Lose An Election? Don't Worry, In Chicago, You Get the Job Anyways

Oh, Chicago! One of the few places where a candidate can lose an election, yet end up in the position anyway.

New School Board Appointee
Karen Zaccor

In last November's election, the only races in which the winners weren't pretty much foregone conclusions were those involving the first elected school board. (The judgeships always have a couple surprises, but the vast majority are retained.)

In School District 4 (in which Uptown's Goudy, McCutcheon, Courtenay, Brennemann, and Disney are located, along with Uplift HS, Truman Middle College HS and 27 other schools to the west and south), Ellen Rosenfeld won the election for school board member. 

Running without the endorsement of the Chicago Teachers Union, Rosenfeld received 41.6% of the vote (49,351), while CTU- and Brandon Johnson-acolyte and Helen Shiller loyalist Karen Zaccor came in second, with 30.2% (35,825). 

School Board member-elect
Ellen Rosenfeld

With the voters making their preference felt, clearly District 4 will be represented by Ellen Rosenfeld on the school board, right?

Not so fast. 

Here's the trick: ten school board members were elected, but the remaining ten members of the board are appointed by Mayor Johnson. So losers can win! The system allows Mayor Johnson to appoint one person from each school district (as well as the board president, who can live anywhere in the city). 

And who did the mayor appoint to the school board? None other than Karen Zaccor, the loser of the School District 4 election.

So, until 2026, in a true Chicago duality of politics, District 4 will be represented by the candidate who won -- and by a candidate who lost.

Chicago politics, folks.

(By the way, Karen Zaccor won't be alone in being a loser-winner. Mayor Johnson appointed another November losing candidate to the board: Anusha Thotakura in District 6.)

And if the whiff of 2000-era Uptown politics isn't strong enough, a previous Johnson board appointee who'll be staying on the Board is Michilla Blaise, a long-time aide to then-alderman Helen Shiller. 

Ms. Blaise has been featured on our pages before, including a little backroom politics awfully similar to the current controversy concerning Helen Shiller and the Zoning Board of Appeals we covered last week.

And in a final note, longtime readers will also remember that Ms. Zaccor is the wife of longtime Helen Shiller supporter Alan Mills. Plenty of circles to draw here.

Our loser-winners will be in power on the board until 2026, when each district will be split into halves and all 20 members will be elected, not appointed. But until then, more than half the board will serve at the discretion of Brandon Johnson, who is, of course, closely aligned with the CTU.

It's gonna be interesting.