With Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel comfortably leading in the polls — and gaining the endorsement of a rival previously favored by some traditionalists, Alderman Bob Fioretti — the American Federation of Teachers’ bellicose Second City local is pulling out all the stops to help favored candidate Jesus (Chuy) Garcia make up whatever ground he can.
The Chicago Teachers Union reports to the Illinois State Board of Elections that it spent $110,299.79 on Garcia’s behalf within the last few days. This includes $80,000 on radio spots touting his candidacy and attacking Emanuel produced by Screen Strategies Media of Centreville, Va., as well as $11,940.17 on newspaper advertising put together by Alexandria, Va., campaign firm Mack-Sumner Communications. Screen Strategies Media, by the way, is a key vendor of the national AFT for its lackluster Reclaim the Promise campaign; while Mack-Sumner, a powerhouse that has long worked on behalf of Democrats, has ties to the Service Employees International Union, a key backer of Garcia’s campaign (and likely to Michelle Ringuette, the former SEIU executive who is now Randi Weingarten’s top special mandarin). The AFT local is also putting an additional $6,279 into phone banks as well as for “canvassing” local communities for votes.
None of this spending, by the way, includes the costs CTU is bearing for a rally it is holding Saturday at New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church on the city’s Westside. That event will certainly feature CTU President Karen Lewis along with a group of AFT vassals that includes Rev. Jesse Jackson (whose Rainbow PUSH Coalition has collected $75,000 in AFT money over the last two years), Rep. Danny Davis (a beneficiary of $45,000 in AFT donations during his congressional career), and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (who is repaying AFT for its support of his successful campaign last year for the New Jersey city’s top office as well as helping the union in its efforts against the reform efforts of Supt. Cami Anderson).
Certainly this won’t necessarily help Garcia make up what is at least a 16-point gap in the polls against Emanuel. But CTU (along with AFT) can say that it is building a movement that will eventually stop systemic reform efforts. All at the cost of $262,592.79 (including this week’s spend).
Of course, CTU isn’t the only key backer of Garcia’s campaign pouring as much money in as possible to salvage it. SEIU and its affiliates in Chicago, Pennsylvania, California, and Florida has spent $81,629.04 on Garcia’s behalf; the Communications Workers of America and its units have put $65,000 of skin into the game; and MoveOn.org’s political action committee has spent $9,400 this week on billboards for Garcia’s effort. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute (who once wrote a piece in the Huffington Post defending Emanuel after he was appointed to serve as the Obama Administration’s chief of staff) tossed $1,200 into Garcia’s campaign; Zogby, the brother of the famed pollster, is just one of many Arab-Americans (including Iftekhar Shareef, a head of a healthcare supply firm) donating plenty to Garcia’s campaign and against Emanuel, a longtime supporter of Israel.
The big question is how much more will the national AFT kick in on behalf of Garcia? Given that the union has already kicked in $649,503.20 on behalf of Garcia over the last month (and $902,103.20 altogether this election season), there’s no reason to think that the union will stop now. On Wednesday while in Chicago, Weingarten pledged the union’s support for Garcia as part of an announcement of the launch of a partnership with one of its vassals, Kenwood Oakland Neighborhood Organization, and CTU to “reverse the tide of disinvestment and the effects of gentrification” supposedly caused by systemic reform. It will likely be similar to the Reconnecting McDowell public relations effort the union is undertaking in Wisconsin with the help of its state affiliate there.
But with polls from Odgen & Fry, the Chicago Tribune, radio station WVON, and the Chicago Defender showing that Emanuel leads Garcia by as much as 28 percentage points, it may not make sense for AFT or Weingarten to kick good money after bad. Especially when the union is also weighing on Philadelphia’s mayoral race, as well as possibly preparing to launch an ad blitz pushing congressional Democrats to pass a reauthorized version of the No Child Left Behind Act that favors its interests. So there is a good chance that AFT national will sit the rest of this race out.
As a result, this could leave CTU (along with SEIU and others) bearing the consequences of Garcia’s all-but-likely loss next Tuesday. Particularly for Lewis, who, despite her ailing health, likely wants to one day lead the national AFT, Garcia’s loss (and Emanuel’s victory) damages her profile. Sure, she can still claim that she forced an incumbent mayor into a run-off. But given Emanuel’s problems on other fronts, that’s not much of a claim to make. The big payoff comes with Garcia winning the office and knowing that he will do her bidding (as well as that of Weingarten and AFT).
But with Emanuel in office for another four years (and, if he chooses to remain mayor, for as long as he wants), Lewis will find herself adopting the same accommodationist approach Weingarten had to take on when she was head of the AFT’s United Federation of Teachers in New York. This will likely result in Lewis getting the business end of the hardcore traditionalist ire she has fanned since becoming the union’s boss four years ago; she nearly paid that price in 2013.
Meanwhile a Garcia loss will temper the efforts of Lewis’ mini-mes elsewhere. This includes California, where Alex Caputo-Pearl, the boss of AFT’s United Teachers Los Angeles, has been threatening a work stoppage against L.A. Unified if the district doesn’t agree to the union’s demands for an 8.5 percent raise. [The contract dispute between the union and the district is now before a state mediator.] With so much political influence that can be lost because of an election defeat, AFT locals (along with those of the National Education Association) may be more circumspect about mounting election challenges and more-thoughtful about how radical they should be in defending what clout that remains.
Whatever happens on Tuesday, you can expect CTU to expend as much of its resources as possible to make its stand against Emanuel and systemic reform. Even if it doesn’t lead to any success at the ballot box.