With CTU and school choice proponents investing in elected school board races, do ‘independent’ candidates stand a chance?

Since filing their nomination paperwork in June, 15 candidates have fallen out of the running in Chicago’s historic school board election this November.

With the exception of one candidate, each of the hopefuls either withdrew their names or were knocked off the ballot during the objections process. Challenging the validity of the constituent signatures that every candidate running for office in Illinois is required to file, the more than 40 objections to school board candidates were filed by only a handful of nine lawyers whose ranks include high-profile political operatives and lobbyists.

It’s not uncommon for candidates in Chicago elections to hire attorneys able to use the objections process to narrow their competition. But Board of Elections records show a pattern that stands out: Four of the attorneys — Kevin Morphew, Steven Fine, Michael Kreloff and Michael Kasper — mounted nearly half the objections, opposing only candidates the Chicago Teachers Union has not endorsed and defending the nominations of only candidates that the CTU backs.

For special interests, including the teachers union, charter schools and private school voucher program proponents, the school board elections taking place in 10 districts across the city will determine who gets to make high-stakes decisions, on collective bargaining, charter contracts and more, come January, when a new board is seated.

In the meanwhile, the often time-consuming and expensive objections process has squeezed multiple candidates without special interest backing off the ballot — raising questions on whether the switch to a new governance model will be as inclusive of Chicago Public Schools parents and community members as advocates had hoped.

“The Chicago Teachers Union, in coalition with parents, students, and community groups, worked for over a decade to expand democracy by winning an elected school board for Chicago,” a union spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

CTU declined to comment on how the union supports the candidates it has endorsed and whether it hired the four lawyers or funded their legal fees through any of its entities, including indirect transfers among campaign committees.

The most recent quarterly expenditure reports that committees are required to report to the Illinois State Board of Elections show neither of the union’s two Political Action Committees, nor the committees of CTU-endorsed candidates included the lawyers’ names among their expenses through June 30.

On the following day, July 1, Chicago Board of Elections documents show that two of the lawyers, Kreloff and Fine, notarized initial paperwork for nearly all of the school board cases in which they appeared.The attorneys provided legal counsel as a group in 19 cases and Fine served as a lone lawyer on an additional case. A smattering of other, individual lawyers filed the remaining approximately 20 objections, often concentrated in specific districts, including challenges to four candidates endorsed by CTU.

Morphew declined to comment and Fine, Kasper and Kreloff did not return the Tribune’s requests for comment by phone or email.

On Chicago Board of Elections documents, all lawyers appear on half of objectors.

The person or entity bankrolling their legal fees is “attorney-client confidential information” and “the Electoral Board may not inquire,” according to the Chicago Board of Elections’ general counsel.

Among the 27 candidates to face objections, 14 were removed from the ballot or withdrew, including CTU-endorsed candidate Brenda Delgado.

CPS parent Anthony Hargrove, who’d filed to run in District 5, said being removed felt like “a dagger to the heart,” after long hours of knocking on doors to gather signatures with his wife, who is a CPS teacher, and kids.

Prior to becoming the associate director of Breakthrough Urban Ministries teen mentoring program, the West Side native worked with CPS families as the dean of students at five schools.

“I really love my community. I live here. I work here. My kids go to school here. I was born and raised here. I’m not going anywhere,” Hargrove said. “I’m not a politician. I’m a parent.”

Nathaniel “Nate” Ward had similarly hoped to run in the 10th, after serving as a parent member and chair of the Dyett High School Local School Council last school year. His daughter committed to CPS’ teacher pipeline program upon graduating and will be returning to the district as an educator upon finishing college.

“I wanted to get in this race to have an independent parent voice be on the board, not beholden to any particular group,” Ward said. “I don’t believe there’s a voice now that will put parents and students first and everything else second. That’s what I wanted to run for — and I quickly got humbled,” he said of the objections process.

Ward hadn’t created a fundraising committee, while Hargrove reported only $250 in total campaign contributions as of the most recent quarterly filings.

However, multiple PACs with stated interest in the races are building substantial war chests, including the new One Future Illinois PAC, which entered the fray in July with the stated aim of raising at least seven figures to in part back school board candidates in support of the business community’s agenda.

How they and others have been spending their money as candidates have been knocked off the ballot likely won’t be apparent until the next round of disclosures are due Oct. 15.

CTU said it has endorsed grassroots candidates running against campaigns “funded by Walmart heirs, Netflix billionaires, charter school operators, and corporate education ‘reformers’ like Juan Rangel and Paul Vallas, who will continue to pour millions into these races.”

Since the start of the year, Walmart heir Jim Walton has contributed $350,000 to Illinois Network of Charter Schools PACs, and Netflix Chairman Reed Hastings has contributed another $100,000, according to state elections board data.

Vallas, the former CPS CEO who lost his 2023 bid for mayor, and Rangel, former head of the UNO charter school network, which disbanded after the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Rangel for fraud, co-founded the Urban Center PAC in March. The committee supports school choice, according to its website, and contributed a cumulative $3,000 to two school board candidates, Andre Smith and Eva Villalobos, as of the Urban Center’s most recent disclosure, which also includes a $5,000 contribution from the Illinois Network of Charter Schools’ INCS Action PAC, Illinois State Board of Elections data show.

Encouraging parents and educators to “hit the doors and talk with everyday voters,” CTU’s statement accused the statewide charter school network of “giving candidates money to turn back the clock to the days of school closings and privatization.”

INCS has yet to finalize its endorsements according to President Andrew Broy.

In June, the group sent out a candidate questionnaire to gauge candidates’ positions on school choice, contract terms for charter school operators and expanded charter school funding, in addition to their willingness to engage with charter operators. Based on their replies, INCS is continuing to interview candidates, he said.

“We’re about ballot access, letting ordinary people run for office,” Broy said, noting that INCS advocated for a lower entry threshold, of 250 signatures, to be on the ballot.

“We didn’t file any objections,” Broy said. He declined to comment on campaign strategy further, but added that the INCS Action PAC has engaged in “electioneering” among races at all levels in Illinois for the past decade. The same can be expected of Chicago’s school board elections, he said, including engaging the 58,000 charter school households in the network’s orbit in the city.

“We do politics out of necessity, not because we love it. It’s just part of the work we have to do to make sure our policy ideas become actionable,” he said.

Of two candidates who’ve received a cumulative $7,000 from the INCS as of the most recent disclosures, District 6 candidate Andre Smith recently weathered an objection, as did District 3 candidate Carlos Rivas, whose expenditures include $2,500 in legal fees.

In District 7, Villalobos is also among those who’ve prevailed. “To see that a lot of great, amazing candidates were knocked off was very disheartening, but also very much a motivator for me to keep pushing forward,” said Villalobos, who advocated in favor of Illinois’ recently-sunset Invest in Kids voucher program as a private school parent.

Villalobos’ campaign finance reports show multiple ties to proponents of school choice, including a cumulative $3,500 in contributions from the Urban Center PAC and Robert Sylvester, executive director of community and government relations for Empower Illinois, which was the largest administrator of Invest in Kids funds. Prior to a recently-filed amendment, Villalobos had also pledged her residual campaign funds to Kids First Chicago, a nonprofit with roots in the Emanuel administration’s Renaissance 2010 school privatization initiative.

An objection to Villalobos’ CTU-endorsed opponent, Yesenia Lopez, was also overruled, as was a challenge to the union-backed candidate in District 3, Jason Dones. Lopez reported she had zero campaign funds as of the end of June, while Dones has disclosed receiving around $2,100 from the Grassroots Illinois Action PAC, which supports quality neighborhood schools and has organized against the expansion of charter schools.

Robert Jones, who has the CTU’s support in District 10, saw a challenge to his nomination by objectors affiliated with Che “Rhymefest” Smith’s campaign, withdrawn on the same day that Jones’ lawyers withdrew an objection to Smith. State elections board data show CTU has contributed around $1,500 in field organizing services to Jones’ campaign, among approximately $60,000 in total in-kind contributions to union-backed candidates, in Districts 2, 4, 6 and 8, as of Sept. 5.

High-profile political operatives and lobbyists are among the four attorneys representing the bulk of objectors. Before President Joe Biden bowed out of the November election, Morphew appeared on his behalf to quash objections to Biden appearing on the primary ballot in Illinois early this year. As a lobbyist, Morphew’s clients have included the Chicago Bears and Walgreens.

A former lawyer for longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, Kasper’s recent lobbying efforts include the defeat of the 2023 Bring Chicago Home ordinance, which was supported by the CTU. Based in Northbrook, Kreloff is also a lobbyist and a former committeeperson for the Northfield Township Democrats, who was involved in former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2010 campaign. A criminal defense attorney, Fine is a relative newcomer at Board of Elections proceedings.

During a review of his signatures, Ward said he was stunned by the intensity of an opposing lawyer’s efforts. “No matter what the hearing officer said, they objected to it. If the hearing officer said, ‘This signature is good,’ (they said) ‘We object to that’..

“It got to be intimidating,” Ward said. “If you’re not well-financed or have hired an attorney, the process can be very belittling,” he said.

Hargrove said he still plans to run as a write-in candidate, though he knows the odds are against him.

“We can really reimagine education and how we do it here in Chicago, and open up new possibilities for our students,” Hargrove said of Chicago’s first school board election this fall. “But unfortunately, Chicago politics is playing a role in these races. And we’ll get what we get.”

Chicago Tribune’s Molly Morrow contributed.