candidate in the race to top $3 million in contributions. Five other candidates had raised more than $1 million as of Wednesday. Here are the numbers.   Stay tuned: Quarterly reports are due Jan. 15. That's when candidates will report their spending and we'll see how much cash they have on hand. We'll have an update for you when those figures are available. Gery Chico releases first TV ads Chico spent $1 million on two ads for commercial and cable TV on air Thursday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. One ad criticizes candidates Preckwinkle, Mendoza, and Daley on taxes. The other focuses on Chico's background. Bill Daley spent at least $100,000 on a TV ad in early December. Willie Wilson made smaller TV buys earlier in the year. Several other candidates have put out digital ads. Click here to view all the campaign ads we've compiled from YouTube in one place. City council candidate withdrawals and removals A total of 212 candidates filed to run for Chicago's 50 city council seats. But challenges and withdrawals have winnowed the number down to 188. As of Thursday morning, 11 candidates had withdrawn and 13 had been removed from the ballot due to successful challenges to their candidacies. Two races have seen significant changes. In the 38th Ward, Ald. Nicholas Sposato is now running unopposed after his sole challenger, Ralph Pawlikowski, was removed from the contest. In the 23rd Ward, five candidates filed for the race. But after two withdrawals and a removal, the contest is down to two: incumbent Silvana Tabares and Paul Villareal Jr. Challenges against dozens of candidates in other races are still being processed.     Quick Bites The longest-serving aldermen on Chicago's city council: Ed Burke (14th Ward) - First elected in 1969, he's the longest-serving alderman in Chicago history. He currently faces four challengers. Patrick O'Connor (40th Ward) - O'Connor was first elected in 1983. Four candidates are running against him. Joe Moore (49th Ward) - He was first elected in 1991. He faces two challengers. Ricardo Munoz (22nd Ward) - Munoz was appointed to the council by former Mayor Richard M. Daley in 1993. He's retiring, and four candidates are running for the open seat. Margaret Laurino (39th Ward) and Carrie Austin (34th Ward) - Both were appointed in 1994. Laurino isn't seeking re-election, and four are running for the seat. Austin faces one challenger. This week's deep dive Mayoral candidates on school closings Some background: In May of 2013, the Chicago Board of Education voted to close 50 schools—roughly 7 percent of the city's total number of schools. Mayor Emanuel and the board cited under-enrollment and poor academic performance as reasons for the school closures. The Chicago Teachers Union opposed the closings, with its then-President Karen Lewis stating the move would destabilize neighborhoods where the closings occurred and put students sent to other neighborhoods' schools at risk of gang violence. Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett instituted a five-year moratorium on district-run school closings that went into effect in the fall of 2013 (after the board voted to close 50 schools) and ended in the fall of 2018. In December 2018, WBEZ released a report covering from 2002 to 2018 that showed: 169 schools were closed 34 schools had complete staff turnarounds 193 new schools were opened (including 105 charter schools) 36 newly opened schools were closed 88 percent of the 70,160 students who experienced a closing or staff turnaround were black Total district enrollment declined from 437,618 in 2002 to 361,314 in 2017 A 2018 Chicago Public Schools report deemed 229 of the city's schools underutilized, meaning they had less than 70 percent of the target number of students enrolled. CPS also released a School Quality Rating Policy report in 2018 that said about 20 percent of schools were low performers, based on test scores, attendance, and graduation rates. What the candidates are saying: Twelve mayoral candidates responded to a WBEZ survey on three issues related to school closings and openings. The candidates were asked whether they support: closing chronically low-performing schools. closing schools that are more than 50 percent under-enrolled. opening new schools and/or constructing new buildings in years when overall enrollment has declined. The table below shows how the candidates responded. Click here to read candidates' full responses.     Announcement: Our Chicago candidate survey is live! This week, Ballotpedia released a candidate survey custom-made for Chicago's 2019 elections. The survey was created through our partnership with the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, Interactivity Foundation, and City Bureau, as well as insights from more than one hundred diverse citizens living throughout Chicago’s wards. The survey includes questions about the issues affecting everyday life in Chicago. We'll be adding survey responses to our election coverage on Ballotpedia.org as we receive them. Readers can check out the survey, and candidates can fill it out, here.

Archive

2019

• The Deep Dish: April 3, 2019
• The Deep Dish: March 28, 2019
• The Deep Dish: March 21, 2019
• The Deep Dish: March 14, 2019
• The Deep Dish: March 7, 2019
• The Deep Dish: February 27, 2019
• The Deep Dish: February 21, 2019
• The Deep Dish: February 14, 2019
• The Deep Dish: February 7, 2019
• The Deep Dish: January 31, 2019
• The Deep Dish: January 24, 2019
• The Deep Dish: January 17, 2019
• The Deep Dish: January 10, 2019

2018

• The Deep Dish: December 20, 2018
• The Deep Dish: December 13, 2018
• The Deep Dish: December 6, 2018
• The Deep Dish: November 29, 2018