Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot spoke to reporters Thursday in an effort to explain how an email was sent to Chicago Public Schools teachers asking for students to help with her mayoral campaign, sparking fierce backlash and putting her campaign under investigation.
Calling the move a "mistake," Lightfoot said a staffer sent out the mass email, which the mayor learned about Wednesday as media requests came pouring in.
“To be clear, I found out about this for the first time [Wednesday] afternoon,” she said. "There was no nefarious intent on the part of staff, and there was no coercion, no intent to do that by any means. No city resources were used.”
The email, which offered students the opportunity to earn class credit in exchange for volunteering for the Lightfoot campaign, sparked an immediate firestorm of criticism, with mayoral candidates questioning whether city resources were used in violation of Chicago ordinance.
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“The outreach to the CPS teachers via emails was a mistake, and should not have happened, and will not happen again,” Lightfoot said.
The Chicago Teachers Union said the emails could have been construed as an effort to “coerce” assistance with the political leader responsible for hiring the head of Chicago Public Schools, an accusation that Lightfoot denied in her press conference Thursday.
Lightfoot said the email addresses used to disseminate the note were obtained through publicly-available channels, and that no city resources were used to gather those addresses.
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She also said the matter will be discussed with individual who sent it, but that their employment will not be terminated.
“There’s been some commentary about whether the staff person should be fired. The easy political thing to do would be to do that, fire her, throw her body to the hungry hordes, but that’s not the right thing to do in this instance,” she said.
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the CTU, called the emails “unethical,” and said she was “concerned that teachers who decline to volunteer…could face retaliation.”
The emails were sent out to teachers with CPS and with Chicago City Colleges, seeking “enthusiastic, curious and hard-working young people eager to help Mayor Lightfoot win this spring.”
The email offered students the chance to earn class credit in exchange for volunteering for at least 12 hours per week with the campaign.
Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, who is running against Lightfoot, blasted the move as desperation.
“Looks like desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said. “The mayor should be more concerned about fully funding Chicago Public Schools than using them as a recruiting pipeline for free labor for her reelection campaign.”
Ald. Roderick Sawyer called the email a “hypocritical contradiction” of Lightfoot’s promises to combat corruption in city politics. State Rep. Kam Buckner was one of several candidates, in a group that also included former CPS CEO Paul Vallas, to call for an inspector general’s investigation into the email.
“Just when you think Chicago’s storied history of political patronage and machine corruption is breaking down, Lori Lightfoot proves she’s keeping it alive,” Buckner said. “This heavy-handed misuse and abuse of power is a reminder that Lori Lightfoot has no respect for the law.”
Lightfoot’s campaign argued Wednesday that other mayoral campaigns had also put together similar “externship” programs with students, calling them an important part of the political process.
While she declined to list any specific campaigns that had used volunteers from CPS, Lightfoot said the experience was important to students.
“When they get that experience, that sticks with you, and you stay civically motivated,” she said.
Several mayoral candidates have accused Lightfoot of violating city ethics laws, and have called for Inspector Generals in various areas to conduct investigations. Chicago Public Schools has indicated that it will look into the matter, and Lightfoot said that she will cooperate with those investigations.
“They have every right to look into it, and if there’s a need for us to respond to it, we’ll cooperate fully,” she said.
