‘A mistake’: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot responds to allegations her campaign asked teachers to reward student volunteers

Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said it was a “mistake” to attempt to recruit Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students as campaign volunteers on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show.

Lightfoot’s campaign is under investigation after her deputy campaign manager sent an email to CPS teachers’ official work accounts requesting they offer students extra credit for working in the campaign’s volunteer externship program. The campaign initially defended the decision, but Lightfoot has since walked that back and called for a strong separation between her campaign and her official duties as mayor.

“In our zeal to make sure that young people had an opportunity to participate — and they are flocking to our campaign — one of our staffers reached out through publicly available information to CPS teachers and our city colleges. That was just simply a mistake,” Lightfoot said. “I’m the mayor of the city, I’m not somebody aspiring to be the mayor, and the wall between the campaign and official side has to be impenetrable and it will be.”

After her campaign was caught sending e-mails to Chicago Public Schools teachers asking them to offer extra credit to students who volunteered to get her re-elected, Chicago Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot now says it “was simply a mistake.” pic.twitter.com/dPVACIzOyJ

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 15, 2023

Lightfoot appoints the CPS superintendent and school board members, and Chicago’s ethics ordinance bans the use of public resources, including email accounts, for non-official purposes, including campaigns. A CPS spokesman denied that the school district worked with political campaigns, and the Chicago teachers union leader said the move was unethical and violated city government ethics, including those established by Lightfoot herself.

“As a rule, the district does not coordinate with any political candidates or campaigns. It has not done so to date and will not be doing so,” the CPS spokesman told WWTW.

Lightfoot did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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