Chicago City Wire

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said that it was a "bad mistake" for her reelection campaign to solicit help from Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago educators to recruit student volunteers.

But according to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times, these efforts were more broad than originally thought. Documents now show that the campaign had for months been sending CPS and City Colleges staff thousands of other emails, ranging from generic fundraising appeals to invitations to private town halls and requests for help gathering petitions.

The Sun-Times reported that the mayor’s reelection campaign sent more than 9,900 emails to CPS and City Colleges staff beginning last April.

At least four emails are said to have been sent to City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado, who directly reports to the mayor, at his work email address inviting him to a Lightfoot campaign event.

While her campaign has not offered an explanation for how government email addresses ended up on campaign lists, it recently released a statement.  “As the Mayor has said, it was a mistake to reach out to city employees through their work emails. While our campaign legal team has asserted these organizing efforts were legal and did not violate any ethics ordinance, we have long since halted any such recruitment efforts.”