(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department filed suit against Virginia on Friday over a statewide program aimed at removing voters from its election rolls in the lead-up to the 2024 election if DMV records don’t indicate United States citizenship.
The Department said it filed the lawsuit based on a federal law that prohibits purges from rolls within the 90-day period leading up to an election.
“As the National Voter Registration Act mandates, officials across the country should take heed of the law’s crystal clear and unequivocal restrictions on systematic list maintenance efforts that fall within 90 days of an election,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The system, implemented via executive order by Gov. Glenn Youngkin, has already faced lawsuits from several immigration rights groups.
The DOJ recently filed a similar lawsuit against the state of Alabama over similar voter roll purges.
The Justice Department seeks injunctive relief that “would restore the ability of impacted eligible voters to vote unimpeded on Election Day,” the department said in a statement.
In a statement on the governor’s website, Youngkin called the lawsuit a “politically motivated action,” and vowed to not “stand idly by.”
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump visited Aurora, Colorado, for a campaign rally on Friday where he continued to push misleading narratives about the city’s migrant population.
“My message today is very simple,” Trump told the crowd. “No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the president of the United States. We’re not going to let it happen.”
In the final weeks of his campaign, Trump has continued to focus on the issue of immigration, escalating his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants he often paints as violent criminals.
“I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,” Trump said. “These towns have been conquered … And we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country. And we will be very, very effective in doing it. It’s going to happen very, very fast.”
Specifically, the former president has used Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, to emphasize his point, both examples stemming from viral online stories he’s been quick to promote, often without proper context.
His false narratives on Aurora began last month when a video of armed individuals roaming around an apartment complex in Aurora went viral among right-wing social media influencers.
Trump, who has shared that video himself, has repeatedly claimed that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have “taken over” apartment complexes and “overrun” the city, despite the Aurora Police Department refuting allegations of the apartment complex being run by a Venezuelan gang.
Aurora’s Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has directly refuted Trump’s claims, saying in a press conference late last month that, “This is not an immigration issue. This is a crime issue.”
“We are not, by any means, overtaken by Venezuelan gangs,” he added.
The City of Aurora also provided clarity on the situation in a post on its official X account, stating that while there was a concern about a “small” presence of the Venezuelan gang members in Aurora, the city is taking the situation seriously. The city stressed that Aurora is a “safe community” and that reports of gang members are “isolated to a handful of problem properties alone.”
Mike Coffman, the Republican mayor of Aurora, has also pushed back on Trump’s “grossly exaggerated” claims.
“Former President Trump’s visit to Aurora is an opportunity to show him and the nation that Aurora is a considerably safe city – not a city overrun by Venezuelan gangs,” Coffman said.
Still, Trump has continued to amplify these debunked stories to his supporters throughout the country as a rallying cry as he attacks the immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
At his second campaign stop on Friday in Reno, Nevada, Trump continued to repeat baseless and debunked rhetoric on a Venezuelan gang taking over apartment complexes in Aurora even after the city’s Republican mayor denounced his rhetoric, saying his comments “unfairly hurt the city’s identity and sense of safety.”
In Reno, the former president again called the U.S. an “occupied country” and the situation in Aurora a “full-blown invasion.”
“It is a full blown invasion. Armed Venezuelan gang members storming an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado,” Trump said.
In the press release announcing Friday’s event, the Trump campaign described Aurora as a “war zone,” arguing people were crossing the border and descending upon the city “bringing chaos and fear with them.”
Similarly, Trump has repeatedly amplified debunked claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield.
Trump’s visit is one that he has been wanting to make for a while to bring more attention to the country’s immigration policies. At recent campaign rallies, Trump has become more vocal about his desire to visit Aurora and Springfield.
While the Republican mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, discouraged visits from candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has presented the trip as a learning opportunity for the former president.
“The reality is, Donald Trump continues to tell economically damaging and hurtful lies about Aurora,” Polis said in a statement to ABC affiliate Denver7 amid ongoing discussions of a potential visit. “If former President Trump does visit, he will find the city of Aurora is a strong, vibrant, and diverse city of more than 400,000 hardworking Coloradans and a wonderful place to live, run a business, raise a family, and retire.”
Trump has launched attacks on the local and state officials on the campaign trail, often making baseless claims that Aurora Mayor Coffman and Gov. Polis are “petrified,” saying Coffman “doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing” — and even claiming they don’t want to raise the immigration issue because they want to be “politically correct.”
Campaigning in Uniondale, New York, last month, Trump, while declaring that he planned to visit Aurora and Springfield soon, suggested that he might not make it back out after his visiting those places due to unspecified crime.
“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield, and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump said in Uniondale. “You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.'”
Trump’s visit to Aurora also came as he’s pledged on the campaign trail to begin his promise of mass deportations in Springfield and Aurora.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said as he took reporter questions in Los Angeles, California, last month. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado].”
“We’re going to take those violent people, and we’re going to ship them back to their country, and if they come back in, they’re going to pay a hell of a price,” Trump also said.
Springfield has many Haitian residents who are either legally authorized to live and work in the U.S. or are protected from expulsion by law.
(NEW YORK) — With just about three weeks until Election Day, the two major party candidates are working hard to reach voters around the country — with a key focus on male voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was kicking off a new push to reach male voters in swing states, the Harris campaign confirmed to ABC News.
This included “Good Morning America” co-anchor Michal Strahan’s one-on-one interview that aired on Friday morning, as well as Walz’s Friday travel to Michigan where he met with Black male voters and did local TV interviews focused on hunting and high school football.
He was also attending the Mankato West Scarlets football game on Friday — and giving a pep talk to the team at the Minnesota high school where he taught and also coached football.
Separately, former President Barack Obama on Thursday — as a campaign surrogate for Harris — sternly criticized Black men over what he called “excuses” to not vote for Harris, making comments during a stop at a campaign field office in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood ahead of his rally, saying he finds sitting out or voting for former President Donald Trump “not acceptable.”
Former President Donald Trump has also been working to reach male voters — particularly younger men. That includes joining podcasts such as “Flagrant” with Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh, as well as other recent long interviews with podcast hosts popular among male listeners.
The latest polling still shows a “gender gap” among Harris’ and Trump’s support among men and women, with more men supporting Trump and more women supporting Harris.
A Pew Research Center poll of registered voters published on Thursday found Harris and Trump in a close race nationally among registered voters nationwide — but there’s a larger gap between them among male and female voters.
The poll found 51% of male registered voters supporting Trump, and 43% supporting Harris. Among female registered voters, that is effectively reversed: 52% of female registered voters support Harris, while 43% support Trump.
This is a dynamic political strategists and analysts have noticed. “The way that Donald Trump is trying to run up the numbers with men, [Harris has] got to do the same thing with women,” Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and a longtime political strategist, told ABC News contributing correspondent and POLITICO Playbook author Rachael Bade in a recent POLITICO Playbook Deep Dive podcast interview.
However, the gender gap is not unprecedented: it has averaged 19 points in presidential exit polls since 1996 (which is because women are 8 to 10 percentage points more likely than men to identify as Democrats). Additionally, Pew’s findings are similar to the gender gap seen in the past two presidential elections, according to exit polls.
In 2020, 53% of men supported Trump while 45% supported then-Vice President Joe Biden; while 57% of women supported Biden and 42% supported Trump. In 2016, 52% of men supported Trump while 41% supported Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton; but 54% of women supported Clinton while 41% supported Trump.
According to a recent analysis by 538, the gender gap between Harris and Trump has actually narrowed slightly from where it was in August, although the Harvard Youth Poll published in September found a large gap among younger voters of either gender – with Harris up 17 points among young men and up 47 points among young women.
A separate recent analysis from Gallup found that young women have increasingly identified as politically liberal; according to Gallup, that trend is not driven by race or education.
Some recent polls have also delved into Black male support for Harris and Trump, amid uncertainty over whether either candidate is doing enough to reach them. Polling shows that Black men overwhelmingly support Harris, but that Trump has more support from Black men than from Black women.
The Pew Research Center’s poll found that among Black men who are registered voters, 72% support Harris while 20% support Donald Trump. Among Black women who are registered voters, according to Pew, Kamala Harris has 85% support while Donald Trump has only 8%. (As with any poll, there is a higher margin of sampling error for smaller groups within the poll, so these results may be less precise than the poll’s broader findings.)
Other polls indicate somewhat less of a gender gap among Black voters, however. An Associated Press-NORC poll taken in mid-September separately found that 66% of Black male voters say Kamala Harris would make a good president — similar to 64% of Black female voters and 65% of Black voters overall. 21% of Black male voters think Trump would make a good president, as opposed to 11% of Black female voters and 15% of Black voters overall. (The poll did not ask about who respondents would vote for.)
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Gabriella Abdul-Hakim, Hannah Demissie, Isabella Murray, Jeff Ballou, Kelsey Walsh, Lalee Ibssa, Mary Bruce, Rachael Bade, Soorin Kim, and Will McDuffie, and 538’s Mary Radcliffe, contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Friday said he believes his administration is “breaking through with the truth” when it comes to misinformation surrounding the federal response to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.
Though Biden also continued his vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump, who he said was “not singularly to blame” for the proliferation of false claims in recent weeks but “has the biggest mouth.”
The comments came as Biden met with Vice President Kamala Harris, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and other officials at the White House to discuss the back-to-back storms that ravaged Florida, North Carolina and other parts of Southeast.
The president will travel to Florida on Sunday to visit areas impacted by Hurricane Milton, the White House announced.
Biden has called on lawmakers to return to Washington to pass certain additional disaster aid funding, though said he hasn’t yet spoken to House Speaker Mike Johnson directly on the issue.
“I’ve spoken to Republicans who want to speak with Speaker Johnson, and I think Speaker Johnson is going to get the message that he’s got to step up, particularly for small businesses,” Biden said.
Mayorkas said FEMA will be able meet immediate needs from the two storms. Funding is running low for the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program, however, Biden said in a letter to lawmakers last week.
Biden previously surveyed damage in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which left more than 230 people dead and hundreds more displaced.
Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 storm on Wednesday evening. At least 16 people were killed in the storm and millions remain without power.
Biden has spoken to numerous state and local officials, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who he said was “very cooperative.” Asked if he would meet with DeSantis on Sunday, Biden said yes so long as the governor was available.
The White House has forcefully pushed back on any false claims about the federal storm response, including how much aid victims can receive. Biden and Mayorkas said the misinformation has hampered FEMA’s ability to help people affected by the destruction and is even resulting in threats against responders on the ground.
When asked if the storm misinformation was part of a new normal for the country, Biden said it may be “for some extreme people but I don’t think it’s what the country is about.”
“We’re breaking through with it. We’re breaking through with the truth,” he said, going on to say he was “proud” of Republican mayors and other state officials pushing back that such falsehoods have to stop and that Americans are coming together to help each other.
“But what bothers me the most is that is there’s a lot of people who get caught in these crises who are basically alone,” Biden said. “You know, widowers, people in hospitals, people who are by themselves, and they don’t know, and they lose contact, and they get, and they just get scared to death, scared to death. And anyway, so I think it’s — I think those who have been spreading these lies to try to undermine the opposition are going to pay a price for it.”
(WASHINGTON) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday kicks off new push to reach male voters in swing states, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign confirmed to ABC News.
As part of the push, the campaign is highlighting ABC’s Michael Strahan exclusive interview with Walz that aired on “Good Morning America” Friday morning.
Walz travels to Michigan, where he will deliver remarks on “protecting workers and investing in manufacturing, and then join a political engagement with Black male voters,” the campaign said.
Walz will do a round of local TV interviews in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin that will be taped on Friday — focused on hunting and high school football.
Later in the day, Walz will return to Mankato West — the Minnesota high school where he taught and also coached football.
He will attend the school’s homecoming game and deliver a pep talk before the team takes on rival Mankato East.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of Mankato West’s state championship win, according to the campaign.
The campaign will also release a video on Walz’s social media channels featuring what it says is never-before-aired footage from the state championship game and interviews with Tim and Gwen Walz’s former students and players.
Saturday marks the Pheasant Opener in Minnesota and a group of outdoors digital creators will join Walz for an early morning hunt in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump is set to visit Aurora, Colorado, for a campaign rally on Friday after weeks of pushing misleading narratives about the city’s migrant population.
In the final weeks of his campaign, Trump has continued to focus on the issue of immigration, escalating his rhetoric on undocumented immigrants he often paints as violent criminals.
Specifically, the former president has used Aurora and Springfield, Ohio, to emphasize his point, both examples stemming from viral online stories he’s been quick to promote, often without proper context.
His false narratives on Aurora began last month when a video of armed individuals roaming around an apartment complex in Aurora went viral among right-wing social media influencers.
Trump, who has shared that video himself, has repeatedly claimed that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang have “taken over” apartment complexes and “overrun” the city, despite the Aurora Police Department refuting allegations of the apartment complex being run by a Venezuelan gang.
Aurora’s Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has directly refuted Trump’s claims, saying in a press conference late last month that, “This is not an immigration issue. This is a crime issue.”
“We are not, by any means, overtaken by Venezuelan gangs,” he added.
The City of Aurora also provided clarity on the situation in a post on its official X account, stating that while there was a concern about a “small” presence of the Venezuelan gang members in Aurora, the city is taking the situation seriously. The city stressed that Aurora is a “safe community” and that reports of gang members are “isolated to a handful of problem properties alone.”
Still, Trump has continued to amplify these debunked stories to his supporters throughout the country as a rallying cry as he attacks the immigration policies of the Biden-Harris administration.
In the press release announcing Friday’s event, the Trump campaign described Aurora as a “war zone,” arguing people were crossing the border and descending upon the city “bringing chaos and fear with them.”
Similarly, Trump has repeatedly amplified debunked claims that Haitian migrants are eating pets in Springfield.
Trump’s visit is one that he has been wanting to make for a while to bring more attention to the country’s immigration policies. At recent campaign rallies, Trump has become more vocal about his desire to visit Aurora and Springfield.
While the Republican mayor of Springfield, Rob Rue, discouraged visits from candidates on both sides of the aisle, Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has presented the trip as a learning opportunity for the former president.
“The reality is, Donald Trump continues to tell economically damaging and hurtful lies about Aurora,” Polis said in a statement to ABC affiliate Denver7 amid ongoing discussions of a potential visit. “If former President Trump does visit, he will find the city of Aurora is a strong, vibrant, and diverse city of more than 400,000 hardworking Coloradans and a wonderful place to live, run a business, raise a family, and retire.”
Trump has launched attacks on the local and state officials on the campaign trail, often making baseless claims that Republican Mayor Mike Coffman and Polis are “petrified,” saying Coffman “doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing” – and even claiming they don’t want to raise the immigration issue because they want to be “politically correct.”
Campaigning in Uniondale, New York, last month, Trump, while declaring that he planned to visit Aurora and Springfield soon, suggested that he might not make it back out after his visiting those places due to unspecified crime.
“I’m going to go there in the next two weeks. I’m going to Springfield, and I’m going to Aurora,” Trump said in Uniondale. “You may never see me again, but that’s OK. Got to do what I got to do. Whatever happened to Trump? ‘Well, he never got out of Springfield.’”
Trump’s visit to Aurora also comes as he’s pledged on the campaign trail to begin his promise of mass deportations in Springfield and Aurora.
“We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of our country,” Trump said as he took reporter questions in Los Angeles, California, last month. “And we’re going to start with Springfield and Aurora, [Colorado].”
“We’re going to take those violent people, and we’re going to ship them back to their country, and if they come back in, they’re going to pay a hell of a price,” Trump also said.
Springfield has many Haitian residents who are either legally authorized to live and work in the U.S. or are protected from expulsion by law.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday joined growing calls from Democrats and even one Republican to bring Congress back to pass certain additional disaster aid funding in the wake of the devastation in southeastern states caused by back-to-back hurricanes.
Biden told reporters that the Small Business Administration is “pretty right at the edge now,” and it would take “several billion dollars” to help businesses recover in the affected states.
“I think that Congress should be coming back and moving on emergency needs immediately,” he said, but notably did not say the same about Federal Emergency Management Agency funding before Election Day.
Former President Donald Trump has falsely claimed FEMA has run out of disaster funds because the money was “stolen” to use instead to help migrants, a claim the White House has strongly denied, saying the money comes from separate funding “spigots.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted Thursday that FEMA has enough disaster funding to handle the immediate needs from Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton and related tornado damage.
Even as raised the dire need for more SBA funding, Biden said he has not reached out to House Speaker Mike Johnson about bringing House lawmakers back to Washington.
While Johnson has committed to passing relief after the election, he has resisted pressure from Democrats, especially, to bring the House back before Election Day, explaining it will take time for states to assess the need.
“Congress will provide,” Johnson promised during an interview this past weekend on “Fox News Sunday.” “We will help people in these disaster-prone areas. It’s an appropriate role for the federal government, and you’ll have bipartisan support for that, and it’ll all happen in due time, and we’ll get that job done. There shouldn’t be any concern about that.”
There are similar calls from lawmakers for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to reconvene the upper chamber.
Dozens of House Democrats sent a letter to Johnson making their case as he toured damage in western North Carolina on Wednesday with Republican Sens. Thom Tillis and Ted Budd and GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards.
“Recent legislation has provided initial relief funds, yet these provisions fall critically short of what will be necessary to address the scale of destruction and the recovery needs for Fiscal Year 2025. We, therefore, urge you to immediately reconvene the US House of Representatives so that it can pass robust disaster relief funding,” the letter, signed by 63 Democrats, said.
The speaker’s office declined to comment to ABC News directly on the letter, instead referring to Johnson’s public comments on the topic.
Democrats are not alone in their request.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican who evacuated her home in Pinellas County, also wants Johnson to bring lawmakers back for a special session.
Luna, who has been spreading misinformation about FEMA funding, posted a statement on X claiming that additional funding would be approved.
“If Congress goes into a special session we can get it passed immediately,” she said.
Mayorkas also stressed the gravity of the situation following a tour of western North Carolina on Thursday.
Although he said that FEMA has the funding to handle hurricanes Helene and Milton and related tornadoes, he said the federal flood insurance program is in the red.
“We are working on a continuing resolution that is not stable footing for the work that we do in disaster response. And so that is why I underscore the need for Congress to act swiftly upon its return,” Mayorkas said.
(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Thursday delivered a sharp rebuke of Donald Trump for spreading misinformation about the federal government’s hurricane response.
Speaking on Hurricane Milton at the White House on Thursday afternoon, Biden was asked if he’s spoken to Trump directly.
“Are you kidding me? Mr. President Trump, former President Trump, get a life, man. Help these people,” Biden responded.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(TEMPE, Ariz.) — The campaign office shared by Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign and the Democratic Party in Tempe, Arizona, was damaged by gunfire for the third time in less than a month on Sunday, police told ABC News on Wednesday.
The Tempe Police Department provided new details in its investigation, including a picture of the suspect’s vehicle it says is possibly a 2008-2013 silver Toyota Highlander, and announced that Silent Witness was offering up to a $1,000 reward “for any information that leads to the arrest or indictment of the suspect(s) involved in this crime.”
The shooting occurred between midnight and 1 a.m., around the same time the previous two incidents occurred, police said. No one was injured in any of the three shootings.
Harris is scheduled to travel to Arizona on Thursday for a rally and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was in the state on Wednesday.
After the second shooting on Sept. 23, police said they were taking “additional measures… to ensure the safety of staff and others in the area.” A motive for the shooting has not been determined as the investigation continues, according to police.
The office was shot at on Sept. 16 in an incident police said appeared to involve a BB or pellet gun. Police said that shooting caused “criminal damage.”
Law enforcement around the country is under heightened alert over an increase in political violence threats.
(CHICAGO) — Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is on the defensive after all seven members of the Chicago Board of Education announced their resignations Friday, an unprecedented moment in the city’s history, in protest of a $300 million loan Johnson proposed to fund teachers’ contracts and pensions.
The Chicago City Council called a special meeting for Wednesday afternoon to address the crisis, and to hear testimony from the former school board members who resigned, all of whom were hand-picked by Mayor Johnson just last year.
For months, board members for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) – the country’s fourth-largest public school system – had been under pressure by Johnson to fire CPS CEO Pedro Martinez, who was appointed in 2021 by Johnson’s predecessor, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, for his objection to Johnson’s proposed $300 million short-term, high-interest loan to pay for the first year of the Chicago Teaches Union’s (CTU) contract. Martinez and the school board pushed back against Johnson, saying the extra borrowing would worsen the city’s already significant debt burden.
In an op-ed in the Chicago Tribune last month, Martinez said Johnson subsequently demanded his resignation, which he also refused, saying it would cause disruption during current union negotiations. Martinez added that the extra borrowing was fiscally irresponsible.
“I remain against exorbitant, short-term borrowing, a past practice that generated negative bond ratings for CPS,” Martinez wrote, in part, adding that repaying the bond and its debt service would “take away dollars from the classroom – all of which means that future generations of Chicago’s children and taxpayers will ultimately pay the price.”
The CPS board ended up passing a school budget without Johnson’s desired pension payment. The school system faces a nearly $1 billion shortfall in 2025, Martinez announced in August .
A former Cook County commissioner, Johnson worked as an organizer for the CTU beginning in 2011 and helped organize the 2012 teachers strike. Illinois State Board of Elections records show that the CTU contributed more than $2.3 million to his 2023 mayoral campaign. Johnson also received nearly $2.2 million from the American Federation of Teachers and nearly $1 million from the Illinois Federation of Teachers.
Alderman Gilbert Villegas accused Johnson of “wanting to take care of his former employer” by forcing the resignations of the board amid contract negotiations with the union. “The mayor was elected to serve the whole city, not serve the CTU,” he said.
“We agree we want to make sure CPS teachers have a fair contract, but we also want to make sure taxpayers have fair contract. Right now, the mayor has the thumb on the scale and it’s not right,” Villegas told ABC News.
Spokespersons for Johnson, the Chicago Teachers Union, and Chicago Public Schools did not respond to ABC News requests for comment.
At a press conference Monday, Johnson attacked his critics, whom he compared to supporters of slavery.
“The so-called fiscally responsible stewards are making the same argument [as] when our people wanted to be liberated and emancipated in this country,” Johnson said. “The argument was you can’t free Black people because it would be too expensive. They said that it would be fiscally irresponsible for this country to liberate Black people.”
Johnson also announced six new appointees to the board Monday, saying he would name a seventh at a later date. Under state law, the appointees aren’t required to be vetted by the city council, although Villegas said that “in the spirit of transparency and collaboration,” councilmembers ought to have the opportunity to ask them questions.
Villegas is a member of the city’s progressive caucus, which initially supported Johnson’s agenda. In an unprecedented show of unity, most of that caucus joined 41 other council members from across the political divide in signing a public letter dated Oct. 5 that said the mass resignations of the Board of Education’s former members bring “further instability to our school district” and are deserving of a public hearing.
Johnson indicated Tuesday that he would not send his new appointees to Wednesday’s meeting, saying in part that “every single mayor in the history of Chicago has had the authority to appoint board members to multiple boards. Guess who still has that authority? This mayor does.”
The CPS funding crisis is also alarming Chicago’s business community. This week, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago released a joint statement saying their concerns over Johnson’s push for extra borrowing and the Board of Education resignations have “escalated” their concerns about Johnson’s actions, and further said that the quality and stability of Chicago Public Schools is directly tied to “the success of Chicago businesses of every size and the long-term economic future of our city.”
The statement also called for the school board to “keep CEO Martinez in his place,” and to “reject the misguided proposal to borrow more money, and work with all parties to bring transparency and long-term fiscal stability and quality education to the school system.”
